Conflict Engines

So, this blogpost is going to be a little more difficult, perhaps a little more densely packed. Put on your metaphorical hard-hats, and prepare for some rampant conceptual discussion... ;)

[HardHatZone]

Exhorting Exhortation

The real enemy of civilization, and of peace, is the prescription to evangelize, by whatever name you call it - jihad, proselytizing, indoctrination, brainwashing, or more philosophically, prescriptivity). In some more modern ideological camps, it is conflated with "education." It is a function of every ideology, every dogma, every moral realist doctrine. It is the perpetuation engine of a given ideology. The ideology tells you to spread the word.

Now, this function is to be understood separately from the particular prescriptions of a given ideology itself. It is the empetus to spread the ideology, built into the ideology. It is the source of the proselytizing mindset, whatever the particulars of a given ideology. Often we hear people refer to the particular prescriptions of a given ideology and seemingly think that's the end of the story, thereby justifying one ideology over another while keeping the prescriptive function. I think I shall call this the "Sam Harris Fallacy."

When I suggest critique of prescriptivity, I am suggesting much more than a mere critique of this or that moral prescription. It is not enough for me to look at, say, Islam and proclaim that it is more evil than, say, Hinduism because it prescribes stoning people. That is certainly interesting, but it is only one symptom of a much greater disease. I am suggesting a critique of prescriptivity itself - of the self-perpetuation meme of moral realism.

Who We Are

When you hear people speak of the difference between teaching children what to think and teaching them how to think, this is, in part, what is being pointed at. Teaching children how to think is to teach critical inquiry, including (perhaps even especially) into one's own ideas. This is, of course, antithetical to the rampant and pernicious notion that we are our beliefs. To be critically minded is to be beyond even your own beliefs, to be something more than a mere collection of truth-conceits. It is to entertain an idea without believing it.

Ever hear the statements...
"Stick to your guns."
"Never let them change who you are."
"Do what's right, not what you're told."
...and the like?
These are symptomatic expressions of a sickness built into our relationship with our own ideas. These prescribe that we identify ourselves, indeed define ourselves, in terms of our beliefs, in terms of mere ideas. Actually, it's even more insidious than that. They prescribe we define ourselves in terms of ideas outside ourselves that we are then to emphatically urged (sometimes coerced) into internalizing as our own.

Moral Democracy

This prescriptivity function prevents the democratization of morality, prevents a context of peaceful disagreement from being developed. It keeps people in polarized hysterics, screaming fanatics, inflexible and reflexively violent. It locks people into being cogs in dogmatic meat grinders, servants of dogma, rather than as actual participants in the open social negotiation of societal norms and mores.

One may think one is "participating" by promoting one's dogma, but you aren't actually participating in the negotiation at all. There is no negotiation to participate in. You are merely one more inflexible hard-liner subserviently pushing absolutism by metaphorically (and sometimes literally) screaming on a street corner. You are specifically prohibited from negotiating the prescriptions of the ideology.

Now some may disingenuously try to characterize all these screaming fanatics seeking to push their fanaticism as a kind of negotiation process, but it is missing an important aspect - that these are not negotiating with each other. There is no understanding that mores and norms are subject to negotiation. There is only a banging of fists on the tabletop in the name of this or that absolutist hard line, seeking to make their hard line the hard line.

As long as we think morality is an objective fact (moral realism), rather than as a negotiated social construct, we are doomed to reflexively violent and intractable conflict. Ideologies are conflict engines, and religions are the paradigm cases of conflict engines run amok, prescribing prescriptivity.

Yes, I did just conclude that religions are the enemies of civilization.

[/HardHatZone]

A Wilderness of Mirrors

I'm almost 50 years old. When I was growing up, an atheist, it was a different environment, one with a domineering (even if not quite so dominant) ideology demanding compliance with its orthodoxy requirements - on pain of excommunication/shunning. Sadly, a necessary, practical part of being an atheist was defying this regime of social control in the name of ideology. One had to be independently-minded. We learned to be determined; we learned to be critical; we learned the dangers of ideological orthodoxy mindsets - how, in their quest for control over all discourse, they hobble conversation and stifle inquiry. And we knew first hand the kinds of tactics, rhetorical and otherwise, that were employed. There were real consequences to being atheists then. Some of those consequences even still exist even today.

