Morality Across Cultures Part 4

The Language of Morality:
A Cross Culture & Social Structure Comparison

Morality is pretty simple really. It is the framework we use to distinguish right from wrong and thus govern our behavior as we interact with other people and the world around us. It seems fairly straightforward really, but like many commonsensical concepts it is far more complicated than common sense would imply. Morality has been at the heart of innumerable debates, raging arguments, violent confrontations, wars and even genocides since our earliest ancestors first developed language. This paper will explore the language and conception of morality in certain cultural and social contexts and attempt to begin the journey towards a less contentious moral paradigm.

THE FALLACY OF UNIVERSAL MORALITY
All people are, to some degree or another, ethnocentric. This is not always a bad thing, but it all too often leads to rather significant logical fallacies. There are few contexts where this is more frequent and more contentious than in the context of morality. Good and evil, right and wrong are core components of every person's identity. Morality is a core component of every person's identity.

Ultimately the development of individual moral frames is quite complicated. The general perception of many people is that morality comes from one's culture and/or one's god. Whether it is theistic in nature or is just culturally developed, generally people use the term "morality" assuming that whoever they are talking to knows exactly what they mean. Quite often people assume that whoever they are talking to or dealing with has a moral frame that is very similar or exactly the same as their own.

Religion is very likely the prime progenitor of this idea of universal morality. When early humans turned to a conception of gods and extranatural phenomena to explain how the world works and why, divine/spiritual retribution was a natural part of conception. If some thing or person created and controlled the world, then it logically follows that when bad things happen to a person, it must be because they angered the gods. Early on it is quite likely that morality as we know it was really just a matter of doing things that contribute to the survival of the group. It is unlikely it was very complicated and in all probability was quite organic. It is also likely that gods and/or extranatural phenomena were some combination of ancestor worship and the anthropomorphizing of elements of the natural world.

As the means for sustenance changed over time, the need for increasingly complicated rules for interaction grew. As specializations emerged and with them a necessary division of labor was created things became still more complicated. It was quite natural for certain members of a society to come up with the needed rules to govern that complexity and it was equally natural for them to invoke the extranatural and even gods. It is very likely that many such people actually believed that their rules came from gods. In some cultures it was even assumed that the human makers of rules were in fact actually the gods.

The biggest problem with discussing morality in universal terms is that different people define morality differently. Moreover, people generally assume that other people define morality the same way that they do. This is often the problem with commonsensical ideas, different people mean different things while everyone assumes they are talking about the same thing. That morality means different things to different people is not in itself a bad thing. The only problem comes when two or more people are trying to communicate about morality.

For this paper, morality is defined as a governor of an individual's personal behavior when external enforcement mechanisms do not apply. In some contexts the lack of external enforcement mechanisms may be due to a lack of specific rules or laws prohibiting certain behaviors. In other contexts the lack of such a mechanism may be due to the full knowledge that an individual could commit an act that is against the governing rules or laws without detection and therefore punishment. Morality then becomes the mechanism that prevents the individual from committing acts that they believe are wrong, when they know they could get away with it.

While that definition for morality may be questioned by many, there are few definitions for morality that lack that basic concept. Differences are generally due to what a person or culture might add to that definition. Very few definitions for morality do not consider morality a governor of behavior when external enforcement mechanisms do not apply. Given this definition, no matter what might be added to it, by it's very nature it prohibits universal moral truth. Unless a person believes that no one who does not adhere to their perception of morality can possibly follow rules that are not explicit and impossible to break, then logic would dictate that they have a moral frame.

THE LANGUAGE OF MORALITY
While it seems apparent that everyone, possibly excepting pathological sociopaths, has a moral frame, how morality is considered varies a great deal. The language surrounding morality varies a great deal in the contexts of time, space (geographic) and cultures. To a lesser degree the language varies by individuals as well, but ultimately it seems that culture has a rather profound influence on an individual's understanding of morality. When it comes down to the actual development of a moral frame however, the individual becomes the critical influence.

Time, space and culture in general ultimately refer to culture. Even in situations where multiple cultures exist in the same general space what results is another cultural context in which the individual cultures become changing co-cultures. Culture changes with time and space. It is not necessary to travel very far in space to find notably different cultures. The difference between an urban center and the rural areas that surround it can be significant. The difference between, for example, the United States and China is even more significant. Likewise the difference between the culture that existed in what is now Virginia two hundred years ago, was considerably different than the culture that exists there now. With these cultural differences come different ways of thinking about and talking about morality.

One of the more interesting cultural contexts to explore is that of hunter/gatherer societies. While there are bound to be significant differences between such cultures and the earliest cultures of modern humans, there are also likely important similarities. The Efe Pygmies of the Ituri forest in the People's Republic of Congo and the iKung! people of the Northern Kalahari in Batswana have very similar moral systems. It is important to note that the very concept of morality would seem very foreign to these aboriginal societies. The governor of their behavior is inexorably bound to their way of life.

While there are some minor differences in the substance of their moral frames, the frames themselves are simply the way people are expected to live. In these egalitarian social structures there is little room for dissembling. You either behave in a way that fosters the survival of the group and group harmony, or you either shamed into it, taken to the side by elders or failing those are banished. The latter being exceedingly rare because shame is a powerful tool in such small and profoundly collectivist cultures. Morality is such a foreign concept to hunter/gatherer societies simply because without a hierarchy to determine rules and/or enforce rules, individuals just generally do what they need to do to enhance the welfare of the group.

This is not to say that there aren't conflicts or behavior problems. Humans are human and all humans make mistakes or otherwise end up in conflict with others. The difference really, is that lacking a formal system of laws moral framing takes up the slack and in the facets of life where it really counts, hunter/gatherers can generally be counted on to do what is expected of them. This is a stark contrast to hierarchical societies with a complex division of labor. The more complex the hierarchy and division of labor, the less the survival of a group depends on any one member. Thus there grows room for individual members to behave in a manner that is not supportive of and even works against the survival of the group and group harmony.

Both Korean and Japanese cultures, are good examples of a developed non-western cultures that tend to have very idealized concepts of morality. The specific rules of each society are different, but they are almost entirely uniform and strictly adhered to. Globalization seems to have impacted this strict adherence to some degree, but there is a profound cultural impetus behind these moral frames so such change comes very slowly. Both collectivist cultures still have very strict rules for governing personal behavior.

In Korean culture the moral framework is focused on the family unit, ascribing fixed roles not only to husband and wife, but to the children as well. Their moral framework is very much a guide to social expectations. The consequences of deviating from this frame to any significant degree are actually very similar to the consequences found in the hunter gatherer cultures. The first level is gossip and shaming. Then comes a talk from an elder, in this case usually an older family member. Failing these, social ostracism is not uncommon and there is also a risk of being disowned by one's family.

As one explores the language and the fundamentals of morality across cultures, it becomes apparent that collectivist cultures tend to idealize morality. Morality is not seen as an individualized code of behavior. It is universally understood and the more collectivist the culture, the more it seems there is little room for personal interpretation or surreptitious deviation. This seems to hold true in the context of certain subcultures, most notably monotheistic subcultures.

Adherents to theism, especially monotheism tend to be very collectivist by nature. There are certainly exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be sub sects of various religious systems. Christianity in particular has a great deal of variation, both in time and cultural traditions. Fundamentalist sects tend to share a similar language of morality, though in this context morality is usually thought to be the literal word of God. Fundamentalist sect in this context does not describe anything about the nature of what a given sect believes. In this context it only describes the nature of the belief itself, which tends to be absolute. Fundamentalists believe that their god revealed their faith and that their moral frames are the commandments of their god.

Monotheistic moral frames carry the same rigidity of those of other collectivist cultures. They also carry similar consequences for deviation. Gossip and shame are at the top of the list. Church elders, possibly the pastor of the church will talk with someone who is or seems to be deviating. In the face of overt and unwavering defiance, many sects will banish members. There are notable differences as well, as monotheists tend to add the language of their god and divine retribution to the consequences of deviation.

