Not necessarily. People in Germany may just be kept more in check by the knowledge that German law enforcement is more effective and they are more likely to get caught. Arguably there is also less desperation, hardship and exposure to brutality that might tempt people to bend their morals. Keep in mind that there is only 60 years between Rwanda and Hitler Germany. Less than 50 between it and Bosnia/Serbia. When society breaks down there is very little difference between us all.
Quite. Wow, I'm gonna disagree with you. In OUR view, maybe. But morality is decided by individual societies and to a lot of the middle east, we are happy to bomb people for oil, take drugs, have pre-marital sex, and generally do things that their culture considers amoral. That's my point. It IS all subjective. But do you not understand that it's language like that which is making us look bad to them? When you say that you are superior to someone else, that's a powerful statement. And it can create resentment, hate and suicide bombers.... Also, if we were to agree that we are morally "superior" - why should we impose our superior morals on other countries through force? Because not everybody agrees on what that is. And some people don't like universal concepts/charters/laws etc. It's not about intelligence (although no, I don't give the majority of the British population much credit, and that's because of their actions, not their intelligence, or lack thereof). It's about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. If you've never lived in a Muslim family, no matter how hard you try to understand their position/views/daily life, you can get close, but you'll never FULLY understand where they're coming from.
Erm, no. Unless you can make a superior moral argument for, say, female circumcision, it is not all subjective. Don't confuse society's morality with that of a minority who wilfully violates it. Bush and Blair are seen as war criminals by many Western standards. No, because the Middle East has been pretty much saying that their morals are superior to ours since about 700 A.D. And we have been saying the same about ours. And Jews have been saying the same about theirs. Generally that is not a problem if we all just leave each other to live with our own delusions of grandeur. What creates the resentment is when we start to impose our morals on other people. Some cultures do not have a problem with that, because they think that they are right to do so --it fits with their moral framework. We, however, should recognise that doing so is in violation of our own morals. Superior morals do not impose themselves. If we do impose our morals on others we are no better than fundamentalist terrorists imposing theirs on us. We shouldn't. As I said, it violates those moral principles. Most Westerners who have a decent grip on morality agree that the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is wrong.
You're being scientific there. Philosophically, you can argue that everything about the human experience is subjective and roll on from there. If morality is the "right and wrong", it can be argued that right and wrong are merely invented by us and don't really exist. But people who's thinking is based more in logic/science than theory/philosophy/metaphysics won't agree with that. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree there. Disappointing for me, coz I always think of that as a cop out to the end of a discussion, but it's all I have right now. Here, you've made a distinction which I made in my head, but forgot to articulate through my post. Thanks for clearing it up. The fact is though, (and you should know this better than most) the language people choose is an indication of the "way" in which they think and act.
Let's take a pragmatic view on it then: would it feel wrong if it was done to you? That is true (thank you for reminding me). Perhaps a better expression would be that we have slightly more functional morals.
Great link. I love a bit of pragmatism. Thanks. What I was originally trying to talk about was in that vein. To use that example, so people might say that them being waterboarded was worth doing if they had done something wrong and/or were refusing to cooperate. Maybe that's a flawed argument, but that's where I was coming from in trying to assert that moral codes are individual. But I take your point. Your welcome. And yes, I prefer those words
There are alot of comments here about how morality is subjective to a specific culture and people etc etc. Thing is morality similar but not identical to science, 1000 years ago we only knew a fraction of what we know now and our morals have developed similarly. Islam and Sharia is based off of 1400 year old morals which haven't progressed far. Our morals are superior in general, I won't claim that Bush or Blair's in Iraq war was moral although the war in Afganistan doesn't fit with hat in the same way. Doesn't mean people in the Western Countries don't do wrong things or that their leaders don't but the general societal morals are higher. It isn't a scale with a finishing point of perfect morals at the top a complete evil at the other end but between two sets of morals with significant differences there will be a more moral and less moral one. This is not the fault of anyone per say within the countries it is just how it is and how the societies developed.
