That’s a great point — and I agree that morality isn’t reducible to mere societal functioning or large-scale cooperation. Some societies can be “stable” while being profoundly unjust or harmful to part of their population. But I think this highlights a deeper structure: morality isn’t binary — it’s developmental.
We can think of morality as existing at different levels:
Basic morality secures minimal cooperation and trust — typically grounded in narrow circles (family, tribe) and short time horizons (days, years).
High morality expands both the temporal horizon and the moral circle — incorporating distant others, future generations, and even nonhuman beings.
This connects to an idea I’ve been exploring: morality as a coordinate in a 2D space defined by Time (how far we care into the future) and Scope (how wide our moral concern extends). Most people start somewhere in the lower-left of this space, and ethical growth is about moving upward and outward.
In that view, societies may function on basic morality, but flourishing — for individuals and civilization — requires higher-level ethics. And while morality might not be “objective” like math, it can still be intersubjectively structured, and in that sense, stable, teachable, and improvable.
That’s a great point — and I agree that morality isn’t reducible to mere societal functioning or large-scale cooperation. Some societies can be “stable” while being profoundly unjust or harmful to part of their population. But I think this highlights a deeper structure: morality isn’t binary — it’s developmental.
We can think of morality as existing at different levels:
Basic morality secures minimal cooperation and trust — typically grounded in narrow circles (family, tribe) and short time horizons (days, years).
High morality expands both the temporal horizon and the moral circle — incorporating distant others, future generations, and even nonhuman beings.
This connects to an idea I’ve been exploring: morality as a coordinate in a 2D space defined by Time (how far we care into the future) and Scope (how wide our moral concern extends). Most people start somewhere in the lower-left of this space, and ethical growth is about moving upward and outward.
In that view, societies may function on basic morality, but flourishing — for individuals and civilization — requires higher-level ethics. And while morality might not be “objective” like math, it can still be intersubjectively structured, and in that sense, stable, teachable, and improvable.