Are all societies and cultures morally equal?

[Ken White]

groups of any sort cannot be moral, immoral or amoral; ergo all are subject to discrimination on moral grounds by individuals based on the individuals perceptions. That implies that groups of individuals can have a collective perspective on the moral status of another group which may or may not be correct in the view of another group.

Thus I'm with Goesh.

- ah, a 'loaded' question from the get-go, maybe ken's last response should be, " I'm going to get some MORE bourbon."

And I yam not loaded, thanksh you berry much. Iz that a mo-ral judge meant?

By the way, Ken, what brand do you drink?

Anything but Melrose or Colonel Lee

Seriously, Blantons for sipping, Makers Mark for serious imbibition on cost grounds. Used to be I.W. Harper but the Japanese are buying all that...

[Uboat509]

if anyone stumbles upon the meaning of life, then please send me an email.

42

sfc w

[Entropy]

42

sfc w

Beat me to it!

[AmericanPride]

Since there's not even agreement on the origin, scope, nature, and purpose of morality, how can there be any answer? Even the idea that morality is or ought to be life-centered is done within a social context insofar that life and its various caveats are subject to varying ideas. Where do we even begin measuring the morality of another person, society, and their actions? In the 'strategic view' of a globalizing humanity, is religion even relevant or legitimate in defining morality? The problem IMO is not whether cultures are morally equal or not, but what obligations the answers may compel upon people. If cultures are morally equal, then what right does my country have in intervening (politically, legally, militarily, etc) in the social affairs (racism, genocide, etc) of another state?

[Ken White]

42 proof or even 42% / 84 proof fit to drink but whatever you're comfortable with...

[Ken White]

...then what right does my country have in intervening (politically, legally, militarily, etc) in the social affairs (racism, genocide, etc) of another state?

It's all about politics -- and you cannot get much further away from morality than that.

[Entropy]

Ken, this may explain "42."

[Ken White]

42 proof stuff. You can't wiggle out. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

[Starbuck]

How exactly do you quantify the value of a culture's morals?

Is there a universal standard by which we judge morals?

What are morals?



...Woah, I think I could make that into a haiku...

[Schmedlap]

How exactly do you quantify the value of a culture's morals?

Is there a universal standard by which we judge morals?

What are morals?

Also, what is culture? I was taught that culture = values, norms, and beliefs. It seems that values are the component that concern morality. But then, going back to your question, what are morals? The ultimate arbiter of issues in the online world - Wikipedia - points out that morality, in common usage, has three definitions and "the fact that there are at least three different usages of the term 'morality' ... has led to much confusion when that word is used in discussions. Because of that confusion, many thinkers are forced to spend a certain amount of time dealing with that confusion before they even begin to use the term 'morality' in their discussions." See the entry on Morality here.

Pondering a question where we weigh something that is poorly defined against some unclear standard reminds me of a political campaign. Half of the fight is to influence the debate over what is being argued and the other half is fighting to spin one's position on that vaguely defined issue. The fact that nobody can even agree upon what is being debated does not stop the debate from moving forward. After fighting it out for months on end, the voters are no less confused, but nonetheless come to a decision and cast an either-or vote. And then, every 2, 4, or 6 years, depending upon the office, they change their minds.

That's about as deeply philosophical as I get at 6:30 AM after waking up with a headache and preparing to head off to the gym.

[Entropy]

42 proof stuff. You can't wiggle out. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

Instead of the ads for beautiful Afghan girls I usually get at this site, this pops up this morning:

[Starbuck]

Oh, come on, the chicks in those ads are the same no matter what country you visit from. That site just recycles pics of American chicks and, based on your IP, claims they're from Kandahar or Mosul or wherever.

Um, not that I know or anything.

Anyway, back on the topic of moral equality: I think we need to address the question of moral relativism before we can answer whether or not societies are morally equal.

[goesh]

Haiku?

Spring is bourbon time
Old Vets remember women had
and watch melting snow

[marct]

Interesting, and unanswerable, question since morality itself is culturally constructed (at least in the definition I use). Trying to step outside of a culture defined morality leads us to statements like:

Saying that all cultures are morally equivalent is to not think about the underlying question at all. There are God-given rights that, if violated, make a culture less worthy than others that respect human rights. There can be different but equivalent cultures or societies, but to get there, they have to have respect for rights as their base.

Coltures are not morally equal. To survive and not be vanquished is the goal.

The first argument, from "religion", makes a totally invalid assumption about the universal existence of a) a "God" (which one?), and b) the existence of human rights as something other than a social construct. It argues that two non-empirical, non-perceptually existent, non-things can act as the scale upon which to grade cultures.