The roles morality plays in collectivist cultures seems to vary by the needs of each culture and environmental impact on each culture. The language used to describe moral framing varies from virtually nonexistent to, in some cases, very strictly defined. In non-collectivist cultures it is very different. In the United States, possibly the least overtly collectivist culture on the planet, morality is far from idealized. While various individuals may idealize their own moral frame, they do not idealize a common moral frame. The lack of idealized, uniform moral framing in the U.S. and other non-collectivist cultures puts a great deal of pressure on the collectivist subcultures. This often lends itself to members of those cultures breaking away to some degree or even completely.

So where does this leave individuals who no longer identify or who never really identified with a collectivist culture group? Ultimately it leaves them where a lot of people who do identify with a collectivist culture group with a relatively strong moral frame are. It leaves them with the same choices that have to be made when external enforcement mechanisms are not relevant. While some collectivist cultures simply don't have very much room in which such mechanisms don't apply, many of them do. If morality has any more value than laws and social customs, this is where morality truly matters; as a governor for behavior in those circumstances. Everyone has to make some choices at those times and with few possible exceptions, everyone has a frame that guides their behavior.

CREATING MORALITY - THE SCIENCE OF MIND AND CULTURE
There is a lot of discussion among skeptics, atheists and even some scientists about a perceived problem of morality. Some even argue that science could be used to find objective moral truth. Others argue that science would be better suited for exploring what inputs go into the development of individual moral frames. The social sciences seem to be the best suited for exploring morality, exploring the evolution of language, culture and cognition and their confluence into how people determine right from wrong. Ultimately the debate about just what the best avenues for exploring morality, about the nature of morality will continue for a good long time to come, continually enriching the art of being human.

Morality Across Cultures Part 3

I have noticed something rather interesting in my exploration of morality across cultures. Namely that in more collectivist cultures (and subcultures) morality seems more strongly idealized, moral frames are more uniform and outwardly seems held to more stringently than in more individualistic cultures. This makes a lot of sense, given the nature of collectivist societies and I imagine is probably even documented.

Unfortunately it is exceedingly difficult to wade through the literature on moral decision making processes, because the vast majority of research in this area is in the context of business and law. This means that researchers are generally looking at very narrow ethical issues that may or may not translate to life outside the context of workplace. Or they are looking at narrow ethical issues in the context of how members of another culture treat outsiders - again, issues that may or may not - likely do not translate into how members of that culture treat each other.

I have found a few nuggets of research that would imply my observation is correct, but they do not leave room for generalization. This is definitely something that I think is worth exploring, because I think the answer is probably a very important piece of the puzzle that is the formation of our moral frames. The reason I think this could be very important is due to some observations of the largely hunter/gatherer aboriginal cultures I have learned something about. I will admit that this is pure speculation and that based on the accounts of westerners who have visited these cultures.

Egalitarian social structures are pretty much collectivist by nature. While there are certainly individuals with their individual traits, at a certain level of interdependence collectivism is the default. What I think it very interesting about this, is the expression of what westerners call morality in these egalitarian cultures. There isn't a list of rules to follow. Rather, there are the things that one must do to ensure the survival of the group. There are ways that one should treat others. But these are not issues that really need speaking of - rather they are integral to the culture to the extent that they become defined through observation and in some cases (probably most or all) they are part of the language.

In these aboriginal cultures divergence from the "moral" framework of the society is exceedingly rare. When it does pop up, the resulting gossiping and shaming usually cuts it off quickly. Failing that, there is discussion with elders to bring one in line making the final option, banishment, virtually nonexistent. There is not so much as idealization of this framework, as there is the understanding that life exists within this framework. There is not so much rigid adherence to this frame as there is a lack of anything else with which the group can function. In essence, daily life embodies the "moral" frame of hunter/gatherer societies. And within a group of (usually) thirty or less people, adherence isn't just an outward appearance.

With hierarchy and division of labors, comes room for that adherence to become affectation. The more complex the hierarchy, the more complex the division of labors, the more room is created for deviation - even if that deviance must be secret.

What I think is so very interesting about this, is that if I am correct, it potentially has a lot to tell us about the nature of our moral frames and how they are developed. It may also teach us a great deal about what morality really is at it's core and what can be generalized about morality. I also suspect that if it is true, this will have a lot to teach us about cognitive processes. At the very least it is rather interesting...

Morality Across Cultures Part 2

While working on my paper about morality across cultures, I have found it extremely useful to engage in discussions about morality. I am pretty certain that certain friends of mine will be terribly pleased to see my paper finished and me shutting the hell up about it. But the most valuable discussions have been taking place online - useful in the main, because the people involved are actually interested in the discussion.

One of the more recent and more interesting discussions has been taking place on a science blog I first wandered to last week, The Primate Diaries. I never cease to be surprised by the fierce need so many people seem to have, of some kind of universal moral frame. I really wonder about this and what drives it. Is it a need to have one's own moral frame validated by some external agency? Or is it a fear that without a universal dogmatic structure, we will see some kind of breakdown of society? Or could it simply be the feeling that we must respond to theist claims that atheism equals a complete lack of morality, with a palpable dogmatic frame?

In the interest of a rather simple method for gathering responses, I have made a poll. Please feel free to explain more in comments.



I may or may not use the result to this poll in the paper I am working on for school, but it is unlikely. I will however write about the results if I get very many. If you happen to have an urge to link directly to the poll on your blog here is the URL.

Morality: What is it and why should I care?

For those few folks who read this blog and happen to live in relatively close proximity to Kalamazoo, MI, I am hosting a Cafe Inquiry, for the Center For Inquiry on Friday evening (the ninth) from 6:00, until we are done or you are ready to go. We usually cut out between eight and nine. We will meet at Panera Bread, 5970 S. Westnedge Ave, Portage, MI.

As host, I get to lay out the beginning of the discussion - which will hopefully be rather lively. I will note that I have a rather minority view of morality and do not intend to dominate conversation. I expect there will be more than two positions asserted and hope there will be as many positions espoused as there are people to express them. If you are interested in what to expect from my end, just click the morality tag at the bottom of this post. I have written a little bit on the topic.

While I am on CFI, there is also an event tomorrow evening at MSU. Dr. Megan Donahue will be presenting a lecture titled; The Accelerating Universe in the Lake Ontario room, third floor of the MSU student union. I would really like to go, but I am not sure that I can reasonably spare the time. That said, if you are close and want to go, let me know.

Two Subjectives do not = Objective Truth

That damned Greg Laden just had to post this video, in which Sam Harris makes the absurd claim that science can speak to objective moral truth (followed up here). It hurts me head. It also makes me very, very cranky.

Before I go on, I do think it is important for me to define my biases. My biases are not something that influenced my position on this issue of universal moral truths. I spent the vast majority of my 34 years, struggling with my religious beliefs. I think that the shedding of my faith can ultimately be summed up rather simply and in a fashion that is very relevant to the discussion at hand - I just thought of this as I was sitting here typing. The last vestiges of faith were decimated, the moment I realized that there is no objective moral truth. This is not to say that my lack of faith is contingent on a lack of moral truth. Rather, that is what put me over the edge - finally.

But my biases - we were exploring my biases. While my relationship with religious dogma was peculiar in later years, it was dogma just the same. There was some kind of external force that lent authority to my moral frame - even though my moral frame was very much my own. I am done with that bullshit. My morality is my governor of my actions. I do what I believe is right because I believe it is the right thing to do, not because some god tells me to and not because there is some universal compelling force.

There are some rather serious flaws in Dr. Harris' arguments. The first seems to be what may well make this a semantic argument first and fore. It is hard to say, because unlike what I was led to believe is one of the most important aspects of using science as a tool for exploring the world, Harris doesn't seem to actually define the most important term in this discussion - "morality." It just seems to be assumed that we know what this means in Sam's head and what difference we miss will be picked up in context. Not wanting to make that mistake myself, I am going to define morality as I understand and accept it;

Morality is every individual's framework for deciding the "right" and "wrong" ways of interacting with people and the world around them. The only universal moral truth, is that excepting pathological sociopaths, everyone has a moral frame which is relative to time, space, culture and the individual. The context of time is both the macrocosm of human and protohuman history and the microcosm of the individuals own life. Moral frames are not static, rather they change as an individual grows and changes.