+1 I haven't got round to posting in this thread for a while, but if I had this what I would have said. I think it's high time people realise that just because people and nations have different moral standards, it doesn't mean morality is subjective or relative or "down to the individual". If you choose to kick a kitten and I choose not to, my behaviour is more moral than yours (in that particular situation; all else being the same)
That's all well and good when you use examples that involve inflicting harm on some other animal or person or doing something that is detrimental to them but what about situations where no harm is caused? For example is the morality of sex outside marriage objective?
Those issues are more complex and an answer is not as easy to come up with, but that doesn't mean that morality is relative. For example, in the case of premarital sex, you would have to consider a whole host of factors such as the persons maturity (both sexually and mentally), their socio-economical situation ( do they have family to support them, would they be able to care for a child etc), the availability and effectiveness of contraception, the stability of their relationship, and their right to make their own decision. Ironically, I think marriage has less to do with it than any of these factors.
I may be getting the wrong impression but doesn't what you're saying here boil down to the morality of premarital sex being subjective/relative and that it may be immoral for one person while being moral for another person depending on various other factors? Surely when considering objective morality is must be that an act is either moral or immoral and it doesn't differ for different people depending on their circumstances? That's not to say that people don't engage in immoral acts due to their circumstances but they are still acting immorally. For example if we assume theft being morally wrong is an objective view then someone who steals food in order to stay alive is still acting immorally even though they are forced into doing so because of their circumstances.
The war in Afghanistan is very illegal and immoral. Just like the war with Iraq. But that aside, you are not wrong to draw a parallel between science and morality. Both are related to our reasoning ability. Some Piaget's model of cognitive development here: Young children (age 2-7) think on a pre-operational level. They are just discovering language, reading and writing and hence that symbols can represent concepts and things. They are becoming aware of the world and there is a lot of "why...?" questions which drive the parents mad. They can spot patterns but are bad at working out cause and effect. Hence they engage in 'magical thinking' (superstitious reasoning). They are also egocentric --although they have a concept of altruism at as young as age 2 they find it hard to see another person's point of view. At age 8-11 children enter the concrete operational stage. There is a basic understanding of the concrete world. Logical thinking develops but is still about concrete things, events and problems and although the notion of multiple categories/properties is now understood, still rather black-and-white. Other people's point of view can now be understood. Age 12 onwards heralds the formal operational stage. Children develop an understanding of abstract concepts, ideas and values (and develop ideals, principles and political views, often much to the parents' annoyance contradictory to their own. But at that age children also develop their own identity and start to differentiate from the parents), shades of grey and ambiguity; they can reason logically about abstract concepts and generalise instances to principles and apply those back to other, very different instances. They understand logical proof. They can do hypothetical thought experiments and systematically approach and solve complex problems. You can see how civilisations as a whole went through these stages and developed ever more logical and abstract world views; from belief in the magical and symbolical and superstitious ritual to curious examination of the concrete rational and eventually to performing systematic experiment, hypothetical reasoning about the abstract, and developing sophisticated philosophical ideas, values and principles about life, the universe and everything. Kohlberg argued that moral development ran in parallel to these cognitive abilities; from basic reasoning of: it is bad if you get punished and good if you get rewarded (avoiding punishment and "what's in it for me" --think Heaven and Hell dispensed by an authoritarian parent-God) to social reasoning: it is bad if society disapproved and good if it approves (obedience to the law and authority, social acceptance) to eventually the development of internal, coherent personal values and principles: it is bad if it violates my personal principled that define my identity with respect to others (society) and myself; it is good if it is congruent with them. There are some criticisms and flaws with Kohlberg's model but it works fairly well in practice. Of course many (I'd say most --about 60%-- of the population never make it far beyond concrete operational reasoning and also not far beyond Kohlberg's moral stage of social approval/disapproval. Societies as a whole work the same way. Those societies that have been stunted or damaged in their psychological development through long-term trauma and deprivation, be it famines, plagues or wars are more likely to function in primitive cognitive, and hence moral, terms. Fundamentalist practices thrive in deprivation. Of course we can also regress. We are not as far ahead of the countries we frown on as primitive and immoral as you'd like to think. We are just not as deprived, so it doesn't show as much. But watch some nutters knock down a skyscraper in the US and the gloves are off: two totally unrelated countries invaded, human rights in the US and abroad indefinitely suspended; torture, war crimes, millions of innocent lives traumatised. Now watch this drive... And countries like Iran for instance are not as far behind. There is little difference, really, between Bible-belt America and Saudi Arabia; between the Taliban and the right-wing survivalists bunkering down in the forests of Washington. We are not much more empowered and informed voters than those in the Middle East. We are no less likely to abandon human right principles and lash out in fear and revenge or for oil, torture our suspects and claim the moral high ground. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance --of ourselves.