The second argument is more empirical, being based in a form of survival, but it suffers from one flaw: the assumption of pristine cultures. This is a typical example of Spencerian "Survival of the Fittest" rhetoric that assumes that survival in a specific form is the goal. Why? What is "fittest" changes with the environment and, therefore, any culture or society that does not change with the environment - where such changes lead to survival of individual bloodlines - is a failure. Survival cannot be measured in any absolute by using such artificial constructs as culture or society, only by looking at bloodlines.

Both of these arguments are in the same oeuvre as the extreme cultural relativist position. I agree with Ken.... Time for a drink !

[slapout9]

The first argument, from "religion", makes a totally invalid assumption about the universal existence of a) a "God" (which one?), and b) the existence of human rights as something other than a social construct. It argues that two non-empirical, non-perceptually existent, non-things can act as the scale upon which to grade cultures.

Some heavy duty stuff there

[marct]

Some heavy duty stuff there

Yup... probably PO'd a lot of people too . Actually, it came out of an exercise in trying to get people (students) to come up with a definition of "absolute truth" and asking them how they grounded it empirically such that they could convince other students. The "God-given rights" is the worst, since there is no universal agreement on either "God" or "rights"; lots of religious wars, genocides and fights over both of them. Just as an example, it is patently "obvious" that there is a God-given right to kill any female family member who is raped (just ask the Taliban).

[Starbuck]

Really, the question asks us to answer a number of sub-questions. First, we need to determine whether there is some sort of universal moral standard (moral relativism).

Having established that, then we need a quantifiable metric to determine how closely each society (monolitihic "society"?) measures up against one another. I would submit that this is probably not possible. Of course, this may be because I'm too lazy to try to figure it out

[AmericanPride]

marct,

Given that each person possess "life", would not "life" be an effective or sufficient foundation for establishing an absolute and universal morality? This is also different from survival, whereas survival of the fittest implies, and arguably requires, that the strong dominant the weak.

[Schmedlap]

... it came out of an exercise in trying to get people (students) to come up with a definition of "absolute truth" and asking them how they grounded it empirically such that they could convince other students. The "God-given rights" is the worst, since there is no universal agreement on either "God" or "rights"; lots of religious wars, genocides and fights over both of them.

As a non-anthropologist questioning an anthropologist on this issue, I feel kind of like a one-armed man stepping into a boxing match. But what the heck... I think you're blending two issues into one.

In waging wars, the "God-given rights" argument is the case that one rules by divine right - and, by extension, has divine justification for the war that the king/pope orders to be waged. That is an exercise of political power, legitimized (or attempted to be legitimized) by an appeal to a religious justification. A study of the Crusades, for example, reveals more about politics than religious fervor. Political leaders attempt to justify their decision and rally the people to the cause after the decision is made to fight. There is no logical reasoning by which the king concludes that "our religion and theirs are incompatible - we must fight!" Rather, he concludes that "I want control over that port/peninsula/mountain pass/city/etc."

Back in the day, people could be rallied with claims that they were defending the faith, when they were really mere instruments and fodder for a tyrant. Nowadays, with religion being less salient amongst western countries, we are rallied with patriotism, good vs bad, and being "pro-democracy." In non-western countries - particularly the mideast - it is still common for leaders to rally their people by appealing to religion, but is this really warfare over religion? When we invaded Iraq, Hussein attempted to claim that he was defending Islam. What did religion have to do with his degree of compliance with UN resolutions regarding inspection and verification that he dismantled his WMD program? He used religion, in vain, to rally his people to justify a political decision.

So, I think it confuses the issue to say that wars are fought over religion. Instead, I would say that cultures tend to form along largely religious lines - since culture is heavily influenced by core values and beliefs, which are often derived from religion. Eventually those cultures political interests' diverge and then conflict. They clash due to politics. And then the political leaders fall back on a common religious identity in an attempt to rally support for the political cause. If there were no human tendency to seek non-worldly explanations about our existence, cultures would form along some line other than religion, and cultures would still clash.

[John T. Fishel]

muddying the water with facts. We don' need no stinkin' facts!!!! Our opinions will do just fine, thank you very much.

Schmedlap, see above for how to deal with the darned ol' antropologist. Seriously, though, we also had "religious" conflict in N Ireland where the fight was really about political power and economic opportunity and social oppression. We also had the "religious" war in Bosnia between a bunch of folk who wrote their language in Cyrrillic and another bunch who wrote it in Roman; a bunch who celebrate Christmas on 25 Dec and a bunch who celbrate it 12 days later, and a buch who don't celebrate it at all! OBTW, thes bunches overlap

Cheers

JohnT