Sam Harris, on the other hand, seems to be defining morality as values and objective facts that influence our wellbeing. The first fatal flaw here, is that Harris is taking one subjective measure, to use as the metric for defining a subjective abstraction. This is not something I am certain of, because as I mentioned he doesn't actually define the most important term. Neither does he really define what, if we are going to be using it as the metric, becomes the second most important term - "wellbeing."

Having defined morality and then referred to it as an abstraction, I want to clarify that referring to it as an abstraction was not to detract from it's importance. Many abstractions are important, morality being among the most important. But as an abstraction, it is important to realize that by definition it can only ever be relative. Nor is there anything wrong with that - nothing dangerous or evil about it. We have laws to govern society. And most of our moral frames are largely derived from our cultural context, so while we all have our differences, there are enough similarities for us to get along. When the getting along based on moral and ethical choices fails, we also have laws and external enforcement mechanisms to back them up - flawed as those mechanisms might be.

I really need to get to bed - I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, not the least being getting to class on time in the morning. I do want to leave this with some examples of moral minutia. Thankfully, I posted them earlier, when I should have been writing my papers. But fuck it, I can probably work this into one of them.

People like to bring up things like murder, rape or care of children to make these universal claims - but it falls apart. Murder is the worst - what exactly is murder? Does this mean that any taking of human life is immoral? If not, who's line between rightful and wrongful death is the universal moral truth? But what about rape then? If there is a universal moral truth about rape, then first off, we need to absolutely define rape - something that right or wrong, a lot of people define in a lot of different ways. And even if we could agree, do we then make the claim that every culture that has looked at rape as a amoral act at worse was totally without moral compass? That they simply didn't have any moral frame? And when it comes to kids, our western ideals are born of a very different culture. That is not to say that people in developing countries don't love their children - they most certainly do. But they also have a very different attitude about losing children - their infant mortality rates require it. There have been and as far as I know still are cultures that practice infanticide to prevent a child that will starve otherwise, from going through that suffering and to make sure there is that little bit more for those who are more likely to.

We won't even go into China and the impact of their one child laws.

Fuck these claims of universal moral truths. The ideal is patently absurd and the desire to find such truths is little different than the drive to Believe in something greater than oneself.

We can try to play semantic games that make morality something else. We can call it an ideal or some such bullshit. We can make it into an abstraction of an abstraction if we want to play the games with morality that religious people play. But in so doing, we would render the entire concept of morality completely damned useless in any practical sense. Or we can accept that moral relativity isn't the end of the world. That moral relativity doesn't = an excuse for hedonism and the worst excesses of debauchery.

Look at it this way; Atheists have been around for a very long time. Atheists who are out and proud have been around for a little while now. And without some dogmatic universal moral frame, we have managed to avoid murdering people, eating babies and stealing each others significant others (though some might borrow in the context of an understanding mind - I don't think that is immoral at all - even though I don't do that myself)...We're still here and generally behaving like reasonable and even responsible people.

Dissent: Debate v Dehumanizing

There are a lot of people who seem to have the mistaken impression that characterizing people they disagree with as something they are not equals debate. Or more to the point, characterizing people as less than they are. People who believe that dehumanizing their opponents is a legitimate tactic of debate. They turn them into "others" who lack characteristics that are fairly critical to being a functional, reasonable member of society.

Take the person I recently had to ban from commenting. Apparently he thinks that I cut him off because I am afraid to debate him. Someone who likes to make references to "you atheists." Who believes, or claims to believe that atheists lack compassion, love and morality. Someone who cannot comment on the topic of a post, without engaging in dehumanizing rhetoric that disparages atheists - as though all anyone who identifies as such is, is an atheist. The only label - the only defining characteristic that matters to him, is the label of non-believer, of atheist.

The irony of this person, is that he refuses to actually debate, instead engaging in all sorts of denigrations. He decries "those" atheists refusal to debate, claiming that this is somehow proof of the superiority of his position, while all he does is spew hateful bile - pretending that this hate somehow equals debate.

Don't get me wrong. I am no supporter of religion. I haven't even the slightest compunction about ripping into religion, liberal, moderate or extreme. I have absolutely no use for it and absolutely believe that the destruction wrought by religion is not even close to balanced by the good that religion does. Sometime soon I am going to write about an issue that my lovely Juniper and I were discussing, about the "virtue" of not being virtuous. Good works done with strings attached are not all that particularly "good." Sure, they benefit people - but what does that say about the person providing that benefit. They aren't doing it because it is the right thing to do, they are doing it to get something out of it. I realize that this is not limited to religious people - people providing charity for purely secular reasons usually have ulterior motives - but that is something for a later post.

Bottom line, I am pretty much against religion.

There is a difference between me and this person who was recently banned. I don't just label people by their religious inclinations. I recognize that their faith is just one label, one aspect of the person. I recognize that there are a great many wonderful people, who just happen to be religious. I also recognize that there are a lot of really shitty people who also happen to be atheists. I recognize that atheist is just one of many labels that make the person.

I recognize that there are things specific to atheism that some theists want to debate - I am more than happy to debate about it. If you really believe that morality, for example, is impossible without a god to shape it, I am all about having the discussion. I write about morality a lot and there is a whole hell of a lot of room to argue with me, as I have a fairly controversial stance on it. While I happen to think I am right and that my position is sound, I am not so arrogant as to assume that I assume there is no possible way I could be wrong.

The irony of the argument of he who was banned, is that he was generalizing my position on morality to all atheists. The problem with that, is that while there are certainly atheists who agree with me, there are a great many more who do not. Even more interesting, there are theists who agree with my position on morality and moral relativism.

And this phenom is true of a great many label versus label sort of issues. There are a lot of things that I tend to agree with many liberals about. There are also things that I tend to agree with a lot of conservatives about. I love, for example, going to Ed's blog, because I get to argue with people on different threads at the same time. Though I have had little time for it lately, I love to argue with someone about something over on that thread, while shredding someone else's argument with them on another. I am fairly certain there is not a single person I interact with on a regular basis, who I do not have a single, significant difference of opinion with.

And there are people I generally disagree with on things - including theists, who I love to spend time with. There are authors who support political positions I am pretty fundamentally opposed to, who I never the less love to read. That is not to say that there aren't people who support things that I find so very repugnant, that I cannot stand to be around them. Oh, there most certainly are. There are ideological positions that are so far beyond the pale, that I just can't muster anything but scorn and derision. But those are few and far between.

Seriously folks, I am all about lively dissent and discourse here. I have opened my front page to dissenting views and would love to do so again. I am all about having lively, even heated debates here. What I will not accept, is the dehumanization of people who choose to engage in discussions here. That kind of language will not be fucking tolerated - period. Argue - meaning if you disagree, tell me or someone else why you disagree and why you are right. Talking about "them" and "people like you" and "you ____" is not debate or argument - rather, it is fucking bullshit and I will delete that kind of shit out of hand. If all you have is hateful bile - I don't care how much you pretty it up, hate is hate - you are not welcome here.

Though if you drop those kinds of comments (or emails) I totally reserve to right to turn it into a post and rip your bigoted, hateful fucking bullshit to shreds.

Kant's Rigid Moral Frame in Practice

In comments on my last post, everyone's favorite hater of atheists, Zdenny, was kind enough to express his distaste for non-rigid moral framing. He expressed the opinion that the reason atheists would not care for Kant's model for morality, was because we want to be able to do whatever we please. Aside from showing an abysmal ignorance - to be clear, a willful abysmal ignorance about athiests, it also shows a rather abysmal ignorance of Kant's model for morality. Unless of course he really does agree with Kant, in which case he follows a dogmatic form of Christianity that is patently unfamiliar to me.

Kant believed that any use of another person, was inherently immoral. One of the universal axioms he believed is absolute, is lying. No matter what the circumstances lying is inherently immoral and unacceptable. The facts of a given scenario are irrelevant, one should never lie.

