Originally posted by moonbusThe funny part is that we are animals no more and no less than a bison or tiger, bit more brains but that's it.
Let me ask you this: do you believe that there is only one right morality, and that anything which diverges from that is either wrong (false, satanic) morality or no morality at all?
Yet we make up religions that put us on top of the life totem pole, so high that we imagine ourselves as having souls whereas all other life forms are just too low on the totem pole to have souls.
It's just a tiny bit arrogant to imagine humans so far up the pole as to have souls and SOME of us go to some heaven and the rest go some kind of hell.
If a real god came down and saw all that, I am sure it would go 'good grief, are YOU people full of shyte if you think you are WORTHY enough to have souls. Not even my lesser god buddies have souls. I have one, I am one of the top dog gods around here, humans? What a joke''.
Originally posted by moonbusThat's not what you claimed above. You claimed that moral judgments only apply within a culture, not to a culture. MLK Jr. was applying moral judgments to a culture. If he was correct to do so, by your own lights, then you are being inconsistent.
It certainly did constitute moral progress, MLK was right to criticize the institutionalized racism of the society in which he lived, and I never maintained otherwise. What I maintain is that cross-cultural or cross-civilizational moral judgments are not valid. Claiming that some practice--such as execution for adultery-- was immoral within a civilization wh ...[text shortened]... is no ground for claiming that our morality, or our moral understanding, is superior to theirs.
What you meant to say, above, is that moral judgments can indeed apply to a culture, but can only be leveled by those who are situated within that same culture. You're clearer in your reply on this point.
But here are a couple initial problems:
First, what principled explanation can you give for it being appropriate, valid, justified or whatever for MLK Jr. to render moral judgments on his culture, such that it doesn't entail that Gandhi would have also been justified in rendering, concurrently, these same moral judgments on our culture? Somehow, on your view it's OK for MLK Jr. to say that Jim Crow norms are immoral despite being culturally sanctioned. But if Gandhi says the very same thing about Jim Crow norms, it's out of bounds. This is arbitrary.
Second, you need an account of what constitutes a culture or, minimally, what individuates cultures. Presumably, you'll say that a culture is constituted, at least in part, by a widely shared set of norms. But how much of this set must I share, or must have MLK Jr. shared, in order for it to be appropriate, valid, justified or whatever to render moral judgement on the culture? Suppose that over time MLK Jr. became more radical, rejecting more and more of the norms that, in our culture, either support or exemplify forms of inequality. On your view, is it possible that MLK Jr. could reason himself right out of the culture? Is it possible he could reject enough of our cultural norms that he ends up inhabiting a space outside our culture? If so, then on your view it seems to follow that his moral criticisms could legitimately apply one day but not the next day; not on that day when he rejects some final norm. That seems an awful lot like a counter-example to me.
"That's not what you claimed above. You claimed that moral judgments only apply within a culture, not to a culture. MLK Jr. was applying moral judgments to a culture. If he was correct to do so, by your own lights, then you are being inconsistent. "
MLK was applying moral judgments within his own culture, not to some other one, which is what I've been saying all along.
Originally posted by moonbusThat doesn't address the objections above. Read the rest of the post...
"That's not what you claimed above. You claimed that moral judgments only apply within a culture, not to a culture. MLK Jr. was applying moral judgments to a culture. If he was correct to do so, by your own lights, then you are being inconsistent. "
MLK was applying moral judgments within his own culture, not to some other one, which is what I've been saying all along.
Originally posted by moonbusOne could argue that actually MLK was part of a separate culture vying for recognition. But I think bbarrs post rather destroys your whole position.
MLK was applying moral judgments within his own culture, not to some other one, which is what I've been saying all along.
"... an account of what constitutes a culture or, minimally, what individuates cultures. Presumably, you'll say that a culture is constituted, at least in part, by a widely shared set of norms."
Shared values constitutes a part. Other defining characteristics may include, but are not limited to, language, geographic region, common history, myths, religion, legends, customs (marriages for love vs. arranged marriages, that sort of thing), forms of art (painting, sculpture, dance, music, etc. etc.). In some cases, ethnicity is a defining characteristic (the Jews, for example, view themselves as an ethnically distinct group, this is one of their defining characteristics). In America, this last item would not apply, since America is a land of immigrants. No single criterion will suffice to define a culture, nor will any single exhaustive list of criteria apply to all cultures, since every culture is non-trivially unique.
Cultures are not static. They move, grow, and adapt to inside and outside influences, like organisms. Sometimes they assimilate outside influences and are changed by them (e.g., India before and after British colonialism). Given this point, it follows that ...
any given culture can absorb only so much 'conscience pricking' from within. Up to some prior-unknowable limit (which is a grey area, not a hard line), a culture can adapt to criticism from within (as America did in response to the civil rights movement). Beyond that limit, a society will respond with ostracism, exile, or even execution to remove a too-disruptive critic. The limit is not absolute; this too moves, grows, and responds to internal and external influences.
One is reminded of the Soviet government's response to people such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov: too hot to handle, but too famous to execute, so it was the gulag or exile for them. That was the U.S. government's initial response to MLK too--he spent many years in prison for his civil rights activities, until his cause became too famous to keep hushed up any more.
