Ah but who decides what ‘murder’ is?
We’ve been visited lately by someone who has (by his own admission) only just realized that different cultures have different moralities, and who has drawn sweeping conclusions from that fact, which he offers to us as if we had never heard that different cultures have different moralities. This is unenlightening and uninteresting – but the larger subject is interesting.
An irony in this is that part of his claim (entangled though it is in overgeneralization, oversimplification, rhetoric, and confusion) is one that I’ve talked about here more than once. It is true that there is a popular claim that ‘we all agree’ or ‘we can all agree’ on certain basics about morality. I think that claim is dead wrong, and often dangerous (because it can lead to such total confusion about what is going on). It may be true that ‘we can all agree’ on certain forms of words – but that doesn’t mean we agree on the moral substance, because the words can always mean different things, and they often do. For example: it might well be possible to get everyone around an imagined global conference table to agree that murder is wrong, but that just moves the issue back (or forward) a step, because people can always define murder in such a way that it doesn’t include the particular killing they want to do. This move works on all sorts of things. Rape doesn’t include husbands forcing sex on their wives, or soldiers forcing sex on ‘rebels’ or ‘the enemy’ or ‘traitors’ or whatever word is needed to make the object deserving of the subject’s action. That is all it takes to make an otherwise prohibited action perfectly acceptable or indeed meritorious.
Irshad Manji talks about this* with respect to a much-cited Koranic verse that repudiates killing – with a much less-cited proviso ‘except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land.’ ‘Other villainy’ covers a lot of territory; it covers pretty much anything an aspirant killer might want it to cover.
Another version we often see is the remarkably fatuous assumption that people who commit ‘honour’ murders of daughters or wives or sisters ‘loved’ them despite murdering them. This is just a way of redescribing reality so that it’s a little bit consoling. Yes, he strangled his own teenage daughter because she didn’t want to wear hijab, but he loved her all the same. No, because if he had loved her, her life would have been a great deal more important to him than whether or not she wore hijab. Beware of the consoling lie, because it trains us to accept horrors.
People disagree about morality, and pious platitudes about all agreeing on the basics are just wrong. But it doesn’t follow from that, and it isn’t true, that nothing is better or worse than anything else, or that there is no way to choose among competing moralities, or that there is nothing to say about morality, or that it is possible to stand outside morality. Morality is a forced choice for anyone who acts in the world, which means all of us who are not comatose. We have to act in order to live, and acting means making moral choices all the time. We have to make them whether we want to or not. That being the case, it is as well to think carefully about them.
*As I’ve mentioned before, more than once; excuse the repetition, but things keep coming up, you know.
It must be the same “enhanced equivocation techniques” that some opinion poles use to get those surprisingly high percentages of Americans to believe in “God”. As long as everything is kept vaguely warm and fuzzy, and nobody ask any inconvenient questions, we can feel safe as part of the big tribe.
Besides, there will always be time to sort out the splitters the next time they show their obvious agreement with our morals by breaking them.
People like to make the world to fit their views. Requires less thinking.
When my uncle died years back, he was administered a drug (morphine, I think) to dull his pain, and eventually kill him. It was painless (they said) for him, and made his death less traumatic for the family.
In my mind it was clearly assisted suicide, but the Catholics in my family went apeshit when I said as much. They could not think of it that way because of their zany laws. It would mean my ulcle was in hell or something.
In the end, this kind of thinking makes understanding difficult because we modifiy definitions to make ourselves feel better rather than making definitions in hopes of finding clarity.
“…But it doesn’t follow from that, and it isn’t true, that nothing is better or worse than anything else, or that there is no way to choose among competing moralities, or that there is nothing to say about morality, or that it is possible to stand outside morality. Morality is a forced choice for anyone who acts in the world, which means all of us who are not comatose.”
Well put, OB.
Call that Position 1
But would you not also agree that, as no culture should with reason be privileged over another, there is no way we can, say, disapprove of cultural practices such as throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls? Or FGM?
After all, who are we to judge?
Call that Position 2.
It should also be possible to move so fast from one truth to another and back again that you finish up supporting two opposite truths (eg Positions 1 & 2) simultaneously.
Anything goes. In either direction. At whatever speed. Here endeth the Age of Confusion.
;)
To all the moral subjectivists and nihilists (e.g., Kees) who are going to object to OB’s comments:
If we are not entitled to disapprove of the morals of a foreign culture, why exactly are we entitled to morally condemn the actions of someone in our own culture? Is there some meta-morality which obliges people to obey the moral notions of their own culture, just because it is their own?
I have never said that I have only just realised that different cultures have different moralities.
The reason you are getting things like that wrong is that you are falling for your own propaganda. You’ve previously described what I’ve said as crude, silly, I ask damn fool questions, now in this latest sermon you tell the world I over-generalise, over-simplify, am confused. In fact the whole of your discourse with me seems to be on that level. You tell me you won’t answer my substantial questions because it’s not your job to give me a basic education, your sycophantic admirers tell me I make pitiful beginner’s errors and you say “yes, that’s right”. It’s transparent group psychology, the way you address your hangers-on by name and anonymise me, “we’ve been visited by someone”, you are seeking to exclude, downplay, stigmatise, trivialise.
I didn’t say I have only just realised different cultures have different moralities, what I said is that I have recently realised that I don’t have any moral authority to say what you say, that some moralities are better than others. I have changed my mind. I used to think roughly what you do, but I’ve realised I have no valid grounds for thinking that. I’m using the same arguments you use against religious beliefs.
Now in your sermon you tell the congregation that we have to make moral choices whether we want to or not, but I do not believe that is the case. I do not believe there are ultimately any moral rights or wrongs for humans, in the same way that there aren’t any moral rights or wrongs for cats. I believe that in the same way you believe you don’t have to follow God’s commandments, a belief I share with you.
So, in parallel with something Richard Dawkins says about atheism, you don’t believe in some sources of moral authority, and I don’t believe in any.
In my ordinary day to day life, I act as if I believed in a moral authority. I act in compliance with the prevailing moral views in my society, and I generally know when I am breaking the rules. Sometimes I feel guilty about it. We have instinctive urges to comply with the group norms, I have those. I had a moral, religious upbringing, I have the aftermath of that to contend with. In my ordinary life I comply with maybe six of the Ten Commandments, but that doesn’t mean I think they have a moral authority.
The trick you are pulling is the same one you were complaining about the other day when somebody tried it on you. He was telling you you are subject to God whether you like it or not. Now you are telling me I am subject to your absolute moral authority whether I like it or not. I don’t accept it. You haven’t given me any grounds to accept it, you’ve flatly, ungraciously refused to give me even the sketchiest idea where you think your authority comes from. Telling me I have to comply with your moral code is like telling me I have to comply with the Ten Commandments.
The examples I have chosen are not crude, I haven’t over-generalised from them. The example of the people of Tanna is fascinating, whether it interests you or not. But can I remind you, you said yourself that different rules apply on a tropical island. So where does that leave your universal moral values? Why should it be ok for a child of the Tanna to go without education, or for anybody on Tanna to go without a universal human right? Why are the Tanna different to you and me, even in the tiniest way?
The reason is that there are no universal moral rights and wrongs. The only alternative (I think) is for you to say the Tanna are other than human! Or if not the Tanna, then some other group who comply even less with your own moral values.
I want to remind you, when I thought I had moral views, I guess they were pretty similar to yours. I would have said boys and girls should get the same education for example. I had an ideal of a modernised world where everybody would be quite like me, really.
The tv crew followed the men of Tanna around for a long time when they came to Britain. The men stayed with working class, middle class and upper class British households. The men sat in their different lodgings in the evening and chatted at length for the camera about what they had seen and what they made of it. They were completely uneducated, but they were well able to analyse the situation around them and make acute comparisons with their own lives.
We got a good chance to assess them, and they did seem like happy, insightful, intelligent, relaxed, friendly, contented people. They said they preferred their materially simple life on their island. Their lifestyle there had qualities you would admire, they were tremendous at sharing for example. But they are obviously off your moral scale where education is concerned, and I strongly suspect the relationships between the sexes would fall woefully short of your standards for justice and equality.
I can’t think of any reason to justify me saying to those men, you are wrong, this is the wrong way to live. And if I can’t say it to them, how can I say it to anybody else? That doesn’t seem to me like an overgeneralisation, unless you give me some reason to say the Tanna fall outside the human family, and universal moral laws don’t apply to them.
I feel justified in generalising the case of the Tanna to the rest of the world because they are as human as I am. All the people who have behaved and do behave very differently to me have been as human as I am.
I’m not at all comfortable with some of the implications of my new thinking, but that doesn’t make it invalid. Religious thinking is often justified by saying it gives people comfort. Well, I am saying that your wishful thinking about universal morality is giving you the same kind of bogus comfort.
Well at least we got some answers out of you at last.
You have a point, Kees, you have encountered a lot of disagreement here, but it wasn’t orchestrated, you know. Various people simply disagreed with you, and then some got irritated at your willingness to go on talking and talking without ever actually replying. I don’t feel very sorry for you, especially since you’ve effectively been calling me a liar throughout.
It’s interesting that you say it was the men of Tanna that you saw, then you say (revealingly) that they did seem like happy etc people – people, not men. It appears that you think you saw the people of Tanna when in fact you saw only the men. This hints at a flaw in your methodology.
“you said yourself that different rules apply on a tropical island.”
No I didn’t. I said an isolated tropical island was a special case, and also that it depends. I would not say that different rules apply on a tropical island; that is far too sweeping and broad and, indeed, risky.