An example that was discussed by Kant, was a scenario in which a friend is being sought by someone who wants to kill them. Said friend flees into a house to hide, while you are in front of the house. The person who wants to kill them comes and asks you if they are in the house. According to Kant, you cannot reasonably lie to that person. Because you cannot know for sure that the friend has stayed in the house to hide, you cannot say "no, s/he is not in the house," because that may well put the would be killer to searching outside where he may find the friend. The only reasonable response, not knowing for sure what the friend has actually done is to tell the would be killer you do not know.

So lets translate Kant's response to real historical situations. Situations in which Christians were quite thankfully not inclined to follow Kant's model for morality.

Some abolitionists of the nineteenth century created underground railroads to help escaped slaves find their way to safety, in territories where they would be welcomed to freedom. At many points these underground railroads were located in places where law enforcement was very keen on returning escaped slaves to the south, often to brutal beatings and sometimes hanging. Even in places that had a more neutral attitude, there were bands of bounty hunters who were often times rather brutal in their attempts to infiltrate underground railroads and cut off these pipelines. A great many of the abolitionists involved in these efforts were Christians who believed it was their God-given duty to lie and misdirect slavers and slave bounty hunters. No few of them were inclined to lie about their abolitionist beliefs, to draw attention away from their roles in the railroad. In a few recorded cases, people involved with the railroad actually infiltrated bands of bounty hunters seeking escaped slaves, so as to more effectively misdirect.

In Nazi Germany, when people had become more fully aware of what the Nazi's were doing to the Jews, a lot of people became involved in trying to get the Jews out of Germany safely. Like the underground slave railroad, they were hidden in houses and moved in secrecy, until they were safely out of Nazi controlled territories. And like the slave railroad, there were many times when people hiding and moving the Jews were questioned about it and many times they told lies to misdirect the Nazis. A great many of the people involved in this effort, like those involved with the slave railroad, were Christians. No few of them became rather vocal and ardent supporters of the pogrom, so that like the abolitionists, they could direct attention away from their attempts to save the lives of as many Jews as possible.

In both of these cases, not only were Christians involved in lying outright to misdirect, something that Kant would consider immoral in itself, there were a great many Christians who would live a lie in public, to draw attention away from themselves and their activities. And the interesting thing about this is, they have biblical examples from which to justify their actions. Early Christians were not very well accepted. Being a Christian meant risking imprisonment and even death. Early Christian leaders had to sneak about, to visit many of the cities they visited to minister to the local, hidden Christian populations. I daresay there were a great many hosts of Christian leaders who had to outright lie to guards, when they came to the door looking for said leaders. And while the early Christians may not have been terribly inclined to live an outright lie, they were certainly very keen on not admitting to their beliefs.

I could go on and on with this. There are numerous examples throughout history, of Christians lying to protect people. There were Christians who did so during the rise of Protestantism. There were Christians who did so when Martin Luther was calling for the slaughter of Jews. There were Christians who did so when churches schismed and violence was to follow. There were even Protestant Christians who lied to protect Catholic Christians and Catholic Christians who like to protect Protestant Christians in Ireland, in particular and a lot of other places where violence between the two groups was rife.

So ZDenny, while I am not a believer in universal moral axioms, not buying into Kant's model for morality, or that of the utilitarians, does not equal not buying into universal moral axioms. The moral framework of Christianity has traditionally understood that there are times when the consequences outweigh the intent. That the moral thing to do is to do what it takes to save lives and show others what Christian charity and love is really all about. When you support the rigidity of Kant, you are denigrating the memories of Christians from the time of Jesus to the present. You are denigrating the memories of Christians who risked and in innumerable cases sacrificed their lives for what they believed was the right way for Christians to live and to be a living witness for Christ.

When you support the rigidity of Kant, you are no different than the Sadducees and Pharisees who put their religion before their god.

Ethics and Objective Reality: Kant and the Utilitarians

My most recent essay for philosophy class. The assignment was to explain the views of Kant and the utilitarians in regards to morality and explain our preference.

Kant basically believed that ethics and morality were completely objective
and categorical imperatives. He believed that the facts of a given situation and the consequences of a given action were irrelevant to morality. The only imperative was the notion that using people, including oneself was immoral. That if an action is immoral or wrong in any given situation, no matter who might be involved in a given situation, then that action is universally and always immoral. He also believed that the intent was the thing. If your intention is to commit an immoral or unethical act, then the outcome is irrelevant – you have acted unethically.

The utilitarians, on the other hand, believed that the consequences of an action are all that matters. In their case, the intent is irrelevant, it is the outcome that atters. They also believe that morality is that which produces the greatest good, or the greatest number of people. Quantitative and qualitative pleasures, whether they are physical or intellectual are a moral good. Denying people those pleasures is immoral. Ensuring that as many people as possible have those pleasures is a moral good.

If forced to choose between just these two models for morality, I would have to say that the utilitarians make the most sense. Kant was just too rigid and stolid. The notion that one can ignore the consequences of a given action, in determining whether it is moral or not is absurd. While the utilitarian conception is rather rigid as well, it doesn't completely ignore the facts of a given situation. There is room to try to determine what the most positive outcome for the most people might be, when determining a course of action in a given situation. If one must ignore the facts, ignore the outcome, then there is truly nothing moral about a given decision.

Of course the problem with the utilitarian model is that it to is too rigid. If a conception of morality is to have any value whatever, then it must be as an arbitrator for competing factions of the mind. A personal moral frame, developed by ones experience of life, the influence of their culture and constantly being questioned and reexamined at every turn, is the only conception of morality that can have any value. If morality is not the ultimate intrapersonal governor of one's actions, then it is nothing more than dogma with external enforcement. If, on the other hand, morality is internalized and owned by the individual, questioned by the individual and reexamined with every internal conflict, then morality becomes a profoundly powerful governor of an individual's actions and decisions.

Dogma simply doesn't provide the force of will that is necessary to reasonably force one to do what it right. Dogma cannot force someone to make the right decision, when no external enforcement mechanisms can be applied. For example, if one wants to enjoy a particular food item and they are certain they can get away with stealing it from the home of someone they know is away from home, but they cannot afford to buy it themselves, dogma is far less likely to cause them to decide that it would be wrong to steal it. A moral frame that they have absolute ownership of, on the other hand, is far more able to force them to refrain from stealing that item. If they believe it is wrong, because that is what they have determined to be true through due consideration of their experience in life and of their culture, then they simply cannot steal that food – even without any external enforcement mechanism to keep their behavior in check.

The only moral absolute that makes any sense at all, that creates an outcome of any value, is that morality must be determined by the individual through due consideration of their life experience and their cultural experience.

Plato and the Ladder of Love

My intro philosophy class is entirely graded by in class essays. The following is peripherally related to the discussion about moral relativism, as it delves a little bit into the semantic argument that makes up most of the discussion that will come into part three. I am getting to that post - indeed, most of it is written, but I felt it necessary to interject a bit about the nature of reality and the tools with which we perceive and understand it. This essay, a discussion of Plato's ladder of love and beauty, ties into that - a nice segue into the post that will introduce part three.

Please keep in mind this was a response to the essay question provided about forty minutes before I finished writing it. For those who might be less familiar with me...I do not believe in editing... Not usually, anyways.

Plato's ladder of love describes the ascendance of one's love for beauty, starting with a narrow view of physical beauty, to a view of the beauty of everything physical, to the beauty of minds, the beauty of institutions and laws and on to the beauty of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Plato continues this progression to an absolute abstraction, that of the beauty of beauty itself, but that is where I diverge - which I will get to in a moment. First, let's explore the earlier stages just a little.

While the implication is that we are talking about the beauty of other people, I think this can easily be extrapolated to everything in the world around us and ultimately makes more sense if we do. Thus the first rung, the narrow focused perception of beauty - what Plato refers to as "a beautiful body," can be extended to things that the individual finds overtly and easily aesthetically pleasing. A very simplified notion of beauty that is sharply limited to the obvious. It is an immature perception that is uncomplicated by the perception that there is ultimately a subtle beauty to things that are less overtly attractive. It is the beauty of roses, clear skin and comely features, the ocean on a lightly cloudy, sunny day. It is the beauty of the very basic.