Criticism from without is not merely notoriously ineffective. The U.S. routinely chides China for its human rights abuses, and China routinely chides the West for being capitalist pigs doomed to the dustbin of historical materialism. If they didn't have atom bombs, it would be laughably ludicrous posturing.
Originally posted by moonbusAgain, none of this actually responds to the objections I raised above.
"... an account of what constitutes a culture or, minimally, what individuates cultures. Presumably, you'll say that a culture is constituted, at least in part, by a widely shared set of norms."
Shared values constitutes a part. Other defining characteristics may include, but are not limited to, language, geographic region, common history, myths, religion ...[text shortened]... storical materialism. If they didn't have atom bombs, it would be laughably ludicrous posturing.
Originally posted by twhiteheadSo I gathered. Let's call that Position A. [Think of Christianity.]
Yes.
There is also Position A' (A-prime): formally identical to A (that is, there is only one right morality) but with different content. I.e., different things are considered as worthy of praise or censure, different things are considered virtuous or vicious. [Think of Christianity compared to Islam.]
Position B: there are different moralities, formally, not merely with different content. E.g., shame-cultures as distinct from guilt-cultures, rule-ethics as distinct from virtue-ethics. [Think of Confucianism compared to Christianity-Islam.]
Position C: amoralism. [Think of godless communism.]
There is only one world and we have to share it. Given that not everyone is going to convert to Position A and that the proponents of Position A have not sufficient power to enforce universal conversion to Position A, how are we to get along? By condemning the proponents of A-prime and B and C and telling them they are "pigs doomed to the dustbin of God's Plan A", or rather by according them the same respect and dignity that you would show your like-minded Position A membership?
"But if Gandhi says the very same thing about Jim Crow norms, it's out of bounds. This is arbitrary. "
Interesting that you should mention Gandhi, given that he believed that people were born into a given station in life and that they should stay there and not intermarry with people from other castes. Ah, but he changed his mind about this later... Yes, Gandhi too made errors of judgment.
Originally posted by moonbusThat's irrelevant to my objections, as you well know. Now, it seems, you're deliberately avoiding the issue. Look, suppose MLK Jr. passed moral condemnation on racist aspects of U.S. culture for some set of reasons. Suppose Gandhi similarly passed moral condemnation on U.S. culture for the same set of reasons. MLK Jr. does it from within the culture, Gandhi does it from outside the culture. But (here's the objection) why the hell does this make a difference? Do you have an explanation or do you not?
"But if Gandhi says the very same thing about Jim Crow norms, it's out of bounds. This is arbitrary. "
Interesting that you should mention Gandhi, given that he believed that people were born into a given station in life and that they should stay there and not intermarry with people from other castes. Ah, but he changed his mind about this later... Yes, Gandhi too made errors of judgment.
Please don't be coy or disingenuous. Just answer the objection or admit you can't.
Originally posted by moonbusFrankly, it's hilarious you seem to think this view of yours can serve as the basis for some norm of cross-cultural respect and toleration when you explicitly disavow that there even are norms that can apply cross-culturally.
So I gathered. Let's call that Position A. [Think of Christianity.]
There is also Position A' (A-prime): formally identical to A (that is, there is only one right morality) but with different content. I.e., different things are considered as worthy of praise or censure, different things are considered virtuous or vicious. [Think of Christianity compared t ...[text shortened]... ng them the same respect and dignity that you would show your like-minded Position A membership?
On your view, if U.S. culture was committed to a norm of moral imperialism and set off to intervene in the affairs of other cultures, those cultures wouldn't have grounds to criticize the U.S. Why? Because, on your view, that would be to pass a moral judgement on U.S. culture from outside of it.
If you're a normative cultural relativist, you have to swallow the implications. And one of the implications is you don't get universal norms of toleration and respect. That it's the desire for such a universal norm that typically passes for a reason in favor of normative cultural relativism is ironic.
"Suppose Gandhi similarly passed moral condemnation on U.S. culture for the same set of reasons. MLK Jr. does it from within the culture, Gandhi does it from outside the culture. But (here's the objection) why the hell does this make a difference? Do you have an explanation or do you not? "
External moral criticism may be ignored for the same reason that the Chinese government routinely ignores America's political criticism of China's human rights record, for the same reason that America routinely ignores China's economic criticism of capitalism: 'it's none of their business,' 'it's an internal affair.'
"On your view, if U.S. culture was committed to a norm of moral imperialism and set off to intervene in the affairs of other cultures, those cultures wouldn't have grounds to criticize the U.S. Why? Because, on your view, that would be to pass a moral judgement on U.S. culture from outside of it. "
They certainly have grounds to defend their own culture from foreign invasion.
".. one of the implications is you don't get universal norms of toleration and respect."
I note that it is typically Position A people who are lacking in toleration and respect, not Position B people.
I live in a country which has 4 official national languages and 20% resident foreigners (including a substantial Muslim population in an ostensibly Christian-historic society). It works only by being tolerant and respectful of differences. You're right, toleration and respect are not universal; in this country too, there is an element of clanishness which is suspicious (more frightened, I reckon) of anything foreign. Still, one does one's best to show them that what is different is not necessarily a threat. "There's more than one way to skin a cat."