I didn’t name you in the post not in order to stigmatize you but in order not to, and also in order to generalize. Not everyone who reads N&C reads the comments, you know. I didn’t ‘tell the world’ anything about you, because I didn’t name you, remember?
As for being ungracious – I really don’t have time, or inclination; and besides that, you were pretty rude and belligerent from the beginning, you know. I think you’re an unpleasant character, and I don’t feel like obeying your peremptory demands that I explain metaethics to you.
Here’s a funny thing. Your whole comment is saturated with moral language. You’re very indignant; I’m ungracious, I’m seeking to exclude, I’m nicer to other people than I am to you. Well so what? What’s it to you? Who cares? There are no moral rights or wrongs for humans, remember?
And there’s another thing. The whole wishful thinking, bogus comfort line is just stupid. Thinking some moral demands (to use Sen’s phrase) should be universal is not comforting, it’s more like thinking a particular tool is necessary. Let me put it this way. I want human rights to be universal because I don’t want to be veiled or beaten up or locked up or murdered for being a woman. There’s nothing illusory about that. I’m certainly not saying anything about the imminence of universal women’s rights; I’m expressing an ought, not declaring an is. That’s not delusional in the same kind of way that belief in a kind god who answers prayers is. I don’t think there’s any deity of women’s rights hovering around making things better.
Your beliefs are an attack on every kind of judgement of better or worse not only moral ones. Is setting children on fire while they sleep better than not? Who am I to judge? From whence do I derive my moral authority? How am I know if this is good or evil? I have seen a telly show on men from an island who acted thus. They were happy and couldn’t believe we denied ourselves such a delightful pleasure. Also, note the vicious cruelty of Cats, which I don’t wish to attempt to prevent as I don’t give a damn for their victims. Understand this, by not opposing the similar treatment of those from other places one betrays a similar attitude to humans. If you don’t believe in cruelty- or believe this depends on where one happens to be- how can you believe or judge anything? If one doesn’t wish to oppose cruelties which happen sufficiently far from one, what has one become? If Hilter had gassed Jews for giggles on a small Pacific Island and been happier would his actions have been less evil? Rant terminated.
Well that’s a point. What about that cat thing…
“I do not believe there are ultimately any moral rights or wrongs for humans, in the same way that there aren’t any moral rights or wrongs for cats.”
So you think it would be fine (in the sense of morally neutral; not objectionable) for you to grab a child, cripple it so that it can’t crawl away, and then spend a few lazy hours torturing it?
And yet you get into a big hissy fit because people here disagree with you.
There’s a sense of moral proportion!
Kees: “In my ordinary day to day life, I act as if I believed in a moral authority. I act in compliance with the prevailing moral views in my society, and I generally know when I am breaking the rules. Sometimes I feel guilty about it. We have instinctive urges to comply with the group norms, I have those…”
So have I got this right? As IF you believed…? You don’t steal (say) not because there is a set of rules that you believe are necessary for your society, but in order to keep up the appearance that you do. If you refrain from stealing (or murder, or rape, or arson, or lying, or forgery, or assault with a deadly weapon) there is no greater underlying cause than a felt need to conform, an ‘instinctive urge’ to do what is done by the company you keep.
Am I right in this? Yes or no? (Not that I expect an answer.)
But I’m sure you’ll go far.
Kees,
What can we say about your position? We have been given zero reason to accept it, and it has abysmally implausible consequences.
Am I missing something?
Kees
I did not see the Tanna film, but it is interesting that you write :
“The tv crew followed the men of Tanna around..”
“The men stayed with working class..”
“The men sat in their different lodgings..”
The “men” then become neutrally “they and “their” and then slides into “happy, insightful, intelligent, relaxed, friendly, contented people. “
So in three easy steps the men are the people.
Who speaks for the women? From what you say life for them might be less utopian:
“I strongly suspect the relationships between the sexes would fall woefully short of your standards for justice and equality.”
The women would probably tell the TV cameras much the same as the men. Until you have a Pankhurst, Hirsi Ali, Carolyn Jessop etc there will be no women’s voice.
We do not have the thoughts of the people of Tanna. We have the thoughts of HALF the people of Tanna.
“Well at least we got some answers out of you at last.”
I have simply repeated what I said earlier. I told you earlier I was willing to answer any questions you thought I had missed but you refused to tell me.
…………..
“You have a point, Kees, you have encountered a lot of disagreement here, but it wasn’t orchestrated, you know.
…………..
I don’t mind disagreement in the slightest, that is what I came here for, a discussion of different ways of looking at things. What I have encountered here has been childish abuse, bullying, dehumanisation. I don’t mind that in the slightest either, it’s only words, and it certainly shows you up for what you are.
And it has been orchestrated, you know: when other people have abused me, said for example that my efforts are pitiful, you have explicitly encouraged it.
………………
It’s interesting that you say it was the men of Tanna that you saw, then you say (revealingly) that they did seem like happy etc people – people, not men. It appears that you think you saw the people of Tanna when in fact you saw only the men. This hints at a flaw in your methodology.
……………….
In your description of what B&W is about you say you oppose:
………………….
Those disciplines or schools of thought whose truth claims are prompted by the political, ideological and moral commitments of their adherents, and the general tendency to judge the veracity of claims about the world in terms of such commitments.
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You, and everybody else I have read on this board bar one waverer, are politically, ideologically and morally committed to pacifism, egalitarianism. The Tanna (I strongly suspect) aren’t feminists. Let’s say for the purposes of the discussion that they are strongly anti-egalitarianist in that regard. They have developed their world-view in isolation. I imagine the same is likely to be true of many isolated groups, and less isolated ones. Let’s say their moral view is that men should be dominant over women. Or it could be the other way round, there are societies like that, where the women seem to have the upper hand.
Because your moral views have no more or less authority than those of others, you have no right to tell them they are wrong. I know this doesn’t suit you, but if you were consistent you would accept it. You aren’t consistent. You don’t subject your own moral thinking to the same scrutiny you apply to others.
…………….
“you said yourself that different rules apply on a tropical island.”
No I didn’t. I said an isolated tropical island was a special case, and also that it depends. I would not say that different rules apply on a tropical island; that is far too sweeping and broad and, indeed, risky.
…………………………
A special case = different rules apply. It depends = different rules apply.
…………………………
I didn’t name you in the post not in order to stigmatize you but in order not to, and also in order to generalize. Not everyone who reads N&C reads the comments, you know. I didn’t ‘tell the world’ anything about you, because I didn’t name you, remember?
…………………………
You knew who you meant, you knew I and others would know who you meant. You were speaking to me in the third person and using the first person plural for yourself. You call yourself “we” and you call your friends by name, and until now you have called me “he”.
In miniature, in a relatively harmless artificial environment, you have engaged in the sort of behaviour people engage in when they are about to commit genocide. You were trying to make the outsider into a non-human. I don’t care, you have no power over me. Again, the way you have acted in this discussion shows you for what you are.
………………..
Here’s a funny thing. Your whole comment is saturated with moral language. You’re very indignant; I’m ungracious, I’m seeking to exclude, I’m nicer to other people than I am to you. Well so what? What’s it to you? Who cares? There are no moral rights or wrongs for humans, remember?
……………….
I told you, I mostly go along with the ungrounded moral assumptions of my own society. It would be very difficult not to, for various reasons. But that doesn’t mean my society’s moral views should be universalised.
I am using your own arguments against you. You put yourself forward as a champion of justice and open discussion, but you act like a bully.
“I do not believe there are ultimately any moral rights or wrongs for humans, in the same way that there aren’t any moral rights or wrongs for cats.”
I know the point has been made by OB above, but really, this is staggering if it is sincere. I quite agree that there is nothing to choose, morally, between the cat and the mouse that it tortures to death. But do you sincerely want to tell us that there is nothing to choose, morally, between a torture victim and his torturer?
If society’s rules altered tomorrow so as to punish rape victims with imprisonment and to honour rapists with garlands, that would be OK with you? You would simply ‘go along with the ungrounded moral assumptions of my own society’?
“The Tanna (I strongly suspect) aren’t feminists. Let’s say for the purposes of the discussion that they are strongly anti-egalitarianist in that regard.”
Which ones, Kees? I think it is fair to assume that there is a range of opinion even among the Tanna and that a number of them would have broadly feminist views (all other societies I have any experinece of show a range of opinon on important matters within them). So why should the views of thos Tanna have less force than the views of the men who dominate them?
Anyone can say ‘there are no real rules, just customs and practices. Whatever people decide to do is fine with me; I just go along with the herd for convenience’s sake.’ That’s piss-easy, frankly. Yeah, whatever, pass the bong.
Other people are trying to have a discussion about what should be rules, in the absence of any Old Nobodaddy to order us around, for the fair treatment of anyone and everyone, in a world where unspeakable cruelties abound on all sides. That’s hard. Having drive-bys from passing moral nihilists just makes it harder – especially when they keep reloading and coming back. So thanks, but no thanks.
Kees’ “arguments” have little intrinsic value for an understanding ethics, because, in fact, he doesn’t really argue for anything. He’s a changeling.
If, like Thrasymachus, he were to argue for the virtue of the strongest, that would be something, but he seems to suggest that any social organisation that we come across, has as much claim to moral goodness as any other. So the Mayan or Aztec society that sacrificed a human being before breakfast every morning to ensure the return of the sun, would be as morally praiseworthy as Thomas More’s Utopia.