When one begins to perceive the hidden beauty of the world - beauty that is less overt and obvious, one has transcended that first rung and moved to the second. This is where they perceive the beauty that is hidden in decay, faces etched with the lines and wear of time, falling down barns or the infrastructure of electrical and plumbing in a home. It is the beauty of molds and chipped paint. It is what is not as obviously aesthetically pleasing, yet nonetheless is inundated with the beauty inherent to all matter.

Next, there is recognition of the "beauty of souls," as Plato puts it - or the beauty of the abstract. The less than obvious. It is not just the beauty of the mind, but the beauty of how the mind perceives the world and the universe around it. It is nothing less than transcending one's base nature and understanding the world and the universe as something more than that which we can touch and smell and interact with physically. It is ultimately this point, at which one begins to understand beauty as more than just something that the senses express to our minds. It is also here that we become truly empathetic - where we learn to love without conditions and wish to care for and help others, because they are there and need us.

Then we come to perceive the "beauty of institutions and laws," or our culture and traditions. It is here that one becomes aware not just that there are these institutions in which we engage, but that these institutions are something beautiful - a wonderful, enriching aspect of who and what we are. It is where one begins to seek to understand not just the what, of how one lives, but the why. And it is here that one can not only perceive the beauty of these institutions as they are, but as they could be. From there, changes can be fostered - though fostering those changes is only possible when one ascends to the next rung.

The "beauty of knowledge." It is here that one becomes aware of the beauty in knowing and understanding the world. Where rote learning turns into absorbing, extrapolating and applying knowledge to one's life and to the world around them. It is from here that people are able to change their world - both in small part, closer into themselves and in larger part, rippling outward and changing large swathes of their world. It is here too, that one can begin to grasp the abstractions that largely speak to our humanity - our sentience, for what they are - abstractions. And that leads directly up to the next rung..."The beauty of beauty."

As I said, this is where I diverge completely from Plato. Where he would have us believe that this is the penultimate and something that transcends human experience, I would argue that this is both the top and ultimately the actual bottom of the ladder. It is the point at which one begins to understand enough that they can begin anew, with a fresh perspective - driven by an understanding of the abstract. It is here that many people perceive the supernatural - gods and magic. It is here that we try to transcend the world and delve into something beyond human perception - it is here that we lay the seeds for disappointment. Because we use this abstraction that is language and most of us ultimately accept that as a human construct, like all human constructs, it is flawed, we too often make the mistake of assuming that there is something greater than our flawed human existence.

This is not to say it is certain there is not, merely that there is absolutely no reason to assume there is. When all of our tools are flawed, how can we couch the world in absolutes? When nothing is perfect - nothing is absolute, why assume that anything is? Why assume that simply because we cannot perceive it, it must therefore exist at all? It might. There may be gods and magic of wondrous beauty and grace. But it is equally probable that indeed there is not.

Bottom line, why assume that beauty itself, the fundamental of Plato's realm of the forms, is anything more than an abstraction? It does not exist within the realm of the physical. We cannot "see" geometry in the natural world - perfect geometric forms cannot even exist in our minds. I can take a piece of paper and draw a rough sketch of a piece of plywood I need to cut to fit a space that needs decking. It is not the right size, nor is it proportional. It is just the outline of what I am going to cut, with measurements written on the sides. I can then take those measurements and translate them to the plywood, cut the plywood and it will fit the space. At no point were true measurements taken, nor were even the imperfect measurements translated - nowhere - not even in my mind, did the actual, perfect shape and measurements ever exist. The drawing I used to guide me wasn't even close to what it actually represented. Yet what I cut out of the plywood works.

Could it not be that language and even Plato's realm of the forms, which I perceive to be language itself, not be just another imperfect tool - flawed, but correct enough that it works?

Moral Relativism and Responsibility Part Two: Culture and the Ind

In the last post we briefly explored the relativistic nature of morality in the context of time and space. In this post we will explore it in the context of culture and the individual.

It can be difficult to separate space and culture in relation to moral relativism, because the context of space always includes culture. So I am going to use an example that includes only culture, making the context of space pretty much irrelevant. For this next foray, we will discuss the general social mores of gang culture. I think this is a reasonable example because it is a culture that exists within larger cultural contexts, yet remains relatively consistent in and of itself. Specifically we will explore U.S. urban gang culture.

For anyone who has lived in areas with high levels of gang activity, it is easy to simply dismiss gang bangers as immoral, unethical criminal thugs. Indeed I would be hard pressed to disagree, as my own moral framework precludes many of the activities that are common within gang banger culture. From the perspective of our generalized cultural mores, gang bangers are a pretty nasty bunch who, in their blatant disregard for people who aren't involved in their stupid, deadly games are very bad people - immoral people. But that does not mean they are not operating within the confines of any moral frame. Indeed, given the illicit nature of many of their activities, their general social mores are considerably more restrictive than those of the larger cultural contexts in which they live and act. And the social consequences for acting outside that framework are brutal. Rather than simply being marginalized by their peers, becoming an object of disdain, a gang banger is more likely to be severely beaten, possibly killed. And it doesn't necessarily stop there. Their family and/or close friends may also be at risk for retaliation.

There is some overlap of course. From my own perspective, I think it is blatantly immoral for someone who gets busted with a bag of cannabis to tell the police where they got it. My own reaction is not to kill the person or beat them, but at the same time, I am not going to be terribly upset if they get their ass kicked. I firmly believe that one should take ownership of their own choices and that it is immoral to push their consequences off onto someone else. But gang bangers tend to take that concept much further - it doesn't matter what the crime is, or even who committed it. You simply cannot talk to the police about it. Doesn't matter if it was your worst enemy, doesn't matter if the crime was raping someone and beating them to death - you cannot tell the authorities. If it is bad enough - offensive enough, then you deal with the perpetrator yourself or with some help from your fellow gang members. It is simply unacceptable to narc. The only possible exception would be something that is too egregious to ignore and too much to deal with, such as terrorism. But the exceptions would be rare and extreme. In general, the consequences of talking out of turn are severe and often permanent.

There is also a strong emphasis placed on taking care of your own. Another concept that is quite conducive to my own moral framework. The difference is the extreme it is taken to. I am not inclined to kick the crap out of somebody or shoot them, because they talked shit about my best friend. Gang bangers take this basic concept to a dangerous and from my perspective immoral extreme. They aren't inclined to worry about collateral damage when it comes to settling scores. What must take precedence at all cost, is vengeance and protecting their space - if there is some random innocent person in the way, too bad they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The key though, is that from their perspective they are operating from the context of their general cultural mores. And the individuals within that cultural context generally mold their moral framework to function within that context. While from our perspective, it would be perfectly reasonable to call the police and give a statement if we had the misfortune to witness a murder, from theirs it is immoral to do so. To them, any situation that would require they talk to the police about a crime would be a serious and significant moral dilemma.

With that, we come to the individual. By this point you may have noticed a pattern - that culture encompasses space, which in turn encompasses time. So it shouldn't be surprising that the individual encompasses all of these. Coming to the individual, we come to the most finite context of all - though even that can be broken down further by time, space and culture. The individual is not static. We mature as we move through time and if we are even the tiniest bit introspective, our moral framework evolves as we age. And many people change their space, moving to a different environment that will have an impact on their moral frame. Likewise, some of us also change our cultural context to some degree or another. A good example of this is my ability to relate to the notion of not talking to the cops about certain things - this was not the result of the culture in which I was raised, to any strong degree. This was the result of my having spent many years in a subculture that found certain types of illicit behavior acceptable - mostly in regards to illicit drugs. It actually contradicts to some degree my upbringing, which would not discourage one from reporting illicit activities. Though there was a supporting moral premise that one should accept responsibility for their choices, so that is not an absolute.

