"why can’t those who reason abstractly about ethical systems?"
Because humans are terrible at philosophy, basically. Ethicists mainly concern themselves with metaphysical nonsense that has almost nothing to do with moral questions that real people actually face, and actual morality that societies operate under is almost entirely tacit and unstudied.
You say: "ethical systems should limit themselves to recommending behaviors for which sufficient monitoring and enforcement can be recruited to make them be in individuals’ selfish adaptive interest."
Two things about this. First, many ethical systems are about going beyond selfish adaptive interest. So saying they should limit themselves to that, is in itself a choice among ethical systems.
It's also an is/ought fallacy. As humans we are free to chose moral systems that go beyond self-interest. Just because evolution works a certain way doesn't commit us to anything.
I'm also not sure I agree with the tightness of the categorization. Morality surrounding religion is also strongly about how to organize our personal lives and to some degree about how to organize our politics. Morality surrounding politics is also about how we should organize our personal lives (e.g. liberalism commits us to tolerance on a personal level too. etc.) The intellectual systems are distinct like you say, but the practical consequences of these systems bleed into each other strongly. So it's questionable how really separate they are in practice. E.g. we can reject a political system based on religious or personal morality or a system of law based on our religious convictions.
My point was that intellectuals in the other 3 areas get that policy must be limited by limited abilities to monitor and enforce them. Personal ethics is the outlier.
Completely agree, but isn't it the case that working morality at level 4 requires some degree of intented interiorization and self-policing of the moral principle as against one's own interests? And I think you yourself made the case, in The Elephant, as to why this makes sense: self-delusion is a useful evolutionary technology, i.e., you will persuade others of your truthfulness and lack of self-interest if you *believe* you're being truthful and not egoistic yourself.
The post just kind of assumes that morality is something we've collectively made up but I don't think that's right or justified.
Couldn't it be the case that doing the right thing is actively to your detriment and against your personal interests? If we were to give that up and start making ethical behavioral recommendations based only on what's in individual's personal adaptive interests, it seems to me like we would be losing the ethical part of behavioral recommendations. Law, politics, and religion might have to be collectively coordinated but my individual ethical behaviors do not have to conform with what the vast majority of others are doing in society. In that sense I don't think law, politics, or religion are categories of morality at all.
Not sure why you mean by "liberalism". To me it sounds like less-extreme libertarianism, unless you mean FDR-style liberalism, in which case it's less-extreme socialism.
Some things here don't parse for me. What exactly is a mistake? Taking actions against one's adaptive interests? (unclear) And "why can’t those who reason abstraction about ethical systems?" doesn't quite parse either for me.
"why can’t those who reason abstractly about ethical systems?"
Because humans are terrible at philosophy, basically. Ethicists mainly concern themselves with metaphysical nonsense that has almost nothing to do with moral questions that real people actually face, and actual morality that societies operate under is almost entirely tacit and unstudied.
You say: "ethical systems should limit themselves to recommending behaviors for which sufficient monitoring and enforcement can be recruited to make them be in individuals’ selfish adaptive interest."
Two things about this. First, many ethical systems are about going beyond selfish adaptive interest. So saying they should limit themselves to that, is in itself a choice among ethical systems.
It's also an is/ought fallacy. As humans we are free to chose moral systems that go beyond self-interest. Just because evolution works a certain way doesn't commit us to anything.
I'm also not sure I agree with the tightness of the categorization. Morality surrounding religion is also strongly about how to organize our personal lives and to some degree about how to organize our politics. Morality surrounding politics is also about how we should organize our personal lives (e.g. liberalism commits us to tolerance on a personal level too. etc.) The intellectual systems are distinct like you say, but the practical consequences of these systems bleed into each other strongly. So it's questionable how really separate they are in practice. E.g. we can reject a political system based on religious or personal morality or a system of law based on our religious convictions.
My point was that intellectuals in the other 3 areas get that policy must be limited by limited abilities to monitor and enforce them. Personal ethics is the outlier.
The spheres are highly interconnected, though, and unless by definition, human morality has universals that developped evolutionarily, no?
Human morality results from an evolutionary process, but most of it is cultural evolution, and that has been going bad lately.
Completely agree, but isn't it the case that working morality at level 4 requires some degree of intented interiorization and self-policing of the moral principle as against one's own interests? And I think you yourself made the case, in The Elephant, as to why this makes sense: self-delusion is a useful evolutionary technology, i.e., you will persuade others of your truthfulness and lack of self-interest if you *believe* you're being truthful and not egoistic yourself.
That's also true of law; to avoid legal punishment, one must self-police one's behavior to ensure if obeys the law.
but in the law there's a relatively effective external enforcer, unlike in ethics
The post just kind of assumes that morality is something we've collectively made up but I don't think that's right or justified.
Couldn't it be the case that doing the right thing is actively to your detriment and against your personal interests? If we were to give that up and start making ethical behavioral recommendations based only on what's in individual's personal adaptive interests, it seems to me like we would be losing the ethical part of behavioral recommendations. Law, politics, and religion might have to be collectively coordinated but my individual ethical behaviors do not have to conform with what the vast majority of others are doing in society. In that sense I don't think law, politics, or religion are categories of morality at all.
I didn't say we made up morality. We coordinate on morality in all four spheres.
Myself, I *would* say we make up morality.
Not sure why you mean by "liberalism". To me it sounds like less-extreme libertarianism, unless you mean FDR-style liberalism, in which case it's less-extreme socialism.
Some things here don't parse for me. What exactly is a mistake? Taking actions against one's adaptive interests? (unclear) And "why can’t those who reason abstraction about ethical systems?" doesn't quite parse either for me.