Moral Relativity
A comment on my post on the Arc of the Moral Universe reads: The human race, all seven billion of us, owe our success and our very existence, to our diversity and quarrelsome nature. Societies are always fragile and the dynamics must allow for wide difference of opinion to co-exist.
To me, this is a restatement of the concept of moral relativity, i.e., that moral norms need to be interpreted in the context of each culture in which they exist. I have never bought into this–even 40 years ago when I used to read a great deal on the subject. In my book, slavery, torture, genocide, and all other systemic forms of human rights violations: Apartheid, the caste system, repression of women, subjugation of minorities, etc. are always wrong regardless of their cultural context. That one can quibble on the definition of things like “repression” and “subjugation” does not alter the basic line of thought here.
Craig,
I completely agree with your position on moral relativity.
There are people who think that if a culture has practices that we see as evil in our culture, they are OK in those other cultures. That simply is not true. Of course there are some practices that differ among cultures and are not acceptable in all cultures, such as variations in rules of etiquette. In some Arabian cultures, etiquette requires belching to show appreciation for a good meal. We would not accept that in our culture and would see it as rude. That is merely a difference in culture and should be accepted. But when a culture requires that females submit to painful and dangerous surgery, that is another matter; it is unacceptable. One can find many examples of both acceptable and unacceptable differences among cultures.
Frank,
Morality changes and develops over the ages. It’s an odd contradiction of values for any group of people seeking to impose a set of moral values on another group.
Obviously, to accomplish such a feat the dominant group must be larger, richer and more powerful (or just more fanatical)
The dominant group’s idea’s may be more progressive and “moral”, but the distinction between imperialism and moral superiority is often only interpreted by the standing of the viewer.
As dominant idea’s change and decay with changes in circumstance, the philosophical and economic conditions that created the original support diminish, allowing newer “moral” values more suited to the changing circumstance emerge.
You might be right in claiming your right to intervene and prevent a ” cultural practice requiring females submit to painful and dangerous surgery” , but you would be angry with those who ignore the same culture’s regard for land as sacred and forbidden to be ploughed.
It seems easy to be selective about what cultural values you can accept and reject. The hypocrisy of accepting some and not other cultural values while crying, ” respect all native culture” , would not occur to you, since you assume your ‘moral values” should take precedence.
I don’t mean that as a criticism, just as an example of the complexity, and changing nature of moral philosophy.
Craig, it seems to me it is problematic to seek some kind of moral absolute in an ever changing and evolving world. It is just a short hop from judging all contemporary people with the same standard to judging all people of all time to the same standard. Is then our society to be the moral yardstick to judge all people and all time?
If we are to set the standard the there seems to be an assumption that we are superior to all other people and all other times. As we look up we see we have stepped through the doorway of a kind of social fundamentalism where our values are the only ones possible. If our present society is the yardstick to judge all time this also leaves us no room to grow and evolve into anything better.
To some other societies and cultures we might be considered barbarians. As an example most of the world would watch us eating with both hands in shock and revulsion. To them the left hand is reserved for hygiene and only the right is used for food. It is a convention but does our demand for equality insist that it is a convention that is biased against the left handed?
We decry the use of chemical warfare and cite with horror dictators who used chemicals against their own people. Yet there is increasing evidence that chemical weapons were used against indigenous people protesting the Dakota Access pipeline which is now causing severe respiratory distress. Even teargas is illegal by international conventions in warfare yet it is used domestically all the time. And now there is a call by our president to re-institute torture. He is not alone as some within the society cheer his efforts.
Among the many unsettling aspects of our society an even more terrible offense would be the sentence that we are not allowed to change.
And if we did evolve we might want to keep in mind that we could then be judged by that future standard.