An example that I used in the thread over at Dispatches, is the death penalty. I like this one because I think it very nicely breaks through the surface agreement that two individuals respective moral frames might have and delves into the moral reasoning that produces the same outcome. Like many people I know, I am morally opposed to the death penalty. I am not apposed to it for the same reason that a lot of people I know are. I have a great many friends who believe that the state should never take the life of a criminal, under any circumstances. I rather fervently disagree with the moral calculus they use to oppose the death penalty. I don't believe that it is the least bit immoral for the state to execute people who are guilty of certain crimes. There are crimes that I fervently believe are reprehensible enough to warrant the execution of the guilty party. The moral calculus that brings me to so voraciously oppose the death penalty, is the risk that people who are not guilty of a capital offense might be executed for one. I simply cannot accept that any perceived benefit of capital punishment is worth the risk.

So the outcome of the calculus is exactly the same - both my friends who believe absolutely nothing could excuse state sanctioned execution and I come to the same conclusion. But there is more than a little bit of difference in how we get there. It is not a simple matter of nuance. We have a full fledged and extreme difference of opinion that is only made irrelevant by the fact that a strong enough certainty of guilt to satisfy my moral sensibility is virtually impossible and rare enough that I don't think it is worth executing those few and having the capital option on the table at all. If it were hypothetically possible to determine absolutely, the guilt or innocence of everyone convicted of certain crimes, I would have absolutely no qualms about the state executing them.

This very naturally leads to the question of the imposition of any person's moral framework on society as a whole. If there are no universal objective moral truths, then how can anyone justify imposing their moral frames on anyone else - even if a lot of people take very similar moral positions? The short answer is that we simply can't. There is never a reasonable justification for imposing one's moral frame on anyone else, with the possible exception of parents imposing their moral frame on their children. But even that is not an entirely reasonable proposition. The most important and to some degree the only purpose of morality, is as a governor of an individuals own behavior. Morality transcends law, social conventions, the environment in which one is raised and all cultural considerations, when it comes to any person's daily decision making processes. It is the single most profound control of our behaviors, our innate sense of what is right and wrong.

That is not to say that laws, social conventions, the environment in which we were raised and cultural considerations don't also play a part in our decision making - indeed all of those things provide a profound influence on the development of our moral frames. It is just that none of those things can have the absolute impact on our decisions, that our moral frame has. Our moral frame is why we choose to do what is right, even if we are quite certain we could get away with doing something we believe is wrong. It is why, for example, I couldn't just walk into a book store and slip that copy of The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome into my briefcase, even if no one is looking. It is not the fear of consequences - I am pretty sure that if I actually tried, I could get away with it. It is my moral belief that it is inexcusable to steal something that I can live without that stops me.

So where then do - or should laws come from, if not from some universal or simply objective moral truth? In point of fact, they should come from what is determined to be the best way for people to behave within a society, for making that society a reasonable place for everyone who lives within it. We don't need morality to tell us that a society that allows people to gun each other down in the street, is not going to be a very reasonable one to live in. We don't need morality to tell us that allowing rape will make a society untenable for most of those who make up that society. We don't need morality to tell us that allowing people to steal from others is going to make society rather chaotic and unpleasant. We can debate the definitions of murder and manslaughter. I don't believe, for example, that shooting someone who has invaded your home with clearly nefarious intent is the least bit immoral - yet there are plenty of situations in many states where doing so is illegal. There are gray areas when it comes to rape as well - is it rape when a man (or women) applies a great deal of verbal pressure, until the other person acquiesces? I don't happen to think so (though I could see contexts in which it would) but there are those who feel that no should be the end of it and any questioning or pressure after that - no matter what, constitutes rape if the other person gives in. And while I am not one to countenance theft or suggest that it should be legal, I do believe that the context of a theft determines it's morality and legally speaking should be taken into account. I am not inclined to think that someone who steals food in a desperate attempt to feed his or her family is being immoral.

I do however, tend to perceive many aspects of my moral frame as objectively true. This is not to be confused with believing that any aspect of my moral frame is a universal objective truth. There may be aspects of my moral frame for which I have a hard time conceiving of a context that would make them moral or at least not immoral. There are many aspects of my moral frame that I believe are absolute within my cultural context. But this is my opinion, nothing more and nothing left. This is my opinion, which forms the core of that which arbitrates my conception of right and wrong. It is that which prevents me from beating or killing someone, merely because they made me so very intensely angry - even if I was certain I could avoid legal repercussions. While there are a lot of people within my culture who have very similar moral positions on many of the things that I do, they are still nothing more than our opinions. What stretches beyond out relative opinions on issues such as equality, slavery, murder, rape and theft are laws. Unfortunately, sometimes laws are produced that are based on morality, rather than on the basis that they make for a better society for more of the population. It is almost inevitable that when laws are made that reflect morality, rather than a reasoned attempt to make society function more smoothly, they are going to unreasonably restrict the rights of some people.

In part three, I will discuss further the differentiation of perceiving one's morality objectively and universal objective moral truths, because that was tripping someone up on Ed's blog, so I imagine that I need to be especially clear on that point. The person who was seeing a contradiction there, Fortuna, is probably a pretty bright person, so I can only assume that this is going to confuse a lot of people - probably because of a failure on my part. So I will definitely explore this in somewhat greater detail. And I will wrap it up with a discussion about what I see as the responsibilities of the moral relativist - and indeed anyone - to constantly reexamine their moral frame and their motivations, their moral calculus.

And I promise, if there is anyone left reading this at this point, that I will do my best to make it as interesting as possible.

Moral Relativism and Responsibility Part One: Time and Space

As I mentioned in my last, I got into a hot and heavy discussion about morality over at my brother's blog. I already dealt with the pedantic asshats, so this will be a post devoted to addressing a couple of issues that came up there, as well as addressing another consideration that has come up outside the blogs. There were a couple of people arguing rather strenuously for the notion that there are certain universal moral truths, which, while I find it patently absurd, is far from an unreasonable position. Then there was Fortuna, a commenter who was more interested in probing what he perceives as inconsistencies in my position. Finally, I am going to discuss the apparent contradiction in the notion of the responsibility of the moral relativist to be a constant seeker of the absolute moral truths - more accurately, absolute personal truths.

There are several factors to consider, when it comes to moral relativism. The first thing I think must be done, is to provide an operational definition for moral relativism, because there is often some confusion about what it actually means and I would like to avoid confusion. This post in particular, will actually address pretty much all of the propositions that can be attributed to moral relativism. Put simply, moral relativism is the values neutral assertion that morality is relative to one or all of the following; time, culture, space and the individual. It holds that there are no universal objective moral truths. To reiterate the previous post, moral relativism is not the prospect that morality is only relative to culture. Neither is it the proposition that one must simply accept the moral frames of others as valid - all that it does is recognize that there are no universal objective moral truths.

I will begin with the broadest relative position, that of time. General cultural mores have been in a constant state of evolution since the advent of sentience. While it is patently absurd to assume that our earliest sentient ancestors were capable of considering an abstraction as complex as morality, that does not mean we cannot consider them in that context. Indeed, if there were any universal objective moral truths, they would by definition apply to all sentient beings, regardless of context. Very few of us would consider any person alive today as being somehow outside the purview of moral judgments, regardless of whether they understand the concept of morality or not. Yet most of us would probably accept that our earliest sentient ancestors can't really be judged by any of our individual moral frames. Most of us would accept that our earliest sentient ancestors were pretty much amoral, having only rudimentary conceptions of right and wrong. But by accepting that, we are complicating the abstraction that is morality. Because if we accept that we simply cannot judge our earliest sentient ancestors by our own moral frames or generalized cultural mores, at what point in history can we?

If we fast forward from the dawn of sentience, to the Magdalenian period of the development of culture we find that humans have managed to achieve enough leisure time to produce artwork that had no obvious functional purpose. With that leisure time it is likely they had the breathing room for intellectual considerations. And given that they were producing objects for their aesthetic value, they were obviously capable of abstract considerations. So can we judge the Magdalenians by our own moral frames? While I am sure that there are some people who might argue that we can, I suspect most of us are going to take into account the context of Magdalenian culture and still have to refrain from judging them by our own moral frames.