Well, here we are again. It is a property of ideology (any ideology) that they seek to control discourse and stifle inquiry. And exclusion is always used as an enforcement tactic. It doesn't matter whether you agree with the tenets of the ideology or not, ideology itself remains the same. This is why Atheism+ is receiving such a vigorously unhappy response. The control-minded persons at its foul heart are not just advocating their views; they are seeking to restrict other views from being expressed, and see any method as appropriate in the name of "the cause."

Now, Matt Dillahunty (of Atheist Experience "fame") is having an apology demanded of him because some are butt-hurt that he would have the temerity to dare not comply with absolute precision to their requirements, and in the name of being personally offended, are seeking a very specific indication that he is "one of them." I can't say I have much sympathy for Dillahunty - he brought it on himself, and tried to bring it on the rest of us, too, but he should realize that his illustrious self has no special copyright on exposing flaws in thinking.

Welcome to the world of ideological orthodoxy requirements and secular shunning, Dillahunty. You deserve it for endorsing it. Revel in it. Welcome to what it was like living in a social order dominated by the religious and their demands, because that's also what Atheism+ is.

Welcome to the atheists' experience, Dillahunty.

As a young atheist, I stood firm against theism and its ideological orthodoxy requirements. I dared to inquire; I dared to critique. It was what was needed at the time. I was an atheist despite that it wasn't trendy, edgy, popular, or profitable - quite the opposite in fact. I advocated for free and open critical inquiry, despite that the dogmatic theists really hated that. I was told I was less than human by preachers, that I was just being defiant for its own sake, that I was a moral monster, that I was just angry, that there was something wrong with me. These arguments were leveled against all atheists. We now recognize these arguments for what they were...sordid rhetorical ploys.

...or we did, until Atheism+ reared its dogmatic head.

Defending free and open inquiry is perhaps one of the most thankless stances one can adopt, because many are all for free expression when it is their ideas being expressed - not so much when it is someone else's opposed ideas. To focus on the conversation itself rather than the particular content is difficult, perhaps too difficult for many.

But here I am, keeping a vigil, just a voice in the crowd, in the perhaps vain hope that the free and open inquiries are never silenced - not by anyone...

Pawns & Perspectives

Adventure Awaits!

Let's shift gears, just for a moment. I said in my blog description that I would sometimes talk about gaming...

Games have always fascinated me from a logical systems point of view, even before I started studying that analytic wonderland called logic. I just didn't always know what to call that fascination. Now, most of the early popular games of the first half of the century were pretty simple matters. Most, like Monopoly, didn't offer much in the line of decision making, much less in terms of those decisions being influencers on the outcome of the game - chess, of course, was the notable exception.

In the second half of the last century we saw a movement away from religion in western society and, in a new generation, a move towards viewpoints critical of religion in particular. I put it to you that gaming has been a significant part of that movement. A generation, perhaps two, was raised on a particular kind of game, indeed a particular game, the likes of which we had never seen before.

I am, of course, speaking of Dungeons & Dragons, and the multitude of games that spawned from it. Dungeons & Dragons was a radically different kind of game in a number of respects, and in some of these respects, it absolutely terrified religious influences in our society - and rightfully so, but not for the reasons the religious presented. They dared not speak of the real reasons...

The first hardcover edition of D&D, AD&D was published in a three part core ruleset, with the "Monster Manual" being the first book published. In it a demon lord of the undead, Orcus, was described as "great." In this context the meaning of the word was clear: great as in powerful. The fanatics, of course, latched onto what they perceived was a positive connotation in the word "great" and squealed that AD&D was worshiping, and promoting worship, of figures such as Orcus. As if Orcus was real. Pfft!

Anything different or new is dangerous to the religious mindset, precisely because it isn't an eternal recapitulation to dogmatic orthodoxy. And, of course, anything that can be exploited as a polarizing factor will be latched onto by religious figures in a desperate clutching at remaining topical. There is much more to D&D that makes it dangerous to the religious mindset.

Role-Playing Games

For anyone not familiar with role-playing games, imagine that you and some friends are around a table. There is a stack of a few hundred blank pages before you. In order to put something, a story, on those pages you are each assigned a role. One is the story's narrator. Others become protagonists within the story. Together, in a cooperative setting, you build a story that slowly fills the pages of the novel, develops the protagonists and antagonists, and writes the scenes. The story can have any of the traditional elements, from heroism to betrayal to just about anything you can imagine. Some of the games have swords and sorcery settings, others are space operas, and others post-apocalyptic high-radiation zones. Still others are cyberpunk corporate wastelands.