This seems intuitively false, though OB’s point about moral disagreement seems to support it. We wouldn’t get agreement about what counts as murder, say, from Islamists, because they want the freedom to kill their obstreperous women, if needs be, whether obstreperousness is measured by refusing to wear hijab, or visiting a boy’s house unsupervised.
However, if we were to take a reliable poll of (everyone in) such a society, my guess is that a majority would elect for a society in which such killing would not be permitted. Some women would obviously vote in favour of the status quo, but most would probably not, and some men likewise.
So, I suggest that what is perceived to be moral by one society could obviously by undermined just by opening the practices of that society to free discussion. In which case, Kees arguments fall to the ground, since there is no reason to think of moral practices as static things, especially where free discussion is permitted.
Kees complains about the way he has been treated here, and that he goes for ‘the ungrounded moral assumptions of his own society.’ But can we allow him that? The moral assumptions of his own society are based either on tradition and free discussion, or tradition and authoritative pronouncements by a few. There’s always a ground somewhere if you look for it. The ground for Muslim societies can be found in the Qu’ran, the Hadith, etc.. and in the authoritative figures (authority gained by respect or gun) that interpret these texts. How long would that moral order survive if it were opened to genuinely free discussion?
What makes the tropical island different, if it is different at all, is its isolation from other cultures, and its lack of examples as to how moral change occurs. But given the same circumstances, while they might indeed have a very different morality after a period of free discussion and experimentation, my guess is that it would look more like a liberal society in the end than it would like a Muslim one.
So, perhaps Kees needs a good dose of Rawls, and then things would begin to look different to him, because he would remember that he is discussing what the consequences of an imagined society would be like for him, and so far he has got away with a kind of romantic formlessness because nothing he says has any consequence that touch him in the slightest. Just a little bit of empathy might help him to see that he’s discussing something real.
OB
“I’m certainly not saying anything about the imminence of universal women’s rights; I’m expressing an ought, not declaring an is. That’s not delusional in the same kind of way that belief in a kind god who answers prayers is. I don’t think there’s any deity of women’s rights hovering around making things better.”
You’re declaring an “is”. I quote from your friend Sen, who you quote approvingly:
“[T]he Declaration took the firm view that human rights do not depend on legislation for recognition. People have these rights simply by virtue of being human.”
And why do the authors of the declaration believe we all have these rights? Faith.
So have I got this right? As IF you believed…? You don’t steal (say) not because there is a set of rules that you believe are necessary for your society, but in order to keep up the appearance that you do. If you refrain from stealing (or murder, or rape, or arson, or lying, or forgery, or assault with a deadly weapon) there is no greater underlying cause than a felt need to conform, an ‘instinctive urge’ to do what is done by the company you keep.
Am I right in this? Yes or no? (Not that I expect an answer.)
But I’m sure you’ll go far.
…………………………..
Why don’t you expect an answer? I have answered all your questions and asked you to repeat any that went unanswered, but you declined.
On the other hand, you told me that if I answered your question you would answer mine: but you reneged on that. You realised you can’t answer my question, “what is the basis of your moral authority over others?”, because you have no rational answer, and you simply don’t have the courage to face up to that.
I’m happy to answer your further question here: I refrain from say, stealing for many reasons. Because there are penalties for being caught. Because I have both inherited and learned urges to conform to the morality around me. Because I can get everything I need without stealing. And I do as it happens believe some rules are necessary to keep my society in order, but that does not mean I believe these rules, or the established order in my society, are morally superior to other societies’ rules.
The UDHR claims that we all have a right to property, simply by virtue of being born human. But some humans believe property is theft. The Tanna, from what I could see, place very little moral value on the possession of property. If you need a house, everyone will come together to build you one. If you need food and a bed, they will provide one. They see our system, the one endorsed by the UDHR as universally applicable, as immoral.
“To all the moral subjectivists and nihilists (e.g., Kees) who are going to object to OB’s comments:
If we are not entitled to disapprove of the morals of a foreign culture, why exactly are we entitled to morally condemn the actions of someone in our own culture? Is there some meta-morality which obliges people to obey the moral notions of their own culture, just because it is their own?”
No Neil, there isn’t. You are not entitled to morally condemn the actions of someone in your own culture. You seem quite sure that you are so entitled. Would you like to say what that entitlement is based on? What is the source of your supreme moral authority? You would be the first in this discussion to answer that question.
I believed MRs were mythical. Sadly not.
Moralities serve different purposes. Some are for the gloryfying of extraterrestrial beings, the unifying of tribes or the furtherance of these or those people’s power. Others are for forbidding men(mostly) from violently setting on those who wish to stage peaceful political demonstrations, attend schools, wear immodest dress and be disrespectful to crusty odious bigots. This is my morality, which I wish to impose on everyone. I am a moral authority. Hear me roar.
Kees,
Hold on, what do you mean by this “not entitled” talk? It sounds suspiciously moral.
Here’s what I hope you’re saying, just so you come out consistent: we’re not entitled to make moral judgments in the same way we’re not entitled to think of halibut or entitled to refill a cat’s water bowl or anything—because there’s no such thing as entitlement.
Or do you mean something else? Something inconsistent with your professed rejection of all morality?
Mags,
If you’ve read my other responses I think you’ll have seen I address the point you make, but I’ll just respond quickly to you personally.
I’m very well aware that it seems that only the men of Tanna are being listened to. The point you are missing is that that may very well reflect the mores of their society. Male dominance has been a feature of most societies as far as I am aware.
Your thinking is based on your conviction that your own ethical stance, where men and women are equal, is the only just and moral possibility. And yet that position has only emerged in your small corner of the world during the last century. Most societies, historically and now, have been based on inequality.
For you to say the Tanna need an Emily Pankhurst, that there is something morally wrong with their present position, you need to show where your authority comes from, what it is that allows you to say that your preferred position is superior.
What is the foundation of your moral position? Why are you so sure that equality of the sexes, say, is universally a moral good?
“You are not entitled to morally condemn the actions of someone in your own culture. “
Even if that person rapes and/or murders a child for example?
“What is the source of your supreme moral authority?”
You do not need a supreme moral authority to decide that it is wrong to rape and murder children, you need simply observe that children have an interest in not being raped and murdered and that interest is being infringed.
Are you really prepared to say that stepping in to prevent the murder of a child is, morally speaking, exactly equivalent to contributing to the murderous attack on that child? That will strike most people as pretty fatuous (or something worse, except that we doubt you really have the courage of your convictions)
Kees – I’m not a pacifist.
“I’m very well aware that it seems that only the men of Tanna are being listened to. The point you are missing is that that may very well reflect the mores of their society. Male dominance has been a feature of most societies as far as I am aware.”
The point you are missing is that it’s meaningless (and morally obtuse and epistemically idiotic) to attribute the mores of a society to a fraction of that society. One could say that slavery was a reflection of the mores of the pre-Civil War southern US or that genocide is a reflection of the mores of Sudan or that kleptocracy and tyranny are a reflection of the mores of Zimbabwe, but in all cases that would be – obviously – utterly ridiculous, because it is the ‘mores’ of a minority that are in effect.
Keep your replies more concise; long diffuse ones are a nuisance.
“The Tanna (I strongly suspect) aren’t feminists. Let’s say for the purposes of the discussion that they are strongly anti-egalitarianist in that regard. They have developed their world-view in isolation. I imagine the same is likely to be true of many isolated groups, and less isolated ones. Let’s say their moral view is that men should be dominant over women.”
Same mistake. You’re looking at a particular society (from the depth of your knowledge via a tv documentary) as if it were a monolith. You don’t know what ‘they’ are; you don’t know that ‘they’ are anti-egalitarian; you don’t know how ‘they’ have developed their world-view; you don’t know much about ‘them’ at all. The most you know is that the group of men you saw on the tv documentary said what they said. That is not in any sense straightforward reliable unimpeachable testimony about what all the people of Tanna think.
I and several other people here pointed out this radical flaw in your thinking from the outset, and this is what you ignored and are still ignoring. This is why you are encountering exasperation: you are not engaging with replies but just making repetitive (and increasingly rude) speeches. You’re an exciting specimen of a genyoowine moral relativist, but you’re also a hopeless bore.
Eric,
I notice you’re still addressing me in the third person, but Ophelia has stopped doing that now.
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Kees’ “arguments” have little intrinsic value for an understanding ethics, because, in fact, he doesn’t really argue for anything. He’s a changeling.
If, like Thrasymachus, he were to argue for the virtue of the strongest, that would be something, but he seems to suggest that any social organisation that we come across, has as much claim to moral goodness as any other. So the Mayan or Aztec society that sacrificed a human being before breakfast every morning to ensure the return of the sun, would be as morally praiseworthy as Thomas More’s Utopia.
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No, it would be no more morally praiseworthy than any other, because there are no moral values.
Why would it be better in your view if I were to argue for the virtue of the strongest? Why is it better to argue for something, anything, rather than accepting the truth that the value of any moral position depends on the arbitrary assumptions you make?
…………
“I suggest that what is perceived to be moral by one society could obviously by undermined just by opening the practices of that society to free discussion.”
…………
What you’re missing is that the same applies to your own society. That’s what the Tanna did when they came to the UK. They looked at our society, talked about it, and judged it to be immoral in important respects.
…………
“Kees complains about the way he has been treated here,”
…………
I’m not so much complaining about it as using it to point out what hypocrites you are.
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What makes the tropical island different, if it is different at all, is its isolation from other cultures, and its lack of examples as to how moral change occurs. But given the same circumstances, while they might indeed have a very different morality after a period of free discussion and experimentation, my guess is that it would look more like a liberal society in the end than it would like a Muslim one.
