In Defense of a Non-Natural Moral Order

[DLJ]

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Rather than going deeper I think its more useful if you go broader and state the main point you are trying to convey. The different components and their interactions make sense, for the most part, but I'm not sure I understand what its trying to tell me.
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Sure.  No problem.  
1. Your question about why I had 'immune system' in my definition of morality as a system. The diagram only notes the 'event/alert' element of an immune system simply because it would be too cluttered to show all the parts of the algorithms.

2. The diagram addresses the topic of this thread... non-natural order (and as specified by Acrobat... not supernatural but still somehow 'out there' somewhere, being all kinda transcendent and stuff).  Everything not in purple is external to an individual.  Growing up (maturing) in social groups the individual will receive many inputs regarding ethics from its environment and some of those will appear 'transcendent' or as Douglas Adams put it...



... and the same goes for ethics and social contracts. It's our memetic inheritance. They are thinking tools.

Note that he says "natural order". He was, of course, an atheist. Had he been a theist he could well have said "sacred order".

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Apart from that, two things that could be clarified are the distinction between ethics and morality (I typically use them interchangeably, or at most use morality for individuals and ethics for organizations; the diagram seems to have a specific definition for them)
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OK. I'll quote myself from an interview conducted on a now defunct forum (called TTA). For that we started with definitions and then got into the weeds. Here, I was aiming for the shorter version.

(27-02-2018) epronovost Wrote: ...
Let's start at the very beginning, how would you define morality?

What's the difference between a moral and morality?

(27-02-2018) DLJ Wrote: ...
The Google definitions for morality are:
Quote:noun
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.
"the matter boiled down to simple morality: innocent prisoners ought to be freed"
synonyms: ethics, rights and wrongs, correctness, ethicality
More
a particular system of values and principles of conduct.
plural noun: moralities
"a bourgeois morality"
the extent to which an action is right or wrong.
"the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons"

I say definitions (plural) rather than definition (singular) because the above contains a number of elements:
- Principles
- "Ethics" as a synonym
- A system
- Values
- Conduct / behaviour.

Not specifically stated but implied are also... 'judgment' and 'measurement'.

This broadness / fuzziness is possibly why there is so much disagreement when the topic is raised on TTA.

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So that was morality. And now for 'a moral'.

To Google again:
Quote:noun
1.
a lesson that can be derived from a story or experience.
"the moral of this story was that one must see the beauty in what one has"
synonyms: lesson, message, meaning, significance, signification, import, point, precept, teaching
"the moral of the story"
2.
standards of behaviour; principles of right and wrong.
"the corruption of public morals"
synonyms: moral code, code of ethics, moral standards, moral values, principles, principles of right and wrong, rules of conduct, standards/principles of behaviour, standards, morality, sense of morality, scruples, ideals
"he has no morals and cannot be trusted"

The first one, above, is fine. Indeed, more than fine. I think it's the real thing. In the same way that our immune system is storing data regarding shit that happens biologically (events, incidents, problems) and what fixes were attempted and which ones worked, our morality system is storing data regarding shit that happens socially. The latter can be vicarious (a story) or personal (experience).

I'm less happy with the second definition and prefer to separate the two parts.

Regarding 'right and wrong', and maybe this is my nihilistic/absurdist bias showing here, but I'd prefer an evolutionary view and go for 'useful and not useful'.

The 'standards of behaviour' part can be put in the box marked 'ethics' rather than the 'moral' box.

I prefer this because it helps align to something I have seen noted a few times on TTA... that morality is about how you live with yourself whereas ethics is about how you live with others. Although having said that, ethics (unlike morality) is applicable at both the individual level and the community/organisational level.
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Similarly, just to show that I'm not alone in using this distinction:

Ethics, Morals

So that's close to what I mean but “Morals” isn’t quite right (for my diagram) as there’s no separation of noun and verb, ‘a moral’ vs. ‘to be moral’ and a misuse or misunderstanding of ‘culture’.

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and what the culture/high culture distinction is?
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Culture is defined in the best practice manuals as 'aggregate behaviour' but moral-alerts triggered by others' behaviour (denoted on the diagram as 'f') is not the whole picture. It is hedonistic i.e. relates to 'now'. It does not include triggers from e.g. reading about slavery in the quran or the bible.

This means there must be a different type of culture that is encapsulated in historical texts, novels, art etc. There must be a memetic inheritance (memes that last); ancient memetic artefacts that archaeologists and anthropologists dig up or that museums display. This type of culture is usually referred to as 'high' culture.

My suspicion is that it's this high culture element (memetic inheritance) that the OP is arguing is transcendent.
(although it's possible that the OP is also including "d" and maybe also "a+b")