Even this example has you playing, in your mind, the role of a story developer using a particular method.

Above all, role-playing is, even among the less cooperative players, a cooperative enterprise. This has implications. After all, religion is not about cooperation; it is about submission.

Interactive Media

To the best of my knowledge, Dungeons & Dragons was one of, if not the first, game to be presented as an interactive medium. Unlike the one way media of television, radio or even of other games with their established regiment of inflexible rules, D&D did something radically different. It assigned roles to the players, not just to the players playing the roles of characters in the fictional game world, but also to the players around the table as participants in the game (character as opposed to gamers). A game or campaign in D&D was a social-interactive, cooperative enterprise in which all persons worked together to build a story. The players' decisions influenced the outcomes of the story - even the progression of it.

This is a far cry from the top down, strictly restrained world of Monopoly. In D&D the gamemaster presents a story, a challenge, and the players seek to resolve that challenge often in ways unforeseen by the gamemaster. This meant that the gamemaster had to adapt his/her work to accommodate new elements as brought up by the players. The story became interactive with players and the game's master participating in its development and resolution. The players stopped being pieces moving around a board according to the dictates of dice in carefully and resolutely locked manners and became vibrant pockets of influence in the game world.

This form of participation gave the game an incredible appeal. Why? Because it was a kind of metaphor for participatory cooperation - a kind of metaphor for democracy actually.

Now when you look at religions, and especially of religion-inspired templates for morality, their vision is invariably top-down, authoritarian, with humans being like pieces in a Monopoly game. Roll the dice and go where they send you. Lucky you if you got to pass Go and collect $200.

And then there was...

Role-Playing

In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing was considered a horrible thing, and justly so - if your perspective was that of the fanatic. Later, of course, role-playing would become legitimized methodologies in professional areas ranging from marketing to business management to meta-ethics to psychology to evolutionary biology, and much, much more...

In Dungeons & Dragons, players assumed the role of personalities not their own. Think about what that means for a moment. People are seeing events from the perspective of someone else, even if just a fictional someone else. This was so troublesome to the fanatic that they created stories of "sublimation" into character as scare tactics. The classic example of this was the absurd Tom Hanks film, "Mazes & Monsters." In this film a disturbed young man seeks refuge from his own tormented identity in the character of a fictional character in a role-playing universe. The result is someone getting stabbed. The moral of the story? Role-playing can cause you to lose track of who you are and make you become someone else instead - possibly, indeed probably, someone dangerous.

Assuming a personality and perspective not your own and seeking to role-play it honestly involves some mental gymnastics the sort of which the fanatic, obsessed with the petty smallness of their own delusion cannot tolerate. It involves putting yourself in someone else's shoes, in spinning stories (recharacterizing events) to meet that perspective. Among the religious leaders, already engaged in endless spin, the ability of the populace to do the same, even just to recognizing it happening, is deadly to their enterprise - the enterprise of keeping the wool pulled over your eyes. Imagine if that were to happen. Pedophile-sympathizers within the church might not be able to pass off crimes as attempts to forgive the pedophile. The church might actually start being held responsible, and people might start seeing through the absurd spin.

Role-playing gives people the opportunity and ability to look beyond their own immediate interests and perspectives. It is a similar effect to having, say, a worldwide communications network that allows you to meet people and hear ideas different from one's own. This is a kind of practical empathy - the likes of which is antithetical to the religious engine of conflict mentality in which people with other beliefs are alien, strange, dangerous - enemies.

For the record, as a 30+ year long role-playing gamer, I have never seen anyone get sublimated into character. Quite the opposite, in fact, Despite our geekiness we seem more aware of the line between fantasy and reality than most. And that has to be the most terrifying thing of all for fanatics who want us to believe in gods, devils, unicorns, miracles and a host of other nonsense that directly conflicts with reality. The Phelpses and Campings of the world must really hate us...

The worst emotional influence I've seen is some depression over the lost of a loved character. Sorry, Darren.

Ethics as Story Conflict

Gary Gygax was a writer. An interesting question to ask is from what perspective a writer will approach game design. Dungeons & Dragons evolved out of war games, like Avalon Hill games, involving units on a battlefield. The units on the Avalon Hill style battlefield became heroes. The great leap for D&D was in having players adopt the role of these heroes and a fantasy world simulation was woven around that. D&D was, and is in large part, a conflict-based game. In writing stories conflict is always an integral part. One would expect a writer, trained in this to bring that perspective to a game that he was co-designing (along with Dave Arneson).

