This was a good comment and very clarifying. I agree with most of what you say about the evidence – Schwitzgebel seems to be misinterpreting the evidence (and I think I was also initially).
Just to be extra charitable to Schwitzgebel, however, I think we can assume his central claim is basically intelligible (even if it’s not supported by the evidence), and he’s just using some words in an inconsistent way. Some of the confusion in your comment may be caused by this inconsistency.
In most of his piece, by “aiming to be mediocre”, Schwitzgebel means that people’s behavior regresses to the actual moral middle of a reference class, even though they believe the moral middle is even lower. Imagine there’s a target where the bullseye is 5 feet above the ground, but some archer’s eyesight is off so they think it’s 3 feet above the ground. You could say that subjectively they’re aiming for the target, but objectively they’re aiming below the target. When you write:
If people systematically believed themselves to be better than average and were aiming for mediocrity, then they could (and would) save themselves effort and reduce their moral behaviour until they no longer thought themselves to be above average.
You’re understanding “aim” in the subjective sense, whereas Schwitzgebel usually understands it in the objective sense. Someone might believe themselves to be better than average (they believe they’re aiming at the target), but are objectively aiming for mediocrity (they’re actually aiming below the target).
The problem is that he starts using “aim” in the subjective sense in the “aiming for a B+” section. It is literally not possible that a person is both aiming for a B+ and aiming for a C+. It is, however, possible that they are subjectively aiming for a B+, but objectively aiming for a C+.
In most of his piece, by “aiming to be mediocre”, Schwitzgebel means that people’s behavior regresses to the actual moral middle of a reference class, even though they believe the moral middle is even lower.
This skirts close to a tautology. People’s average moral behavior equals people’s average moral behavior. The output that people’s moral processes actually produce is the observed distribution of moral behavior.
The “aiming” part of Schwitzgebel’s hypothesis that people aim for moral mediocrity gives it empirical content. It gets harder to pick out the empirical content when interpreting aim in the objective sense.
This is fair. I was trying to salvage his argument without running into the problems mentioned in the above comment, but if he means “aim” objectively, then its tautologically true that people aim to be morally average, and if he means “aim” subjectively, then it contradicts the claim that most people subjectively aim to be slightly above average (which is what he seems to say in the B+ section).
The options are: (1) his central claim is uninteresting (2) his central claim is wrong (3) I’m misunderstanding his central claim. And I normally would feel like I should play it safe and default to (3), but it’s probably (2).
This was a good comment and very clarifying. I agree with most of what you say about the evidence – Schwitzgebel seems to be misinterpreting the evidence (and I think I was also initially).
Just to be extra charitable to Schwitzgebel, however, I think we can assume his central claim is basically intelligible (even if it’s not supported by the evidence), and he’s just using some words in an inconsistent way. Some of the confusion in your comment may be caused by this inconsistency.
In most of his piece, by “aiming to be mediocre”, Schwitzgebel means that people’s behavior regresses to the actual moral middle of a reference class, even though they believe the moral middle is even lower. Imagine there’s a target where the bullseye is 5 feet above the ground, but some archer’s eyesight is off so they think it’s 3 feet above the ground. You could say that subjectively they’re aiming for the target, but objectively they’re aiming below the target. When you write:
You’re understanding “aim” in the subjective sense, whereas Schwitzgebel usually understands it in the objective sense. Someone might believe themselves to be better than average (they believe they’re aiming at the target), but are objectively aiming for mediocrity (they’re actually aiming below the target).
The problem is that he starts using “aim” in the subjective sense in the “aiming for a B+” section. It is literally not possible that a person is both aiming for a B+ and aiming for a C+. It is, however, possible that they are subjectively aiming for a B+, but objectively aiming for a C+.
This skirts close to a tautology. People’s average moral behavior equals people’s average moral behavior. The output that people’s moral processes actually produce is the observed distribution of moral behavior.
The “aiming” part of Schwitzgebel’s hypothesis that people aim for moral mediocrity gives it empirical content. It gets harder to pick out the empirical content when interpreting aim in the objective sense.
This is fair. I was trying to salvage his argument without running into the problems mentioned in the above comment, but if he means “aim” objectively, then its tautologically true that people aim to be morally average, and if he means “aim” subjectively, then it contradicts the claim that most people subjectively aim to be slightly above average (which is what he seems to say in the B+ section).
The options are: (1) his central claim is uninteresting (2) his central claim is wrong (3) I’m misunderstanding his central claim. And I normally would feel like I should play it safe and default to (3), but it’s probably (2).