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The island was settled in 400BC. I don’t see how you can say they haven’t had an extended period of free discussion and experimentation already. Their society doesn’t look anything like a “liberal” or a Muslim society to me, any more than an Amazon Indian society looks Muslim or “liberal”.
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“So, perhaps Kees needs a good dose of Rawls, and then things would begin to look different to him, because he would remember that he is discussing what the consequences of an imagined society would be like for him, and so far he has got away with a kind of romantic formlessness because nothing he says has any consequence that touch him in the slightest. Just a little bit of empathy might help him to see that he’s discussing something real.”
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I think it’s you that needs to empathise Eric. It was seeing the men of Tanna as real people leading real lives that got me to this position. What I say certainly does have consequences for me. I have spent a fair bit of time and energy in the past trying to change the world to reflect my moral views better. I’ve protested against wars, I’ve written tirelessly to my MP and other politicians and people in the media about a huge range of issues, I’ve joined political parties and campaign groups, I’ve voted. And now I’m going to try to stop doing all that. It will be a liberation.
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Keep your replies more concise; long diffuse ones are a nuisance.
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Fuck off.
I do agree that if the word “love” is to mean anything with regard to your own daughter, it HAS to mean not strangling them to death. Really, that should be a given, shouldn’t it?
You don’t NEED to show where your moral authority comes from, why should you? Other than to persuade people, but that should come through the strength of your argument, surely?
I’m morally condemning your actions right now, Kees, HOW DOES THAT FEEL?
Come on Kees, stop being coy. Are you really happy to say that there is no moral distinction to be drawn between Anne Frank and the men who murdered her?
“I’m not so much complaining about it as using it to point out what hypocrites you are.”
‘Hypocrite’ is a moral word. It’s not merely descriptive, it’s normative. As I’ve pointed out (and as you, typically, ignored), your language is saturated with normativity.
“It was seeing the men of Tanna as real people leading real lives that got me to this position.”
Yet again. The women of Tanna are also real people living real lives, yet you are apparently perfectly content to ignore them and any views they might have. You are apparently perfectly content to think of them as non-existent and rely solely on the views of the men of Tanna to describe Tanna.
So if there were a tv documentary about a lot of very contented cheerful happy Zanu-PF men, you would conclude that Zimbabwe is a contented cheerful happy society?
Such moral idiocy strains belief. I would suspect a joke – except there is so much typing involved. Who has the time?
Kees – this is my site. You’re a visitor. I get to tell you how to comment. You don’t get to tell me. Period.
It seems to me that there is a logical problem with the cultural relativist view, or possibly several problems.
First, there is a clear distinction between the ‘is’ point – namely that there are and have been many different cultures with vastly different values – which is obviously true, and the ‘ought’ point – namely that we therefore ought to take a particular moral position about those values – which is not.
Second, the assertion that we ought not to condemn or attack other societies’ values is itself a moral position. If no moral position is privileged with respect to any other, then there is no basis for that assertion. After all, suppose I subscribe to moral position A (say western liberalism) and on the basis of that I attack moral position B (say tribal patriarchalism), then which moral position is the basis for the claim that A ought not to attack B? Surely not A or B themselves, because they are biassed. So it would have to be some third position C, which purports to regulate relations between A and B (a sort of umpire requiring fair play). But this won’t work, because the relativist tells us that no moral position is privileged, hence the adherent of C has no standing to play this role. Effectively each moral position is a self-contained moral universe, and there can be no moral regulation of the relationships between them. So if I adhere to A, then the values of A, and only those values, will dictate how I behave with respect to B. Hence the relativist’s premises undermine his own favoured conclusions.
This of course also accords with common sense. If I am deeply committed to liberal values (which I am in fact) then only those values can dictate how I respond to societies or individuals which oppose them.
Kees. Your argument seems to be the following (please correct me if I have misunderstood it):
1) If there are no absolute moral rules, then no system of morality is better than any other
2) There are no absolute moral rules
3) Therefore, no system of morality is better than any other
Now, I would not dispute 2, as I don’t believe that morality is somehow built into the fabric of the universe, and I don’t believe that it is commanded by any god.
However, I would dispute 1. I don’t think that it is self-evidently true, so how would you justify that premise?
I would suggest that all rational people have a basic desire to lead a happy and fulfilled life. I would further suggest that, given the facts of the universe and humans, it an empirical fact that possible systems of morality allow people to achieve this goal to a greater or lesser extent. Hence, all rational people should prefer a system of morality that increases their chance of achieving their goal of living a happy and fulfilled life, rather than decreasing it.
So, if the aim of a moral system is to give people the best chance of achieving their goal of living a happy and fulfilled life, then moral systems will objectively be better or worse at this.
So, we have:
1) A good moral system is one that tends to allow people to achieve their goal of leading happy and fulfilled lives
2) Given the facts of the universe and of human nature, possible moral systems allow people to lead happy and fulfilled lives to a lesser or greater extent
3) Therefore, possible moral systems are good to a greater or lesser extent
Corollary: The absence of absolute moral rules does not entail that no system of morality is better than any other
I presume that you would grant 2 but, since you would not accept the conclusion, dispute 1. At this point, all I would want to claim is that 1 is at least plausible. Perhaps it can be justified beyond all reasonable doubt, or perhaps not, but it is at least reasonable to accept that it might be true. So, the conclusion is not proved, but is at least shown to be plausibly true.
A few other points. According to moral relativists, there is no objective moral truth, only truths relative to social, cultural, historical, or person circumstances. However, the moral relativist now has to swallow some pretty unpalatable conclusions, or else explain why they cannot legitimately be deduced from the premises of moral relativism. For example: slavery was morally right in the American Deep South; killing Jews was morally right in Nazi Germany; the Stalinist purges were morally right in Communist Russia; the inclinations of certain US leaders to impose their views upon other countries by force is morally right for them; oppression of women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan is morally right for them.
In fact, if we dig a little deeper here, we can expose some more problems with moral relativism. Firstly, how exactly do we determine the society, culture, or group that the morality is true for? For example, we might suppose that oppression of women is moral in Iran, but how about the women being oppressed – don’t they count in our calculations? In fact, culture and state is a transient and mutable thing – a set of traditions, religious and political ideologies, and individual, tribal and group power struggles. If a culture or state is oppressive, patriarchal, or tyrannical, there is no reason why its citizens should be forced to endure it. We are defining the correct morality for that society based upon what the powerful wish to impose upon the less powerful. It should be further borne in mind that nobody chose to be born into a particular culture and state. It was purely chance that governed where they were born, and they shouldn’t be condemned to a miserable life under some totalitarian regime because of this.
Following on from this, defining the correct morality in terms of the society or culture has the effect of rendering morally wrong anybody fighting for moral change within that society. So, according to this view, the (slavery) abolitionists were wrong since they were fighting against the accepted societal morality, and the suffragettes were wrong, as they were fighting against accepted societal morality etc. In fact, it would seem that only a non-relativist can be truly tolerant, since they can hold it as an objective property of any good morality that tolerance must be enshrined. By contrast, the relativist has little choice but to accept intolerance as moral for any society in which it is normative. A point usually lost on relativists is that if our morality is such that we wish to impose universal freedom and equality upon other societies, then that morality is true for us.
The moral relativist and I would concur that there is no absolute moral truth. However, I would go on to reject the idea that moral truth exists in a relativistic sense either. Nevertheless, in the absence of an absolute moral truth, I believe that, under almost any rational definition of morality, it is still possible to say that some moral systems are better than others. Hence, our task is to discriminate between the possible candidates, and try to determine what characteristics a moral system should possess in order to be a good one. Oppression, intrinsic inequality, and support for wholesale slaughter of the innocent are unlikely to be part of any such good system, and should not be excused because they are present in some other society or culture.
I think Nick has pretty well done it, but here are a couple of thoughts, Kees. (There, does that help? For someone who claims that there are no moral values, you take offence easily.)
You write this:
But just a moment before you wrote that, you wrote this:
This looks like a contradiction to me. In fact, you obviously think the Tanna have a better moral system than we do. Fine, let them, and you, and others, argue for it, show us why it is better, and see where the argument takes us. Even if they think it’s better, they don’t get to impose it on others.
But you can’t both think that the Tanna have better values than ours, and think that there are no values. Either be consistent, or give up. The point about Rawls is that it would put you in a place where you had to make an argument, which was my idea of letting you play Thrasymachus for awhile. At least, we would know what you are up to. But if you continue in the present way, you are just being a nuisance, since you are contradicting yourself, and yet not acknowledging this. If, in fact, you think there are no values, then there is no point trying to make the world a better place. How could there be a better, if there are no values? So, I guess what I would say is, put up or shut up, because so far you are behaving like a troll.
If in fact you have anything to say, say it clearly and then respond fairly to comments that are made. But if you can say both P and ~P at the same time, you can say anything, and that’s what you’ve been doing.
Kees:
Thanks for straightforwardly answering my question. I was trying to understand whether you believed that people were actually morally obliged to obey the ethical code of their own society, but not any universal ethics – which is an incoherent position – or whether you denied all moral obligation. I see now that you hold to the latter, which is at least coherent, though I disagree with it.
Now as to my entitlement to make moral judgements: I regard the ultimate foundational moral passion to be the will for the happiness, well-being, and freedom from suffering of other conscious beings, in other words, empathy or compassion, in the broadest sense. Immorality is the unjustified infliction of pain on others (and any valid justification has to be consistent with the basic moral passion).