Now, in seeking to create a simulation of a swords & sorcery society, one would only expect that a simulation of ethics in some form or another would be included. In D&D that simulation took the form of the nine alignments. In the ethics of the D&D universe, the ethical alignments are depicted by two axes. One axis runs the gamut from good to neutral to evil. The second axis runs the gamut from lawful to neutral to chaotic. There are nine permutations: Lawful good, lawful neutral, lawful evil, neutral good, true neutral (neutral neutral), neutral evil, chaotic good, chaotic neutral, and finally chaotic evil.

What is astonishing about the "nine-alignment" depiction of ethics is not its failure, but its success - as a story-telling conceit -success that would lead to intense critique. Entertainingly, much of the discussion is about what each alignment means, but that is not to my point here. What is to my point is that the alignments were structured as conflict-driving devices. More interestingly still, the nine-alignments were surprisingly representative of the morality of religions, complete with adherence and orthodoxy requirements. The nine alignments were dogmatic. Even being true neutral did not mean being unaligned. It meant striving to maintain a balance between the extremes. There is no third axis representing live and let live vs convert or die. Everything was convert or die.

Sound familiar?

If you are able to posit the idea of other perspectives possibly being legitimate in some way or another, and if  you depict ethics as a conflict engine, then it is a short step to realizing that the paladin is not the noble knight in shining, holy armour as depicted, but is instead a killer for a cause. Does that sound familiar? One would expect it to. It is the story of every soldier who kills for nationalism. Of every person brutalized in the name of vital interests. Of every child slain because their, or someone else's, religion depicted them as something less than human...

Expanding the Ruleset

In this age of computer gaming, player choices influencing outcomes is a primary consideration in game design, whether the game is PvP or PvE (Player versus Player or Player versus Environment) oriented. What is at work is a philosophy of game design that incorporates the player's input in the unfolding of the events of the game (either real or illusory). Some games do it better than others, and one of the issues in game design is the limits on the impacts on the outcomes players can have, even in an ideal world of unlimited processing power and unlimited storage capacity.

We have similar issues when confronting ideas such as freedom and responsibility in a social setting. One of the meta-game issues among some games was the tendency on the part of rules to favour the players or to favour the environment. The difference between "say yes to the players unless you absolutely can't" versus a "say no to the players unless they are exceptional rules-lawyers" mentalities. Religions, I have found, are a mentality of "No! You must not! If you do you will be punished!" And under no circumstances ever consider that maybe the rules might be subject to revision through negotiation - that the mere subjects might have input into the ruleset.

Equally interesting to me, however, is the idea of games like Dungeons & Dragons qua simulation. In a strong sense these logical structures are very much like the norms, values, rules, and structures of a society. Do we wish to depict ethics as two axes of mutually exclusive dogmatically held ethos - all of which are "legitimate justification" for often lethal conflict, about limiting and restricting? Or will we have the courage to add another axis, perhaps more? Perhaps do away with the axes altogether...?

Tell me, are you excited by the possible directions our examinations into ethics might take us, or are you constrained by fear and think morality exists to keep intrinsic monsters under control...?

When we engage in social theory, indeed in meta-ethics deliberations, are we interested in expanding the ruleset, or restricting it? I, for one, am interesting in expanding the ruleset. I prefer Hobbits happy and free to Hobbits in chains.

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, I don't think even you knew what you did for us. From me, as one growing up in a generation with D&D, thank you for providing all that fun, and more, expanding my perspective. I took an interest in logic and analytic ethics, in part, because of you.

The Not-Truthiness

The Takedown

Following is a fun video "takedown" of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It is interesting and worth the see, IMHO.

The "Takedown" of the Kalam Cosmological Argument

However, I wish to approach the subject matter from a different angle...

While Craig asserts that infinity is only a concept that doesn't exist in reality, why does he not afford the same courtesy to nothing? We build logical systems to help us understand and explain the world, but quite often because these logical systems involve boolean values, yea or nay, we assume that these absolute values are entailed by the logical system themselves and, therefore, that they translate into reality or "map onto" reality - but this need not be the case. Concepts like infinity arise from an unending progression and concepts like nothing arise from as idea of a perfect absence. There is nothing to suggest that these "perfect" states exist in reality.

