Culturally successful practices are not morally superior ones.

Evidence

In the study of the varying cultural survival rates of religious ideas, traditions and groups, we must be careful not to conflate cultural superiority and moral superiority—a version of the well-known naturalistic fallacy that erroneously derives ought from is. A cultural tradition or group that disappears is no more or less moral than a cultural group or tradition that survives. History shows that some of the most culturally resilient human practices, such as slavery or warfare, are also known as the most morally objectionable ones, and conversely, some of the most morally elevating ones, such as protecting civilians during wars, or accountable government institutions, have dubious records of cultural success. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 639

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• CANDY: A clean, tweetable reversal: survival of the fittest cultures isn’t survival of the best cultures, slavery outlasted many noble ideals.

Related

• The most culturally resilient practices are not the most moral ones (similarity 0.96)
• Cultural survival must not be equated with moral superiority (similarity 0.92)
• Studying only surviving religions introduces survivor bias (similarity 0.80)
• Moralizing religion emerged recently as a rare cultural innovation (similarity 0.78)
• The religion-morality link emerged culturally and recently in history (similarity 0.78)