So when I condemn someone’s action, I am simply judging that they are intentionally acting contrary to others’ happiness, well-being, and freedom from suffering. I am not saying that they are violating a transcendental moral code; I am saying that they are making others suffer, and that I don’t perceive any justification for it. This is a factual – not a value — judgement, which could be mistaken, since I might be construing the situation inaccurately.
What is my authority for defining the essential moral passion, other than that I just feel it to be so? Frankly, I haven’t yet worked out the rational basis for this, but it’s not for lack of effort. But the intuition (which is at least not irrational) is so overpoweringly strong that I cannot help thinking that it is correct, much as I am sure that solipsism is false, even though I haven’t rationally disproved it, and am not certain if it can be rationally disproved.
I have been in a few philosophical discussions on various websites in recent years. The hallmark of the troll is a persistent refusal to answer a question, even one of the simple yes/no variety, while accusing their protagonists of doing the same, and while simultaneously claiming to have answered all questions.
Many trolls no doubt get their kicks by imagining that this puts them in the same class as Socrates, the self-described ‘gadfly’. Indeed, even in the case of Kees, there is a small measure of (relative) truth in that.
Then when all others have quit in exasperation the troll inevitably claims victory in the debate. Kees did this at a late stage in the (February) discussion on the ‘There is a part that is dangerous and ugly’ thread.
I would classify Kees as a second order troll. A first order troll would be more succinct.
Kees,
1. I’ve criticized your non sequitur ‘argument’ here: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/notescomment3.php?id=2633&numcomments=77
2. I’ve requested some support for your position above.
3. I’ve questioned your consistency above when it comes to “not entitled” talk.
Do you have any response?
Kees,
You have a number of questions and some issues. Various commenters here have labelled you a troll, a nihilist or a moral relativist. From what you’ve written, it seems to me you’re expressing a strong form of moral epistemic scepticism. You are saying that moral beliefs cannot be justified and you have repeatedly challenged people here on that issue.
Strangely, at least one commenter (on this post or some other) has asked you to justify your scepticism. I say “strangely” because the one strength of such moral scepticism is that it requires no justification – it’s a way of avoiding the regress problem of justification in traditional approaches to moral epistemology.
I’m not about to launch in to a treatise on meta-ethics but really, Kees, your position is not as strong as the force of your comments (and your undoubted self confidence) might suggest.
Either you’re new to thinking (and reading) about issues in moral philosophy or you’re simply baiting people in order to challenge their thinking. I hope it’s the former – I’d hate to think you were being disingenuous. So maybe you need to do a little reading up on the subject
Personally, I take a vaguely coherentist approach – epistemic responsibility and all that (Stephen Hetherington writes well on this). And I am devoted to something akin to Rawl’s idea of reflective equilibrium.
But really you don’t need to have read a whole lot of academic moral philosophy in order to condemn throwing acid in someone’s face. And those people who coyly recuse themselves from a moral response to such events by smugly asking “Who am I to judge?” are either ignorant or insane – if not insincere.
Kees, can I suggest you google “moral epistemology” and just follow the links.
Kees
Thank you for the personal reply.
No it’s not just gender.
I’ve lived in a society based on institutionalized inequality and seen the misery & mind poison it engenders…
No. Let me rephrase that – I lived in a society where inequality was normalized and, as part of the privileged group I only realized with hindsight the full misery and mind poison that it engendered. Any attempt to “opening the practices of that society to free discussion” as Eric MacDonald suggested was viciously quashed
Outsiders did not stand by and say “That’s their culture and who are we to decide for them”, in fact their intervention was instrumental in the change to a democracy in which, though far from perfect, every PERSON is learning “I count.”
By the way, though I don’t agree with all that you say I admire your courage & tenacity in taking on the pack.
Kees: “And if I can’t say it to them, how can I say it to anybody else?”
Exactly.
The fact that you are doing so here is a *direct* contradiction of your own professed (non-)ethics.
To spell it out: if you cannot tell the men of Tanna they are wrong, you cannot tell the people who comment here that they are wrong. Otherwise you have established a moral hierarchy. And this invalidates your argument.
What you claim to be universal (sic) relativism seems to have more in common with the colonial myth of the “noble savage”.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your response. Your argument depends on the assumption that it is morally good for rational people to get what they want, and you think what they want is to be happy and fulfilled.
I think I can identify two flaws in your argument.
1. You don’t explain why it is good for people to get what they want.
2. One class of person may say “what makes me happy and fulfilled is being the richest, most powerful, most dominant and cruel tyrant”. A second class of person may say “what makes me happy is seeing that wealth and power are equally distributed, and everybody is treated equally as far as is practicable”. You don’t explain how we can choose between these two contradictory positions.
Would you like to try to explain?
John Meredith,
I’m not being coy! People are continually accusing me of dodging the question, but I’ve answered the damn question repeatedly and clearly. I don’t believe there are ultimately any grounds for preferring one system of morality over another, so no, uncomfortable though it makes me, I can’t morally condemn nazis, acid throwers, Ghengis Khan or George Bush.
I would like to be able to back up my moral assumptions, so if you can give me a rational reason to, I’d be sincerely grateful. Can you?
Eric,
You said:
I think Nick has pretty well done it, but here are a couple of thoughts, Kees. (There, does that help? For someone who claims that there are no moral values, you take offence easily.)
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I wasn’t offended, I wasn’t pointing out that I was offended, I was pointing out the ploys my opponents are using to present me as a non-person whose statements can be ridiculed and ignored.
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You write this:
I have spent a fair bit of time and energy in the past trying to change the world to reflect my moral views better.
But just a moment before you wrote that, you wrote this:
No, it would be no more morally praiseworthy than any other, because there are no moral values.
This looks like a contradiction to me.
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Yes. As I said, I have recently changed my mind. What I used to think contradicts what I now think. I changed my mind because I can’t find any justification for my former moral views.
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In fact, you obviously think the Tanna have a better moral system than we do.
…………………….
No, I don’t think that, because as I’ve said throughout, I don’t see how you can say one moral system is better than another.
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So, I guess what I would say is, put up or shut up, because so far you are behaving like a troll.
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So, I guess what I would say is, shut up.
Neil Bishop,
Thanks for your response. You said:
“What is my authority for defining the essential moral passion, other than that I just feel it to be so? Frankly, I haven’t yet worked out the rational basis for this, but it’s not for lack of effort. What is my authority for defining the essential moral passion, other than that I just feel it to be so?
Frankly, I haven’t yet worked out the rational basis for this, but it’s not for lack of effort. But the intuition (which is at least not irrational) is so overpoweringly strong that I cannot help thinking that it is correct,… “
This is precisely my point. Your justification for your position is based on exactly the same kind of inexplicable but overpoweringly strong “intuition” that religious believers use to justify their beliefs.
You don’t have any justification for your beliefs apart from a vague, woolly, warm feeling that everybody should be happy and everything should be lovely.
And neither does anybody else in this discussion, but you are the only one so far who has the strength of mind to admit it.
“You don’t have any justification for your beliefs”
Under your epistemology nor do you. Yet you insist that your belief is correct and that the belief of others is wrong unless they live in Vanuatu.
Yu stap wan long long kuke boe! Yu i gat mo pik long save. Tingting blong tingting long kastom stap no tabu ia!
“a vague, woolly, warm feeling that everybody should be happy and everything should be lovely.”
No; that’s wrong and stupid, as I pointed out yesterday. A vague, woolly, warm feeling would be that everybody is happy.
Moral intuition does not equal belief in a fact-claim without evidence, Kees. Deciding to value something or judge something isn’t the same as deciding that something is a fact. The former cannot be proven with evidence, the latter can and must be.
Kees,
I agree, my morality is sourced from the wishes of those who came before me. The morality of the Godly is sourced from a God whose existence I dispute. Therefore, I agree, my morality hasn’t got a higher status than theirs. I won’t agree on my morality not being any better at disincentivising cruelty than the Taliban’s. I agree, one selects or inherits one’s morality. One could choose not to posses a morality, as you may have. If so, please select one soon, preferably ours. Finally, I agree, we shouldn’t hate other people for having moral belifs at variance with ours. Yet I dislike their beliefs/wishes and the consequences of these.
“uncomfortable though it makes me, I can’t morally condemn nazis, acid throwers, Ghengis Khan or George Bush.
I would like to be able to back up my moral assumptions, so if you can give me a rational reason to, I’d be sincerely grateful.”
Why does it make you uncomfortable? And why are you so convinced that your ‘discomfort’ is not rational?
Suppose you’re walking down the street, and you happen upon a large strong young man holding a small child down on the ground, pressing a lit cigarette on the child’s bare arms. Suppose that made you ‘uncomfortable.’ Do you seriously think that feeling would be no more rational than a feeling of pleasure or admiration or approval?
It would not of course be ‘rational’ in the sense of being a mathematical proof or a conclusion in logic – but it would be rational enough in the broader sense. We extrapolate, and empathize, and that’s rational enough. Morality is a human construct, it’s not inscribed in the stars, but it doesn’t need to be inscribed in the stars to be useful and necessary for human purposes.
If that were not true we would all be indifferent whether we lived in Taliban-world or a liberal democracy, but guess what, we’re not. Talibanists like Taliban-world, of course, but there are obvious reasons for that (they’re the ones doing the bullying, not the ones being bullied). Most human beings do not long to be Jews under the Nazis or Bosnians in Sarajevo or women in eastern Congo or Darfuris in Sudan.
“If the latter is the case then you are a psychopath, albeit a relatively benign variety.”
I’m not sure how you know that last part, John M!
Ophelia,
“a vague, woolly, warm feeling that everybody should be happy and everything should be lovely.”
