If liberty is the objective, is the non-aggression principle sufficient? If the non-aggression principle is insufficient, what might that mean for those who wish to develop a proper theory for the realization of liberty?
A Somewhat Discordant Introduction
I came across an interesting tidbit:
And, as predicted by the theory, these seven moral rules – love your family, help your group, return favors, be brave, defer to authority, be fair, and respect others’ property – appear to be universal across cultures.
The authors studied sixty societies and found these behaviors to always be considered morally good. These behaviors were found across continents, not limited to any particular culture or region. Further, there were no counter-examples: no societies in which any of these behaviors was considered to be bad.
This does not mean to suggest that the moral values were manifest identically in each region, or that they were held in the same priority:
Against the State: An …
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‘Morality as cooperation’ does not predict that moral values will be identical across cultures. On the contrary, the theory predicts ‘variation on a theme’: moral values will reflect the value of different types of cooperation under different social and ecological conditions.
In other words, just because these different communities hold to these same rules, it doesn’t mean that the application is identical. The concepts are the same; the lifestyles might be quite different.
What is the purpose of these moral rules?
Converging lines of evidence – from game theory, ethology, psychology, and anthropology – suggest that morality is a collection of tools…