No. Just because morals are relative to circumstances does not make them subjective. Don't get caught in the black-and-white trap of fundamentalism.
Nexxo nailed it on the head. First of all, we have to distinguish between the act, the moral agent's decision and the situational qualifiers.. Sex is the act. Acts do not have inherent morality as they are not moral agents, although they may be inherently positive/negative/neutral. The only thing which can be moral/immoral is a moral agent's decision to act in a certain way in a certain situation. "Premarital" is a situational qualifier. Morality is highly situational, but that doesn't mean it is relative or subjective. I.e: any moral agent deciding on the same course of action in the same situation will be just as morally right/wrong. In the case of theft, the act is negative, but provided stealing has the least net negative outcome (which it might not!), then the moral agent's decision is morally right (or justifiable)
People and "situational morality." An action is either moral or not moral. We went through this with the meat-eating controversy. And while a person may justify their actions, and we might accept that justification, it does not make that action any more or less right. Our judicial systems are predicated on the thought of absolute right and wrongs, and it is in the relaxing of those ideas that we have "soft laws" and people who have enough power bending the rules. There is a clearly defined set of behaviors, and there is a set of punishments devised for either choosing or not choosing those behaviors, as the case may be. We do have a system of justification for certain instances simply because while morals may be absolute there is not always either widespread knowledge or in certain cases clearly moral choices to be made. If a person kills a man, that is judged to be wrong. If he killed a man in self-defense, he will be exonerated, but the act still remains-he deprived another human being of life. That man may have been in the moral wrong up until the point he was slain, but at that point it ceases to matter for one of them. There is a difference between a justified action and a moral action. It does not do to equate the two of them, they are not equal. As to the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, I would agree it's an illegal action. And talking with every single soldier I've spoken to that's gone and come back, it's a 100% justifiable action. The same sentiment that fueled the poppy burning is the same sentiment that has their 10-year old kids with guns shooting at the US military, and the reasoning I hear every time is NOT that we're there illegally, it's that we're the Great White Satan and we MUST be wiped off the face of the earth to make way for an Islamic world. This is not talking with politicians, or statesmen, this is talking with the men and women who are serving in the countries mentioned. Not a single US military member I've spoken to says that it's in any way avoidable. And many do NOT support getting out. When we get out, we'll get that kind of behavior in our streets-it will be OUR cities they suicide bomb. This has been the message I have been getting from everyone, top to bottom (I have family in the military, I see a LOT of people from all branches.) What they wish to impress on the American people is that while some Muslims may be people of peace, it ain't them. They will not rest until we're utterly destroyed. War. Nasty, immoral action? Yup. Never disagreed with you. Justified? I think so. Given my knowledge of Islam and the Qu'ran, as well as the reports of both the front lines soldiers and the ones who back them up (My uncle is one of the people on this side coordinating, and my brother has entered officer training school to be an engineer) I would have to say that we HAVE to stay there and occupy them. When we stop, they'll be here within days. Also, I don't agree with Guantanamo Bay either-I'm all for incarceration, but torture is something we're supposed to be above. I believe the quote used was "needs must when the devil drives," but I'm still not convinced of the rightness of that action. I'm sure I will be INCREDIBLY unpopular for this post, but I'm not too concerned. People speak their conscience all the time, and so I speak mine. I've limited it to the topic at hand, so that I ruffle as few feathers as possible. Some things have a place, and some do not. And there's never a place to simply go bother people for the hell of it. I don't like the idea of my friends serving in a nasty, dangerous place such as that. I like even less my family doing so. But they swore an oath to protect our country, and if it's what's necessary, it's what's necessary. For my part, I pray for their safe return. I'd love to see an end to this conflict, but unfortunately I don't think we would unless either Christianity or Islam was wiped off the face of the map. And as much as some people here would like to see that, I don't think it will happen.