For fairness sake, why don't we move forward to a mere twenty five hundred years ago and the birth of western philosophy. We now see people actually formally studying the concept of morality - surely at this point we can begin to judge people by our own moral frames. Or can we? The world was a very different place. The environment that people lived in at the time was considerably different than our own. Even if we forward another five hundred years, to the point when the Romans have pretty well spread a great deal of what the Greeks had to offer, including the concept of philosophy, over much of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, we are still dealing with very different contexts. And this doesn't even take into account the largely separate Eastern world of the time. The East was just as foreign a context to the Roman world of the time, as the Roman world of the time is to us. Even further forward into the dark ages, it is completely unreasonable to consider the cultures of the time in the context of our own moral frames. The context in which most people of the time lived completely precludes consideration of our own moral frames.

This is just one aspect of the argument for moral relativism. We could continue to move forward in time, but I think the point has been made. The context of history precludes the consideration of people throughout history by any of our conceptions of morality. And while we can consider space throughout history, we will just move forward to the present day (or rather very recent history) for our next foray, morality relative to space. While space overlaps with culture to some extent, it should be recognized that culture doesn't always overlap with space. In many places there are multiple cultures and cultural contexts to consider. In the context of moral relativism space is also in many ways synonymous with environment. That environment can include the actual planetary environment, which in some places creates relatively unique moral considerations. It also includes the social situation in a given location, whether it be the interface of multiple cultures in the same space, or the primary type (or types) of subsistence in a given area.

A few years ago, Kristoff of the NYTs wrote a piece about his experience in Darfur early on in the genocide. After reading it, I was literally ill for a few days, especially as I considered a particular incident. This incident was a major influence on my views about morality. As Kristoff was traveling through the region, he came upon a rather young girl gathering water at a well. Both concerned for her safety and because of her size, he decided help her carry the water. He was somewhat shocked when they came to the treeline and he discovered the child's father waiting in hiding. Put short, the father explained that this daughter was the most expendable of his children. That is was certain death for him if he was caught by the Janjiweed militia, while it was possible that his daughter might not be raped and killed if she were caught. That he needed to survive, because he had other children to care for.

As I said, reading that article tore me up. Not because I made a moral judgment about the father's actions, but because I realized that I couldn't. In the context of my own moral frame, it is simply inconceivable that I could even wittingly put my own child (or any child) in harms way. It just isn't possible for me. And within our western cultural context, I would consider any person who would to be reprehensibly vile, much less immoral. Yet here I was presented with a context in which is was not only not immoral for a parent to do just that, it would have been arguably immoral for him not to. So much for universal objective moral truths, even in the context of our current period of time.

I am going to wrap this part up right here and continue with culture and the individual in part two. I am going to try to also fit the responsibility of the moral relativist and the conclusion into that post, but I can't promise anything.

Pedantic Asshats Who Piss People Off

So I am rather heavily involved in the total derailment of a thread over at Ed's, about gay marriage in MA. Early on there were some comments about the nature of morality and the next thing you know there are exponentially more comments discussing the nature of morality, than there are about gay marriage. I am going to write a more detailed post about morality a little later, but wanted to point out a couple of comments that were both unnecessary and blatantly wrong.

abb3w tries to tell us that morality is not about how people behave, when every definition of morality contradicts that assertion. There are definitions that transcend human behavior, but the claim that morality has nothing to do with human behavior is patently absurd. Even more absurd is the notion that because ethics covers very similar ground, this somehow precludes morality from the equation. Ironic, because ethics is the philosophical branch that basically discusses applied morality. That is a oversimplification, but basically accurate.

And then GD comes to explain that us moral relativists are completely ignorant of morality theory. He explains that moral relativity is only defined as the prospect that the majority moral framework within a given culture is the correct one and that anyone within that culture who doesn't subscribe is wrong. His implication is that those who embrace moral relativism, are embracing the view that other moral frames are just as valid as ones own, in the context of their cultural paradigm. Now setting aside for a moment that this is only one accepted definition of moral relativism, it is also wrong.

In the context of a given culture and the generalized moral frame of that culture, moral relativism merely recognizes that different cultures have different generalized moral frames. It is value neutral in that it doesn't suggest we should or should not accept those other moral frames as legitimate or valid. It merely recognizes that there are no universal moral axioms and in this context, uses the fact that different cultures operate under different moral frames as evidence of this.

But that is not the whole of the concept of moral relativism. I have been using it just as validly, when I have been using it in the context of individual moral frames. I didn't always use the term to describe my position, that morality is not only relative to a given culture, but also to the individual. I didn't think that the term cultural relativism was the accurate term to use, until a friend suggested that I check out Sartre and his position on morality. He is generally considered a moral relativist and guess what? His position on morality is pretty much the same as mine. So from then on, I stopped referring to my position as relative morality and adopted the proper term.

Shorter DuWayne to pedantic asshats...

Fuck you morons.

Give That Moderate Theist A MotherFucking Cookie

Addendum - My lovely partner (and Thomas himself) has pointed out that Thomas isn't particularly liberal. So we can add that he is also one of those delusional fucks who pretends that anyone who can't afford healthcare doesn't deserve it. What would you feel, if you suddenly lost the coverage you have. Seriously, if you did, would you just stoically accept that it is all your fault and that you simply don't deserve it? Because shit happens motherfucker, shit that you just can't plan for. What you have today could be gone tomorrow - through no fault of your own. So tell me, if you lost it all and needed help, can we assume you would be good enough to stand by your convictions? How about if you get desperately ill and your insurance company finds a way to squirrel out of covering it? Hmm?

Exhaustion has prevented me from getting nearly as much done with all this as I was planning, but there you have it. Eleven hours in the car yesterday, with a seven year old and a twenty month old, then another hour and a half after we dropped them off was rough. Getting on the road this morning by eight was also rough. But here I am...

Some moderate theists have been on the defensive, as of late. Philip H. was rather resentful of some characterizations of moderate theists. And a certain Thomas Joseph rather resents being lumped with extremist, fundamentalist loons. He whines that he's different - better. He's a liberal and all around decent fellow. And, and - he accepts evolution... Well YAY!!! Thomas, how about a motherfucking cookie? Because you deserve a cookie for being such an upstanding fellow who is apparently only mildly delusional. And dammit man, I am so sorry if my criticism of religion was in any way offensive - after all, it's your personal thing and your god forbid, I should criticize you're personal beliefs as though they have any impact on the society and the world in which I have to live and raise my family.

Except that they do.

But no, sputter the Thomases and Philips - we're decent people and don't believe monstrous things. We support gay rights and a woman's right to choose - we're decent liberal folks, who just want to be left alone to our faith. Don't alienate US!!! RESPECT!!! RESPECT!!!

I will most certainly not, fuck you very much. More to the point, I will happily respect you. I will respect your political stances when I agree and argue them when I don't. I will not, however, have the least respect for your religion. The fact that it is moderate, even liberal, just makes it more insidious and less worthy of my respect. To be clear, little more than a year or so ago, I was one of you. I spent the vast majority of my life wallowing in destructive ignorance and bullshit, not a whole lot different than your own. Moreover, I was a fundamentalist way back yonder, when I was quite young. I worshiped, with all of my heart and mind, the same genocidal maniac that you worship.

Eventually I got better and started recovering.

It is not the orthodox, fundamentalists and other assorted extreme theists who perpetuate the very worse that faith has to offer our society. It is the moderates who foster this mentality that says we should allow parents not to vaccinate their children, because some imaginary being told them not to. It is moderates who foster the notion that kids should be allowed to be "educated" at home, with little or no real monitoring from the state and allowed to wallow in ignorance, because that is what their religion demands. It is moderates who foster the attitudes that we should allow them to opt their children out of vital aspects of education - some of them lifesaving, because their gods don't want them to learn about science or avoiding STIs. It is the moderates who foster the belief, that I am a very nasty man indeed, for daring to criticize ignorant fucking bullshit, or for simply not believing in magical beings.

It is fucking moderates who foster the social phenom that makes the fringe fucking loons and their egregious behaviors acceptable.