No; that’s wrong and stupid, as I pointed out yesterday. A vague, woolly, warm feeling would be that everybody is happy.
…………………………
Could you try to cut down on the abuse and substitute a little more rational argumentation Ophelia?
I think you’ll find it’s perfectly possible for more than one idea to be vague, woolly and warm at the same time.
So, the idea that everybody is happy could be one such, and the idea that underlies a moral position could be another. As in Neil’s case. Did you see what he said? Isn’t it very like the non-justification religious believers give for their beliefs?
And isn’t it very like the non-justification you have for your own moral stance, and isn’t that the reason you aren’t willing to reveal the grounds for your beliefs?
Well, Kees, clearly argument of any kind cannot prevail with you. I pointed out an earlier contradiction, but you haven’t replied. I assume you have none. It follows that, since a contradiction implies anything, you can say anything, which is what you are doing.
Regarding Ophelia’s ‘abuse’ – which is not what it was: on your terms there can be no such thing as abuse, so what’s your problem? I mean, after all, you only find acid throwing, Nazis and Genghis Khan only uncomfortable. Words shouldn’t count at all then.
Ignore it, it’ll go away.
Kees, I’ve given you rational argument for days on end, and you’ve ignored most of it while noisily claiming to have answered. At this point you have to expect some abuse. Also, of course, this is my site, as I mentioned yesterday, so I get to set the rules. In your case I might decide to set grossly unfair unbalanced ones. Why not after all? Who am I to say what is unfair? Who are you?
Yes I saw what Neil said, but the fact that Neil says he hasn’t worked out a rational basis for his intuitions doesn’t mean that no one has.
I have ‘revealed’ the grounds for my beliefs; here, over the past six years and the past few days; in my new book with JS; in articles; etc.
“Regarding Ophelia’s ‘abuse’ – which is not what it was: on your terms there can be no such thing as abuse, so what’s your problem? “
I don’t want to appear to be ganging up, Kees, but Eric has a point, hasn’t he? I mean you seem to be complaining about the injustice of a tone of voice while claiming that you recognmise no wrong in the killing of Anne Frank. You must see, that this calibration of outrage will strike most people as a little odd?
Well John, it seems that Ophelia thinks it was abuse, despite what Eric says. She says she’s given me rational argument for days on end, and now I have to expect abuse. The truth, as you’ll see if you look at the “Ugly” thread, is that she started the abuse pretty much from the start, and that she has presented very little in the way of rational argument. Most conspicuously, she hasn’t provided a any rational justification at all for her belief that she has a right to tell the world how to live, which is the central issue in this discussion.
As for your suggestion that it is odd for me to complain about such abuse when I don’t care about, say, Anne Frank, I have already responded to that kind of suggestion several times here. But I will repeat what I said in other words for you.
I’m not complaining about being abused myself, I really really really don’t care about that. I’m pointing out that by doing it, Ophelia and the other abusers are going against the moral and other values they claim to hold so dear, that they are acting like the very people they criticise, that they are attempting to label an opponent and his statements as somehow unworthy of consideration.
[The usual libelous evidence-free accusations deleted – Ed.]
Kees said:
“1. You don’t explain why it is good for people to get what they want.
2. One class of person may say “what makes me happy and fulfilled is being the richest, most powerful, most dominant and cruel tyrant”. A second class of person may say “what makes me happy is seeing that wealth and power are equally distributed, and everybody is treated equally as far as is practicable”. You don’t explain how we can choose between these two contradictory positions.
Would you like to try to explain?”
Let me take a slightly different approach here. My primary goal as a rational being is to lead a happy and fulfilled life. As you are a rational being too, then I would presume that this is also your primary goal. Now there are many different ways in which we may each try to achieve our goal, as the set of things that will contribute to me leading a happy a fulfilled life is not identical to the set that will allow you to do the same (although the sets will overlap).
Now, if we lived in the same social group, then there might be a conflict between your goals and mine, as we would both be competing for some of the same limited resources (food, shelter, mates etc). We might decide that we will compete for these resources, by force if necessary, or one or both of us might try to cooperate with the other in order that we might both achive some of our goals. We then have 4 possible situations when we consider the how this might play out in the social group as a whole:
1) We all compete for the resources, by force if necessary. This becomes Hobbes’ dystopian ‘state of nature’.
2) I cooperate with others, but they do not reciprocate (i.e. I become a sucker).
3) Others cooperate with me, but I do not reciprocate (I become a free-rider, or attempt to become a tyrant)
4) We all cooperate with each other (reciprocal altruism)
Now, in terms of realising my goal of leading a happy and fulfilled life, the worst of these options for me is option 2, as I lose all the time. My desires will constantly be frustrated, and I will most likely not end up leading a happy and fulfilled life.
The next worst for me is option 1. I would expect to win some of the time, but I would also expect to lose much more of the time, as everybody else will be ruthlessly competing for the same resources, and will be trying to thwart me.
The second best option for me would intuitively seem to be option 4. I have to make some compromises in achieving my goal, but the cooperation of others ensures that I can go some way towards it. I would expect to partially but perhaps not fully achieve my goal of a happy and fulfilled life.
This brings us to option 3, which seems intuitively to be the best bet for me if I want to achieve my goal. I basically free-ride off everybody else. So, is this what I should do then?
The answer to that is actually no. Whilst it might seem to rationally be the best bet for me if everyone else cooperates, but I do not, in practice the problem is that every other rational person in my social group will reach the same conclusion about themselves. In that case, nobody will end up cooperating, and we will be back to option 1, the Hobbesian state of nature (this is known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma).
So, it turms out that in practice the most rational choice for me if I want to achieve my goal of a happy life is to cooperate with others so long as they cooperate with me too. If any particular member of my group does not cooperate, then I would punish them by not cooperating with them the next time (but I would go back to cooperating if they cooperate the next time).
The conclusion of all of this is that, in a social group, the most rational choice for every individual member of that group if they want to achieve their goal of a happy and fulfilled life is for the group to be organised in such a way that all members cooperate with each other. So, that is what I should rationally choose for myself, that is what you should rationally choose for yourself, and so on.
In fact, that is probably how our moral sense evolved. In the social groups of our ancesters, the most adaptive evolutionary strategy became one in which members of the group chose to cooperate with others, so long as the other members reciprocated. And since, at a basic level, our feelings of happiness are strongly tied to what is beneficial to us from an evolutionary point of view, this adaptive strategy also gives us the best chance of achieving happiness.
As part of this evolutionary strategy, we developed such strong emotions as shame and guilt, remorse, and the desire for retribution for transgressors (and perhaps also expanded the circle of people for whom we would feel compassion), as this helps to enforce the cooperation within the society by helping to prevent us and others from becoming free-riders.
This is also the origin of the Golden Rule, as it falls naturally out of a state of affairs in which you treat others well so that you will yourself be treated well.
Some people will of course still not cooperate with others if they think that they can get away with it by, for example, trying to free-ride, stealing from others, or killing them for a variety of reasons. However, it is rational for every other member of the group to try to stop them from doing this by punishing or restraining them. So, the vast majority who make this choice will end up living a less happy and fulfilled life. So, ultimately, this is not a rational choice for any individual to make in a cooperative society, as they will most likely end up losing.
There are also a few people who just lack any moral sense at all – no compassion towards others, no feelings of shame, guilt, or remorse. These rare people (psychopaths or sociopaths) just cannot function as part of a society at all, as the only way that they can achieve their goal of a happy life is a way that will likely cause them to be removed from society (and possibly killed). However, for the rest of us our natural moral sense usually points us in the direction of what will simultaneously be best for us and for others in our society.
So, to go back to your original questions:
1) The moral framework within a society that gives me (as a rational agent) the best chance of achieving my goal of a happy and fulfilled life is the same one that gives other people in general the best chance of achieving that goal too. So, to turn that around, I should rationally choose a moral framework that gives other people the best chance of being happy, as it will do the same for me too.
2) As I have shown, in general it is the case that the set of moral rules that each one of us should rationally choose is the same. Such a moral system (that gives me and everybody else the best chance of attaining our goal of a happy life) we might term a ‘good’ moral system.
By the way, you didn’t justify the premise that if there are no absolute moral rules, then no system of morality is better than any other.
Kees, you have to stop implicitly calling me and/or us liars. You have to stop claiming to be able to read everyone’s mind, you have to stop imputing motives.
“Ophelia and the other abusers are going against the moral and other values they claim to hold so dear, that they are acting like the very people they criticise, that they are attempting to label an opponent and his statements as somehow unworthy of consideration.”
Now that is entirely mistaken; it could not be more wrong. That is a complete misunderstanding. I make no claim whatsoever to ‘hold dear’ a value of extending the hand of friendship to a determined ill-mannered semi-libelous troll. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. I do disapprobate merely random abuse; that much is true; but harsh criticism of badly-argued belligerent nonsense is not random abuse. In this case the opponent and his statements are not ‘somehow’ unworthy of consideration; they are demonstrably unworthy of consideration because of the crudity of his claims and his chronic refusal to engage with disagreement.
(A harried looking waiter rushes up to the table)
Would the gentleman care to see our justification list?
The Pragmatist and Utilitarian varietals are lovely.
Or, perhaps a nice Reliabilism? No?
Would Foundationalism or perhaps Coherentism suit the gentleman this evening?
(The waiter looks about nervously, noting all the other tables’ in his section.)
I’ll give you a few minutes to consider some of your options and check back later.
I think it is evident that Kees is a troll. Trolls eat responses and spit out nonsense. Don’t feed the trolls!