While the video is all well and good, and interesting, I suspect the real "takedown" is in understanding the difference between synthetic and analytic arguments. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is an entirely analytic argument, as is the Ontological Argument.

The Ontological Argument relies on existence being a necessary condition for perfection, but from whence cometh perfection? Perfection seems to me an extension of idealistic thinking, completely divorced from reality, and a mere logical contrast to imperfection. To say that perfection necessarily entails existence is to make a baseless assumption - that perfection is existent or even possible. Claiming that that there is perfection refers not to any feature of reality - please do point to it if you can - but rather to a definition derived entirely from a logical structure - an implication of the terms involved. Nothing more. So when the Ontological Argument goes from "existence is a property of perfection" to "therefore God exists" what we have is an equivocation of the word "exist." Analytic existence is not equivalent to synthetic existence.

More Than One Truth-(Value)

And it is no surprise this happens, since logical "truth" is often equivocated with "empirical" (or "synthetic") truth. We have been engaged in propping up this error for millennia and I suspect this equivocation of truth is responsible for much, especially, theological error. It is, of course, trivia to create a valid argument that is not sound. This proves that logical truth values are not empirical truth. To find out empirical or synthetic truth you actually have to check with reality, something neither the Ontological nor Cosmological arguments do, although they end up making a claim that we are supposed to take as empirical/synthetic.

The nifty thing about entirely analytic arguments is that reality is not a function within them - no empirical reference is made prior to the assertion about reality. In this way terms in the premises represent equivocations of similar terms in the conclusion.

As given in the video, the Kalam Cosmological Argument goes:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause
And that cause is God.

Leaving aside the non-sequitur of the universe having a cause leading to that cause being God... ;)

The real problem here is the word "begins/began." Defenders of the KCA assume that beginning involves arising from nothing, hence their constant mockery that anyone who argues against the KCA is assuming the something arises from nothing. Now a careful examination reveals this to be a mere matter of definition - and analytical function, with no clear reference to reality. The matter seems persuasive because science makes a similar working assumption with regards to causality in order to do its work. However, at no time, does science necessarily invoke the logical concept of nothing in the same way apologists like Craig do (except as an effort to make a dramatic title intended to sell books perhaps). Indeed a recent understanding of the "origins of the universe" seem to posit the idea that there is never really any state of absolute nothing. Hence the "dilemma" presented by the KCA apologists is simply bypassed. And there is no particular reason why this cannot be done, since our understanding of "nothing" is merely the placing of a negation in front of "something." The logical nothing is not necessarily empirical nothing. To confuse them is, in my opinion, to equivocate the word "nothing."

Referencing Reality

The trick now is to make sure the new physics cosmology refers to empirical reality, and that's where things get interesting. Then it is an exercise in developing experiments from the theory that confirm or refute. We'll know whether the theory is interesting or not when we are provided the falsifiability in the theory.

I am not confident that replacing one entirely analytic argument with another does much for us except display the cleverness of everyone involved. Of course, science provides us the benefit of actually referring to reality - at least most of the time.

Which brings to mind string theory, but that's a topic for another time... ;)

The In-Between Time

One Young Moral Nihilist

I want to take a moment, if I may, to yap about moral nihilism.

Despite the fact that, growing up, I was not "properly socialized,"  (read: indoctrinated) certain ideas did make their way into my understanding of things, just from the popular culture. One of these was the pernicious notion that morality stemmed from some absolute, objective, separate from humanity, authority. Generally, that authority bears the name "God." A consequent of this is that without that authority, there was no source for and hence no morality. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I am a "from the cradle" atheist - meaning that I was never indoctrinated into a faith. I think you can see an issue developing...

Perhaps I was victim of a Piagetan/Kohlbergian stage of moral development, but the issue came to a point early for me. Nevertheless, I remained, for the most part, a very lawful, by most accounts, moral individual. As I began studies in philosophy, I found that morals were obviously not empirical entities - were not things you could point to and say "there it is." Were not properties or qualities of objects, acts, or results. One could point at consequences and evaluate them, but not at the values/morals themselves. As I dismissed the idea of morals/value being objective/empirical things...

...I became a "moral nihilist." I used to go around saying things like, "There is no morality." "Morality is a lie." And the like.

Well, that was then; this is now. :)

You see, I was labouring under a misapprehension. Despite finding that morality was not in any sense objectively absolute, I was still defining morality in terms of objective absolutism. Add these together and you get nihilism. The reasoning is very simple:

All morality arises from absolute authority.
There is no absolute authority.
Therefore, there is no morality.