It might bear examining why we are regarded as the "Great White Satan". You can argue that this is just Islam being Islam, but apart from the fact that we hothoused those very Fundamentalists that are now being such a pain way back in the 80's, our whole involvement in the Middle East and N. Africa, from Iran to Iraq to Afghanistan to Sudan has been a cynical power game with the aim to secure access to the Earth's largest oil supplies. And it bears remembering that the last time they were "here", the Bin Ladens were investing in Bush's Harken Energy and Caterair, and later in the Carlyle Group, in the 70's while the Taliban were visiting Texas to talk gas pipelines and oil deals as recently as the 90's. To just dismiss current fundamentalist terrorists as "hey, that's Muslims for you" is ignoring the mote in your own eye.
As I said above, actions do not have morality. They can be deemed positive, negative or somewhere in between, but that says little about their morality. The only things that can be subjected to moral scrutiny are the decisions of moral agents. Those decisions must take into account the specifics of the situation in order to have any chance of being successful. We have seen that the sort of dumb, list-based morality does not work well in the real world. Example: Kicking kittens is bad. I see a kitten on the train tracks, about to be run over. I am, for whatever reason, unable to reach it quickly enough and my only option is to kick it. Applied situational morality tells us that the moral course of action (that which has the highest chance of producing the least negative outcome) is to kick the kitten out of the way. Morally speaking, that is the right thing to do. +1 Religious fundamentalism aside, even secular Arabs would have plenty of reasons to hate us. If we had always been good to the peoples of the Middle East, the message of hate against "the infidels" would have been much harder to sell.
At no point did I say that we were right in how we treated them. But honestly, this attitude towards Western culture has existed for longer than there has been a USA. It even pops up in other countries who do not have a Western-type governmental system-any country that is not explicitly Islamic. Their core doctrines are to conquer the world and force everyone to submit to Islam. With nothing else will they be satisfied. I sense that people are trying to step around the fact that this is still a religious war as well. Sure, most of us don't espouse Christianity any more. That matters naught to the person over there who simply knows that we're not Muslim. Jihad is a spiritual process as well as a physical one, and if you look, they've been doing it for centuries. This is the same old saw, Islam versus Judaism/Christianity even if one side has abandoned their position on the matter. Now, with that piece of historical context out of the way, I've never supported how our politicians have handled this. Our politicians and our soldiers are two separate groups, though, and it's the soldiers with which I'm primarily concerned. The politicians have done nothing to improve the situation and everything they can to ruin it, but the situation was bad before Columbus ever set foot on this soil. It is a question of fundamentalism, tolerance and religious expression that we are faced with, attempting secular answers will seldom give it satisfaction.
I sense that you are trying to step around the fact that it is one caused by us trying to get their hands on their resources. Religion has been used as pretext and accusation by all sides since well before the crusades. But it is, and has always been, about greed and power.
Remember that the British were in the middle east hundreds of years before Columbus was even born and have had involvement there ever since. Hence my comment about how the message of hatred against the "white devils" has been aided (perhaps even instigated?) by the actions of us "white devils". There is no doubt that there are those who would see the entire western civilisation wiped from the face of the earth and replaced with a global Islamic state. However, I think that most ordinary Muslims/Arabs would find their message of hatred, genocide and world domination much more difficult to swallow if we were less involved in the destruction of large parts of the Middle East. I lived in the UAE for about 4 or 5 years and throughout that time 99.90% of people treated me exquisitely well and as a result I have very fond memories of my time there. I was living in Abu Dhabi when September 11 happened, and although I was very young and couldn't understand much of what was going on, I do remember that the vast majority of people were shocked and disapproved of the attacks.
