I still struggle to see how a cooperation strategy is of itself useful or even entirely comprehensible to a diverse community, where cooperation is understood differently and where society is understood differently. A Muslim culture, for instance. Or an atheist culture. When we get to issues like abortion or capital punishment or gay rights, or whether creationism should replace evolution in school learning - how do we determine what is right? — Tom Storm

MACS would assist in refining cultural moral norms the same means cultural norms are refined now - by a chaotic system influenced at least in part by ethicists. The difference would be that ethicists would have available an objective definition of moral 'means', in addition to their concepts of moral goals, to add to their toolkit for resolving moral disputes.

You could ask the same question about "How would it work?" regarding utilitarianism or virtue ethics. There is no magic answer machine for everything we might want to know about what we morally ought to do. We have to do some work.

Perhaps I don't understand the crux what you are trying to articulate. All I am picking up so far is the notion that morality can be understood as an expression of cooperation strategies. That certain actions we describe as moral or immoral are agreed upon in culture owing to the way they support trust cooperation amongst members of that culture.

Surely if everyone agreed upon the Koran as a basis for guiding all action, then we would have a cooperative basis for an ethical system and a cooperative, trusting culture. But would this culture be moral?

You could ask the same question about "How would it work?" regarding utilitarianism or virtue ethics. — Mark S

It's the question I would ask of any moral system. But at least with virtue ethics it is me asking how I want to behave in a situation. It's more immediate. But my moral system boils down to 'prevent suffering' - I am not a theorist.

I can't quite work out how your system would apply to an individual in their day to day choices or how we would involve a community in discussing or implementing it.

I can't quite work out how your system would apply to an individual in their day to day choices or how we would involve a community in discussing or implementing it. — Tom Storm

The first thing to understand about how individuals can apply MACS in their lives is that well-intentioned people around the world already practice heuristic versions of MACS. Remember that past and present cultural moral norms empirically are heuristics (flawed rules of thumb) for MACS.

Normally, MACS practitioners would act according to their existing cultural moral norms just as they always have.

However, two circumstances may arise that would lead people to question if they morally ‘should’ follow a particular cultural moral norm. MACS can then be called on to help resolve their questions.

The first circumstance is that the person may know what the heuristic says to do, for example, versions of the Golden Rule, but intuitively feel doing so would not be right. Such ‘wrongness’ intuitions about following the Golden Rule arise, for example, when dealing with criminals, in wartime, or just when tastes differ. By revealing that versions of the Golden Rule are heuristics for solving cooperation problems, MACS provides an objective criterion for not following the Golden Rule when doing so does not “solve cooperation problems”, but instead creates them. MACS does not tell us we morally should abandon the Golden Rule, but instead informs us about the rare occasions when it might be immoral to follow it.

The second circumstance is that people disagree about the morality of a moral norm, for example, “homosexuality is evil”. MACS reveals that this moral norm has two components 1) a marker norm of membership and commitment to an ingroup which can motivate increased cooperation, and 2) a norm by which an ingroup can exploit an outgroup as a supposed threat to the ingroup, also thereby motivating increasing cooperation in the ingroup. Since the second component creates cooperation problems for homosexuals, it is objectively immoral on that count by MACS based (I argue) on fulfilling Gert’s definition of morally normative.

MACS also is silent about the ultimate goal of moral behavior. When MACS's explanation of moral ‘means’ alone cannot resolve moral disputes (perhaps about abortion, euthanasia, or animal rights), people can try to agree on the ultimate goal of moral behavior in their society. Even if that goal is unique to their society, it can still help promote cooperation to achieve that goal within their societies.

Based on the above description, MACS appears to be easier to apply in one’s life than any other available moral theory I know.

Thank you. It helps to see this being applied to a problem.

MACS also is silent about the ultimate goal of moral behavior. When MACS's explanation of moral ‘means’ alone cannot resolve moral disputes (perhaps about abortion, euthanasia, or animal rights), people can try to agree on the ultimate goal of moral behavior in their society. Even if that goal is unique to their society, it can still help promote cooperation to achieve that goal within their societies. — Mark S

Interesting.

It does seem as if this particular model is aligned to a secular humanist worldview and as such might struggle to be applied in a society which must balance pluralist worldviews about values and morality. Thoughts?

Do you personally think about morality yourself in terms of ought's and ought nots? Do you ever find yourself needing to work through a potential action in order to determine if it is moral?

I see MACS as most useful when applied in societies with "pluralist worldviews about values and morality". By explaining what the cultural moral norms 'are' as parts of cooperation strategies rather than mystical entities, people have an objective basis for resolving their disputes.

I've used MACS as moral guidance for about 15 years now. It has worked well for me. It has given me, for example, a different slant on the morality of telling the truth and obeying the law. Neither are moral absolutes. We all know that, but MACS provides a judgment criterion that I find more useful than simple intuitions.