Seems bulletproof, doesn't it?

The Agenda of "Nihilism"

Now "nihilism" is a fun word, wrapped in negative connotations and derisive, vilifying inferences. Well, of course it is; it was a word used by moral absolutists (namely the religious) to describe, deliberately unflatteringly, those who rejected their vison of what morality is. It was, in effect, an ad hominem. Nihilists have no morality, and you are a nihilist, so therefore your arguments about morality are icky. (Sorry, there is just no way for me to depict this "argument" seriously).

This really had, it seems to me, one purpose. Ethical absolutists are not really bothered if you are moral or not, whether you accept or reject the particular morals of their particular view. Indeed, I would argue that absolutists want rejection of their morals in order to have an enemy to polarize around (remember the "mosque at ground zero" kerfluffle?), but that's a topic for another time. What they are really frightened of is the idea that you might define morality in other terms - human-centered terms. As long as you bought into the absolute-authority/truth definition of morality, a context in which you could be "legitimately" lauded or vilified could be maintained. Religions "despise" opposed religions, but what they all despise is someone who steps outside of their religious context. Religions love to hate each other, but it is the non-religious who are all religion's real enemy.

In this way, being a moral nihilist is really playing the absolutists' game. Liberation form the absolutists' "morality" comes not just from rejecting the divine authority, but also from revamping one's entire conception and perception of morality - it comes from redefining morality. Otherwise, you are still a thrall of, and subject to, the absolutists' context.

This consideration is what I mean when I speak of reclaiming our humanity from the religions. Morality is a human function, in a human context, but the religiouns have annexed it, redefined it in their hobbled, inhuman terms, and then imposed that redefinition on all of our discourse.

Do It Like You Mean It!

If you really want to dismiss absolutist morality, don't stop half way, don't stop in the in-between time. Don't just dismiss the absolute authority that is claimed to be the source of morality, but dismiss also the definition of morality that requires an absolute authority. Nihilism is a stepping stone away from absolutism. Take the next step. Think of morality in terms that really frighten the absolutist. Define morality in a different way.

In studies of analytic ethics, one encounters a number of moral theories with different perspectives. Some seek to find moral truth - sometimes empirically, sometimes psychologically, sometimes analytically (via definitions and inferences), and of course, sometimes metaphysically/mystically - some equate morality with emotive outbursts, some others ... let's just say that a great many clever minds have come up with a great many clever (and not so clever) ideas. Often these examinations involve breaking down morality into basic components, things like prescriptivity (the command force of moral language), universalizability (universal applicability of moral principles), and many others. This suggests something interesting about morality, actually.

What if it turned out there is no moral truth? What if it turned out morality were a negotiated social construct? What if morality was not true in some objective, extra-human manner, but was an emergent property/quality of social interaction? This would mean that morality is not something that exists in a single individual's mind, but that is held among minds - that, although not objective, morality is inter-subjective. This would place moral evaluations beyond just the mind of any one individual, although that individual might take part in negotiations about such evaluations. No one of us would be the judge of all the earth.

"Everything is Permitted!"

This would provide us an answer to the old fanatics' bugbear, "Without God, where do you get your morals from? Without God, everything is permitted!" It seems to me whenever I hear this claim by the religious, that the obvious question comes to mind, "Permitted by whom?" The obvious answer is, everyone else, and me (as a participant in the social order/context in which I live). Where do I get my morals? From the people around me and social context in which I live. The source of my morality is that social context. And, surprise, surprise, it doesn't permit everything.

This is one redefinition of morality, such that we can coherently speak of morality without making reference to some absolute authority and without making claims to any "fact status" about values/morals. It is one version of the next step away from absolutism, leaving it, and it's flipside nihilism, in the dust. It is also a conception of morality that allows for flexibility, adaptivity, and change as we negotiate.

I put it to you that this is a more coherent, even more moral, version of morality precisely because it places morality squarely within a human context - of humans, by humans, and for humans. For example, we won't have absolutist reasons to slaughter one another, or bind our children as sacrifices to God.

Beyond Absolutism

There are even more astonishing possibilities. What if we were able to conceive of morality, not as an imposition from on high, but as a constructive, participatory human endeavor? What if we could actually conceive of ourselves as something other than intrinsically evil monsters that need to be kept in check by internalized prohibitions. Could morality be something we could participate in, rather than as chains to keep the monster in check...?