Ophelia,
On your “About B&W” page you say:
“to tell the truth about the world it is necessary to put aside whatever preconceptions (ideological, political, moral, etc.) one brings to the endeavour”
I had a preconception that people would be happier if they were educated, joined the model liberal world, had equal rights, technology. Things would be decided rationally.
Despite your scorn, the programme I saw about the Tanna was an unusually serious, imaginative and thoughtful piece of television, the result of a long term project focussing on ethical issues. I’m not embarrassed that this was the catalyst for a change of mind.
They don’t have education, equal rights, technology. They believe that Prince Phillip, the husband of the British Queen, is God. They gather food and the rest of the time they stand around talking, singing, dancing.
I’m not prepared to say that they shouldn’t. I have abandoned my preconception that people would be happier if they were educated, secular, liberal.
I have just discovered that according to a UN survey, the people of Vanuatu, of which Tanna is the largest part, are the happiest on the planet.
Kees I know what the About page says, don’t keep repeating it at me.
A tv documentary as a catalyst is one thing, but stopping there is another. As several people have tried to tell you from the beginning, this is a large subject with a large literature. You should be embarrassed to keep repeating the same banalities over and over again, all referring back to your tv documentary, when you should be doing some reading, instead.
So what if the people of Vanuatu are happy? Who says being happy is better than being miserable?
You didn’t answer my question about the child and the cigarettes.
You are indeed a troll; go away now and do some reading.
Including a Bislama dictionary. ;-)
Ophelia,
When I point out your failure to practice what you preach I am speaking to the other people reading, not just to you.
[Trollish evasions, belligerence, non sequiturs, fallacies, irrelevancies, omissions, and inaccuracies deleted – Ed.]
Kees: an analogy that further illustrates points 3 and 4 in my previous comment.
The life expectancy in Japan is higher than that in the UK. Also, in Japan the average salt intake is far higher than in the UK. By your reasoning, a high salt intake must be part of the reason that people in Japan live longer. However, in reality the reverse is true. When people in Japan cut their salt intake, their life expectancy rose higher still. So, the high salt intake was actually a detrimental factor for the life expectancy of the Japanese.
So, from the fact that people of Tanna have no equality or other liberal values, and do not have access to modern medical technology, but are still very happy (if this is actually true), you are not justified in concluding that these factors contribute in any way to their happiness. In fact the reverse might be true. You have not demonstrated that these factors are relevent contributary factors to their supposed happiness.
For all you know, if their society was encouraged to become more liberal, and they were given access to modern medical technology, they might become happier still. You certainly have not demonstrated otherwise, you your case is not at all secure.
Nick,
Thank you for your thoughtful posts of 2009-03-05 – 13:15:16 and 2009-03-06 – 06:51:51.
[Trollish evasions, belligerence, non sequiturs, fallacies, irrelevancies, omissions, and inaccuracies deleted – Ed.]
Kees – thanks for your reply. I have a few comments:
“I measured the happiness of the Tanna men myself, completely informally, when I watched the TV programme. The men spoke at length, in their own language, between themselves, at their leisure, over a period of many months. Their speech was extensively subtitled, the programme makers were pleased to have got a programme on air with so much subtitling, and without a presenter to mediate what the men were saying.”
I would suggest that your informal view on this carries little weight, as evidence can be presented to you in a selective or misleading way, and there is no way for us to know that your powers of judgement are reliable in such matters anyway.
However, you then say: “I now discover that my informal judgement that these were very happy people is reflected by a survey carried out by the United Nations themselves. The very body that sets out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights discovers that the happiest people in the world don’t comply with many of the requirements in the Declaration! And being the United Nations, I expect they did ask the women how they felt, don’t you think?”
I do not know what methodology the UN used for this survey, and I suspect that you don’t either, so I certainly cannot presume that it is a reliable one, or that they even consulted the women. That may be the case, but it is not demonstrated to be the case.
“I don’t see how you can justify your suggestion that they might be happier if they had more of what we have. They have seen what we have, and they think they are happier because they don’t have it!”
I am suggesting that we do not know one way or the other, based upon the available evidence, whether they would or would not be happier if they had SOME of the things that we have (more equality and freedom, and more access to modern medical care for example). You certainly haven’t demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that they would be less happy if this were to obtain.
Moreover, the view that they expressed (that they wouldn’t be happier) might be a selective one (just the men, for example, who have an interest in maintaining the status quo), or may be lumping in all sorts of other elements of our society (very big and anonomous cities, hectic lifestyle etc), and may just reflect an unwillingness to change due to custom or tradition. Even if representative and referring only to certain relevent aspects of our society (such as equality), then it is anyway based upon a position of ignorance, as there is no reason to suppose that they can accurately predict whether they would be happier or not if they had these elements as part of their society. Their initial resistance may rapidly become gleeful acceptance for all you or they know.
“If, as I suspect, the women in that society are subservient, but still come out as happy, then I don’t see how we can justify sending Ophelia in there to tell them how they are oppressed, and therefore not really happy after all.”
First of all, you haven’t really demonstrated that the women are happy and, more importantly, you haven’t demonstrated that they wouldn’t be happier if they had more equality and freedom.
“Is Ophelia one of the happiest people in the world? It doesn’t fucking look like it to me. She seems permanently enraged.”
I am not in a position to comment on this but, in any case, you cannot draw a conclusion based upon one example like this.
To summarise, your argument seems to be the following:
1) The Tanna all live happier and more contented lives than do people in modern liberal democracies
2) If they were to introduce certain modern liberal values into their society (e.g. equality and freedom, access to modern medical care), then the Tanna would all be less happy
3) Therefore, the Tanna should not introduce certain modern liberal values into their society (e.g. equality and freedom, access to modern medical care)
However, you have not demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that 1 is true (your opinion of the overall happiness may be wrong, the UN survey may be methodologically flawed, or you may have just misinterpreted the results, for example). But, more importantly, you have not demonstrated 2 to be true. Therefore, your conclusion does not follow, and your argument is a non sequitur.
By the way, I am not proposing that liberal values should be imposed upon the Tanna. Rather, I am pointing out that your case that the Tanna are demonstrably happier than people in liberal democracies, despite lacking many liberal values, and would be less happy if they adopted some of these values is not demonstrated to be true.
Why is it ok for kees to argue that happiness (what a vague term) is any measure of value when he denies the validity of ANY measure of value.
Kees.
By the way, the survey that you refer to is not from the UN, but from nef (new economics foundation), which places a doubt in my mind about how reliable your knowledge is on this subject.
Furthermore, the ‘happiness index’ that nef calculates, and which Vanuatu did the best on, is calculated in a very idiosyncratic way that is heavily biased towards countries that have a low ecological footprint.
To quote the nef website on this – “The Index doesn’t reveal the ‘happiest’ country in the world. It shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens” (see: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/about.htm)
The calculation is as follows:
(life satisfaction x life expectancy)/(ecological footprint)
The nef website says that the life satisfaction value is self reported, but mentions nothing much else about how it is sampled. Furthermore, the inclusion of the ecological footprint value biases the index very much against countries with high levels of consumption. It is also of dubious relevence in terms of happiness, as countries may have a high consumption but still be happy.
As a matter of interest, the results of another happiness survey were released at about the same time as the nef one, with a very different ordering. In that survey Denmark came top. See here for an article that compares the two – http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1414
So, the very particular and potentially dubious way that the happiness index that you refer to is calculated further reduces the weight that I would give to your claim that the Tanna all live happier and more contented lives than we do in liberal democracies. You have failed to demonstrate that this is true and, of course, you have also failed to demonstrate that the Tanna would not be happier if their society were more equal and free. So, your argument is a non sequitur, and your case fails.
Kees,
You write: “Suppose you’re walking down the street, and you happen upon a group of people cutting bits off a child’s genitals. Suppose that made you ‘uncomfortable.’ Do you seriously think that feeling would be any more rational than a feeling of pleasure or admiration or approval? If the child was a Jewish, American or Tanna boy, many observers might well feel considerable pleasure, admiration and approval. An observer who didn’t share their moral preconceptions might feel this was torture, and far worse than a cigarette burn to the arm. The same argument applies to all moral questions, and you have no rational response to it. There are no moral universals.”
This is a textbook example of a non sequitur. From the fact that different people have different responses/perspectives/beliefs/etc., it absolutely does not follow that there are no objective truths.
Surely you can see this. It’s a point taught and understood in all intro classes. It’s the most basic point in the world.
Also: you keep conflating objective truths with universal truths (there may be an objective moral fact for each particular case, but no simple universal truths that capture all the moral facts).
BRIANM,
I wonder the same thing. It would be flatly inconsistent for him to accept that happiness has any value at all.
I think perhaps he’s conflating “different people are happy under different practices” with “different people have different beliefs about what is right”.
I crossed with the three latest comments – Brian’s was the last I’d seen when I commented.
In a way it’s good to give Kees detailed reasons, but in another way it’s not so good to encourage him. From the point of view of his own understanding, he is clearly another Nicholas Beale, entirely impervious to argument and evidence alike, and rude and belligerent with it. (Contrary to his own account, in which he is the poor ostracized victim, he’s been rudely belligerent from the outset; trollish, in short.) I think returns are now diminishing.
“Surely you can see this. It’s a point taught and understood in all intro classes. It’s the most basic point in the world.”
Yeah see this is why it’s time to stop feeding him. He either can’t or won’t see this (or anything else), and the attempt to argue him into it is clearly futile. It’s been instructive and/or entertaining in some ways but I think it’s past its sell-by date now.
