Morality from the ground up

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd say this represents the norm.  However, a significant number of people fall outside the norm.  My own case, which I won't bother to bring up explicitly, shows that there can be disconnects in places that are surprising to both parties.

Unlikely, otherwise it wouldn't be called "the norm".   I think it;s easier to maintain that people do not always make identical decisions when acting out of rational self interest, but, ofc, why would they?  Different people, different circumstances, different strategies, and yet strangely similar outcomes.

Here's an example.  I don't want to be hurt, and I can see that animals are capable of being hurt, so I choose to avoid where I can anything that is likely to cause animal suffering.  But people are omnivores, and relatively few hold that seem feeling.  This is non-trivial, because it applies to people, too.  I see all people as deserving respect.  However, there are MANY people, in all  parts of the world, who see their own as important, and strangers as nearly irrelevant.

That;s true, we don;t always extend our sense of rational self interest to everyone, but we can easily demonstrate that the same currents are operating -within- whatever that person considers their sphere.  For example..we may say, if everyone thinks rape is bad, why does so and so rape their conquered enemies - but the more pressing question is -do they rape their own-?  The answer is no.  That simply shows a moral failure, and it;s in our interest (and theirs) to show them how their small mindedness will harm -them-.  Which we do.  Similarly, you have concerns that eating meat will cause animals to be hurt..so you take action, or..rather, inaction on one front - but here you are advocating for the idea on the other. Sounds to me like this is working as intended? Though, I will say here that it's not entirely a rational chain of thought that leads you from a to b, at least not a rationally self interested one. A world in which cows can be eaten still isn't a world in which -you- can be eaten, nor is there any reason that we have to hurt animals to eat them...so it boils down to your own personal preferences, which you are obviously free to have and act on - but it's very difficult to extend it as compulsion to others- particularly in that we -do- live in a world where animals have to die for us to live. At worst, it's a sub-optimal field where we choose the lesser of many evils. Personally, I don't find the suffering of any creature capable of suffering irrelevant, but I do have a list of priorities that puts human beings at the top and plants at the bottom, so..lol.

Is there a way to mediate this rationally, or must it done by the democracy of action-- whichever group can generate more action will take control of that part of the set of moral memes?

Groups in power often claim and subvert morality.  The christers are still trying it even after they lost their grip.