[yvan-eht-nioj]

If being bound by tight social norms is the key to bringing birth rates above replacement level, then Japan’s population should be skyrocketing.

The factors behind population decline are multifaceted, complex and vary from country to country.

Both Russia and China are also in decline, and cannot be accused of being bastions of promiscuous, individualistic Western liberalism.

[rayiner]

Cultures of course vary in the particular norms they enforce. Many East Asian countries don’t have strong social norms in favor of procreation despite otherwise being strongly norm oriented. But of course a society that isn’t strongly norm oriented loses the ability to enforce that norm as well as other socially desirable behaviors.

COVID is another example. The breakdown of norm-oriented behavior has been especially acute where the counter-culture of the 1970s collided with deindustrialization. The fallout was mitigated in certain blue areas by high levels of education. But I’m much of the country it ended up destroying the framework of norms that helped mediocre and not especially educated people make good decisions.

[yvan-eht-nioj]

Who gets to decide what a socially desirable norm is? And what happens to those who don't comply?

[rayiner]

Society does, through consensus. Compliance is enforced through various expressions of disapproval, such as shaming. But focusing on the non-compliant people misses the point. The important thing is, what’s the benefit to everyone else-especially those who might make bad decisions absent the norms.

[yvan-eht-nioj]

But don’t social norms change over time? It was once normal to burn witches and keep slaves.

Does that mean witch-burning was a good decision because it carried the weight of social consensus?

[skissane]

Societies and cultures compete with each other. If a norm is truly beneficial for society/culture, then societies/cultures which maintain it will outcompete in the long-run societies/cultures which abandon it. The more successful societies/cultures will spread the norms which enabled their success, through emigration, war, diplomacy, trade, investment, emulation, etc. Whereas, if a norm is harmful or irrelevant, that won't be true. Natural selection at the sociocultural rather than biological level.

Burning witches doesn't seem to give any society a competitive benefit – certainly not in contemporary circumstances – so it is unsurprising it has mostly died out. While many ancient, mediaeval and early modern empires built their wealth on the backs of slaves, in late modernity slavery appears to be more of an economic detriment than economic benefit – a free workforce has greater flexibility to respond to changing market demand for skills than an enslaved one does – so it is unsurprising it has greatly declined–although, contrary to what many think, it still exists, and still even has its defenders.

In terms of what is "good"–if you believe that there is some deep metaphysical connection between the True and the Good, such that even though they are non-identical in the past and the present, in the long-run they must converge–the sort of view presupposed by that Martin Luther King Jr quote which Obama liked so much, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice"–then if a social norm helps a society/culture outcompete in the long long-run, it must be good.

Whereas, if your metaphysics has no room for any such connection, then what social norms turn out to be most beneficial in the long long-run, and what social norms are actually good, may be fundamentally unrelated, even in complete contradiction to each other. Maybe witch-burning and slavery are simultaneously great evils, but also will inevitably conquer the earth because of their great advantage to any society that adopts them? I hope not. A worldview which would permit such a conclusion is rather dismal.

[rayiner]

Martin Luther King was a Christian, who believed in a moral order imposed externally by a Supreme being. If you purport to not believe in some sort of religion (loosely defined), how can your metaphysics allow for social norms to be judged by anything other than some sort of empirical fitness function?

[rayiner]

Sure. Often, though not always, norms change because of technological or economic change. Lots of taboos on sexual behavior, for example, that changed in the 20th and 21st century arise out of the requirements of subsistence agriculture societies (such as the need to have many children to work farms and survive). Those changes aren’t arguments against norm enforcement.