Hi Dave,
She thinks nobody could seriously doubt that hurting children is wrong, and generalising to the whole of our discussion, that is where she gets her moral absolutes from. My counter-example showed that some people would get a feeling of pleasure or admiration or approval from the hurting of a child, in a way which others might regard as torture.
[Hopeless confusion and misunderstanding deleted – Ed.]
My participation in this discussion has been in good faith throughout…What do you think you look like, screaming troll troll troll?
[Selected trollery deleted – Ed.]
Ah…the argument has only been “in good faith.” I agree. Arguing that one can not (you say “Should not…but then, isn’t “should” a moral judgement?) make a moral judgement against a pedophile raping a child in the middle of the street. Your good faith argument is that all actions, all beliefs, all thoughts are equally moral and valid.
I guess I am not sophisticated enough to appreciate the philosophical rigor and effectiveness of this belief non-system. You are so right…utter non judgement is the only way to run a society.
I give up.
“She thinks nobody could seriously doubt that hurting children is wrong”
That is exactly what I do not think, as I said very explicitly in the very post we are commenting on. I know very well that some people think torturing children is right (under certain circumstances and carefully chosen definitions). I asked what you thought – but of course (as usual) you didn’t answer. This is why I’m not going to let you go on trolling at will here. If you manage to say something sensible, I might let it stay, but everything else will be ruthlessly pruned.
How does one go about ‘screaming troll’ in an online discussion? I’m not screaming, I’m typing.
Ophelia,
To scream online:
TROLLLLLL! TROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLl! Elventy11!!!!
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
Are the rest of you really all content to have Ophelia decide what you can and can’t read? Not to be allowed to judge what I say for yourselves?
Well, obviously there’s no point in me hanging around here if she deletes my carefully considered words, and in any case I don’t really want to participate in a forum that is run this way, so I’ll be off. I suggest anybody who values freedom of expression should tell her so, and leave too.
[Further trollery deleted – Ed.]
“Well, obviously there’s no point in me hanging around here…so I’ll be off.”
Well done, Kees; that was the goal.
Do of course keep in mind that you spent more than a week commenting to your heart’s content, ignoring nearly all questions, answering at random, confusing terms, conflating opposing ideas, making increasingly wild charges, failing ever to grasp what people explained to you no matter how patiently they tried. More than a week was enough, and I don’t want any more of it, hence the deletions.
You have freedom of expression, of course; that does not entail any obligation on me to provide you with a platform indefinitely.
Thanks for taking out the trash, O. I kept writing and re-writing a serious response to Kees in my head (all about individual interests as compared to reified notions of “societies” as actors), but I couldn’t bring myself to type it up for fear of provoking more vomit from Kees. It’s really too bad – I remember being briefly caught up in that nihilistic maelstrom of moral relativism as a young college kid. There are ways to think one’s way out of it, but Kees was so enamored of his “discovery” he didn’t want to. Amazing how cocksure someone can be while proclaiming no one can know anything ever.
And if you’re still reading this Kees – don’t comfort yourself with the cheap delusion that we’re all Ophelia’s sycophants. Most of us came here because we agree on the importance of the topics she brings up, some of us admired her writing and then found her blog, and most of us enjoy the intellectual camaraderie here. We don’t always agree with each other, or with Ophelia, but we do care about quality of argumentation. That includes conversing in good faith (hint).
Oh come now, Josh, you’ll never get Kees to believe that – you might as well admit the truth – I lured you all here with promises of candy and dirty magazines – no that’s not right, I kidnapped you all off the streets, and I won’t let you leave. I tell you what to think and say, I pinch you when you get it wrong, I send my bruisers to rough you up every third Monday. I’m a monster! Mwahahahaha!
Well, Kees is certainly a very determined chap. He has actually emailed me, and I daresay a number of others on this list, to ask whether we are “happy to have Ophelia deciding you shouldn’t read criticism of her position.” So he didn’t simply stop hanging about. He has tried to conspire to knock Ophelia off her loft perch!
I thought, given his note, that I should respond, so, if anyone at all is interested, here it is (it’s a big longish).
No Kees,
I do not object to Ophelia editing your messages, since you seem to be so impervious to argument. You cannot simply repeat yourself over and over, without meeting some objections to this wearying procedure.
If you want to base yourself on Bernard Williams, for example, you must read Bernard Williams, for he is not a ‘crude relativist’ in the way that you are suggesting. While he understands, and so does Ophelia, that our moral beliefs are rooted in social relations, and social constructions, this does not mean that they are completely relative to a society or a scrap of society.
Moral beliefs of different societies are related by the function that they perform, which is similar (if not wholly identical) in all societies or social systems. The reason for this probably lies the way that humans have evolved, and how societies are formed.
For example, In his book “Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy”, Williams says that “Social practices could never come forward with a certificate saying that they belonged to a genuinely different culture, so that they were guaranteed immunity to alien judgments and reactions. {para] So instant relativism is excluded. For similar reasons, strict relational relativism in ethics is excluded altogether. It has had able defenders, but it is implausible to suppose that ethical conceptions of right and wrong have a logically inherent relativity to a given society.” (158)
In other words, societies are not hermetically sealed off from one another, and, besides, human beings, as a species, have many characteristics that are arguably innate, in the sense that they belong to us as a species, Amongst these characteristics is the tendency to use evaluative language for actions, cognates for the English words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, say. And relativism is not an inbuilt characteristic of this language. So when one society meets another, the tendency is to continue to use words in an evaluative way, and the need will arise, since we can’t live together effectively without using these words consistently, to find some modus vivendi so that agreement is sought over the use of evaluative terms. It would be both unreasonable and ineffective, as you should be now have seen, to continue to insist that you can use evaluative words any way that you like. This continued idiosyncratic way of using language will soon cause ostracism, and eventually hostility, if you continue the process too long. The whole point of evaluative language is to come to arrive at norms which will be considered socially acceptable in human groups. Those who insist on standing outside, claiming that they will use whatever norms they choose, and that there is nothing to choose between them, will find themselves left outside for good, unless they are prepared to find meanings for these terms on which others can agree.
One of the reasons why the present stance of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion is thought to be so deeply immoral, is that it does not seem to be able to do this. It stands outside a widespread and growing consensus upon these things, and thunders its disapproval, but it cannot give reasons why we should listen. In the same way, so long as you continue to act in the way that you are doing, all you can do is to stand outside and squeak your disapproval.
As Bernard Williams further says: “… while it is true that nonobjectivity does not imply any relativistic attitude, there does seem something blank and unresponsive in merely stopping at that truth. … Some people have thought that [confronted with another group, we should just turn off our ethical reactions], believing that a properly relativistic view requires you to be equally well disposed to everyone else’s ethical beliefs. This is seriously confused, since it take relativism to issue in a nonrelativistic morality of universal toleration.” (159) And then he goes on to say that we could, if we liked, simply go on to say that everyone else is wrong, which, as he says, “seems a remarkably inadequate response.” (160) But it does suggest a way out of the impasse, and lead us to reflect on whether we must respond relativistically or whether that is impossible, and this may show us a way out.
Now, I’m not going to argue the whole thing here, but he does conclude that something like the freer societies of the west, where we can carry out experiments in living, and find which values really do lead to the best possibilities for human flourishing, are better than closed societies, no matter how apparently happy they may be, where values language is coerced instead of freely chosen and amended as time and change indicate that it must be.
But read Bernard Williams chapter “Relativism and Reflection” in the book cited above, and begin to work out what rational moral discussion might look like, then come back, and perhaps Ophelia will not be so heavy with her red pencil!
Regards,
Eric MacDonald
Thank you Eric MacDonald for the Bernard Williams explanations.
You say: “One of the reasons why the present stance of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion is thought to be so deeply immoral, is that it does not seem to be able to do this. It stands outside a widespread and growing consensus upon these things, and thunders its disapproval, but it cannot give reasons why we should listen.”
This is why we must keep speech free and robust, especially in the face of creeping internalized censorship as Kenan Malik describes
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6019
and the United Nations recent resolution against criticism of religion.
…otherwise we will just end up a closed society.
Precisely!
Fomenting a rebellion is it. That’s great. So he literally does think I have sinister powers to keep people reading and commenting here against their wills? Funny guy.
He’s indignant because most of the last deletion was something Bernard Williams wrote and a blurb of Williams by Nussbaum. Too bad. The Williams was just dropped in like a stone as if it could substitute for any argument by Kees, and the Nussbaum of course was totally beside the point. In any case I had simply decided to bring down the curtain on the troll (unless he actually managed to say something convincing), so that was that.
If it’s not too much trouble, you could keep my candy and porn and get me a puppy.
Oh, I almost forgot, is the summer required reading list posted yet, mistress? ;^)
A puppy in suspendies and a bra, that’s what you’ll get. And tomorrow is the third Monday! Mwahahaha!
O:
**Oh come now, Josh, you’ll never get Kees to believe that – you might as well admit the truth – I lured you all here with promises of candy and dirty magazines **
See, that’s just the problem. If you want to lure Today’s Kids, you have to do so with video porn on demand. Blue magazines have achieved the status of LPs – charming and fun to contemplate on a Sunday afternoon, but useless for everyday tasks unless one is stranded on a desert island (see TV show Lost for example of appropriate use).
Like, duh, O.
Wull, I know, but I wanted the dirty raincoat note, which is of its nature slightly archaic. I mean candy’s no good either, it should be macadamia brittle or something. Candy and dirty mags was meant to sound out of it.
[blows nose on filthy handkerchief]