And to make this whole conversation more delicious, Thomas is a bloody Catholic. So Mr. Nice Liberal Fellow, supports an organization that bears the brunt of the blame for the scope of the AIDS pandemic that is decimating massive swaths of sub-Saharan Africa. He supports an organization that hates most of my friends, simply because they prefer to have relations with members of their same sex. He supports an organization that believes women should not have the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. He supports an organization that believes that birth control is fucking evil. He supports an organization that has repeatedly shown blatant disregard for the welfare of children, by not only allowing pedophiles in the clergy to have continued access to children, but also by actively fighting against those sick fucks being prosecuted or their victims receiving reparations.

While I am certain there are areas in which Thomas and I agree, in which he is even worthy of my respect, he has given up all credibility when it comes to discussing criticism of theism. In that, he gets nothing but my utter disdain.

Are All Men Capable of Rape?

There has been a lot of interesting discussion going on over at Greg Laden's. He has now gone to three posts (one, two, three) and the discussion is pretty heated. I really didn't have time to engage yesterday and don't have a whole lot today. But I think that there are a lot of very important points to be made about this. I'll start with my first comment on this thread and expand a bit...

My gut reaction to this is that it's total bullshit. I want it to be bullshit - almost need it to be. But I then consider the recent discussions about torture and my acceptance that while the circumstances are far-fetched (i.e. on a scale with getting struck by lightening three times, each time standing in the same spot) I can think of hypothetical situations in which I would not only condone torture, but wouldn't hesitate to engage in it myself.

Humans are quite complicated animals. Human minds are incredible and incredibly adept at rationalizing, compartmentalizing and in extreme stress, breaking. The closer humans get to the primitive mind, the more likely they are to engage in what we would consider reprehensible acts. When people are required to break their social conditioning, such as soldiers are required to do - is it any surprise that some of them will break with it more completely? And when people never receive certain types of social conditioning - acts that we find repugnant naturally happen.

There are people in the U.S. who commit egregious acts of violence every day without consideration for anyone or anything around them. They simply don't care who else might get hurt while they play their stupid little games, that carry such dire potential consequences. I believe absolutely and without reserve, that the actions of such people are immoral. But I also accept that such people do not operate with the same social conditioning that I do, nor do they exist in the same social context that I exist in. More importantly, they are not operating under the same moral frame that I operate from. While I don't believe that it excuses their behavior, I accept that just because they don't operate under the same moral framework that I do, doesn't mean or even imply that they are inherently amoral. They do have a moral frame and probably do fairly well at operating within that framework.

These are people who commit egregious and repugnant acts not because their conditioning was broken somewhere along the line, but because their conditioning allows for the behaviors that most of us find repugnant. And this is very much the case with people who commit egregious and repugnant acts such as rape, within the framework of cultures that accept rape as a matter of course. This is also the case with people who would condition children to fight as soldiers or commit acts of terrorism. All of these behaviors are repugnant and our macro-society has a responsibility to try to put an end to such behaviors. But it is important to recognize that we are not up against people who are behaving badly, according to their cultural norms. We are in fact, up against the cultural norms that accept these behaviors - it is an entirely different battle.

Now I think that the simple fact that there are cultures where these sorts of behaviors are well within social norms is adequate evidence in itself, that all men are capable of rape, that all people are as a baseline, capable of all sorts of repugnant behaviors. The bottom line is that morality is largely, if not entirely contextual. Change the context, change the development, change the cultural norms and humans are capable of all manners of atrocity. History and contemporary societies are proof of that. The fact that there are even sub-cultures in the western world that commit atrocities is proof of that.

But what about the other end of this discussion? Because the question is not; "Are all men capable of rape, if their social context is one wherein rape is a cultural norm?" The question is; "Are all men capable of rape?" which implies all men, as we exist within any social context. This is a much tougher question - not because it doesn't have a very simple answer, but because that simple answer rides atop a rather complex set of variables and because it is extremely difficult to approach this question objectively. The simple answer? Yes, all men are capable of rape, all men, regardless of the social context or cultural norms they were raised in.

But contrary to what some seemed to be saying over at Greg's blog, I think that it is important to recognize another simple concept and I believe this recognition is entirely relevant to the discussion at hand. All humans, regardless of the social context or cultural norms in which they were raised, are capable of all sorts of atrocities - given the right set of variables. It is important to recognize this, because without that added context, we're presented with the implication that the potential to contradict our social and cultural conditioning and commit acts that are contrary to our own moral framework is somehow gender specific. This is not a masculine characteristic, it is a human characteristic. Indeed rape is not just an act committed by men, women can and do, engage in acts of rape too - and for the same spectrum of reasons that men do.

So really, the question should be stated; "Are all humans capable of rape?" And we have already gotten the simple answer - but what of the reasoning behind that answer?

Being a very creative and abstract thinker, I can in fact conceive of situations in which I would torture another human being. I can also conceive of situations in which I could be driven to commit murder, including premeditated, first degree murder. I can conceive of situations that would drive me to steal and even possibly harm a completely innocent human in the process. I can also conceive of situations in which I could be driven to commit acts of terrorism, though this belongs right up there with murder and possibly even torture, in terms of likelihood. I can conceive of these not because I don't believe all of these things to be immoral, or because I am somehow morally deficient. I can only conceive of these hypothetical situations because I have an incredibly active and creative imagination.

But no matter how abstract my thinking, no matter how creative I can be, no matter how actively I try to conceive of it, I simply cannot conceive of a situation in which I would rape anyone. I don't think that most people can and I think that's a good thing. I also suspect that this is why many people get very upset at the idea that someone would tell them that they are capable of rape - or for that matter, anything that I listed above. It is important to recognize three things.

One, the fact that the potential exists, does not make anyone a bad person. It doesn't reflect on who you are as an individual, nor does it reflect on your social conditioning. More importantly, it doesn't somehow imply that you are ever going to commit such acts - most of us never do. Indeed, it is unlikely in the extreme that anyone who has been firmly socially and culturally conditioned to believe that these are horrible things to do are ever going to do them, unless there is a pathological basis for such behavior. This potential reflects on no one as an individual - rather, this potential is simply a part of what it means to be human. Being human means that we are all susceptible to being driven to commit heinous acts.

Two, being unable to conceive of a hypothetical situation in which one would be capable of committing any of these atrocities is not the result of being incapable - it is merely a failure of imagination. And as I say, there is nothing wrong with that failure of imagination. I can conceive of hypothetical situations that make my stomach churn and has, on occasion, caused me to lose a lot of sleep - something I can ill afford as a baseline insomniac. In all honesty, I would much prefer a failure of imagination under the circumstances.

Third and I think ultimately the most important. This potentiality does not reflect on one's morality. That this potential exists does not signify a breakdown in one's moral framework. But just as important, the fact that this potential is so very unlikely, does not mean that one has a firm, reasonable or even coherent moral framework. Ultimately, it is outside the realm of moral frames and is actually dependent on social and cultural conditioning. This is not to say that one's moral frame is inherently separate from the potential to commit egregious acts. Rather, the potential for committing egregious acts is not inherently dependent on one's moral frame.

I do have one last point to address, because I think that Greg is way off track. In his post; Is there a rape switch?, He makes this comment, in reference to an old term paper by one of his students:

The switch being on does not mean that rape will happen. It simply means that the man (with the switch on) is now a rapist, whether he actually rapes or not (but he probably will), and when the switch is off, he is not (so he probably won't).

Now a reasonable reading of this discussion will show that this is not something that Greg is saying as an absolute. Indeed, it is clear that he is willing to be convinced otherwise, though he strongly suspects that this is the case. I am going to answer the question in the title and respond to the idea in this quote with an emphatic and resounding; No, this is complete and absolute bullshit.

A person does not move from having the potential, to being the thing, unless they actually commit the act. The fact that a lot of people who end up fitting a similar set of variables commit acts of rape, does not mean that everyone who fits those variables is a rapist. It simply means that those who don't rape, require a different set of variables to become a rapist.

Lets look at another egregious act and a set of variables that will often cause people to commit that egregious act. A man or women is in love with someone and they get married. They have, or believe they have a very strong relationship with their partner, built on mutual trust and respect. They also have a very close friend with whom they have a different sort of relationship, but one that is also built on mutual trust and respect. One day this person comes home unexpectedly and find their partner and their best friend in their bed, having sex. This particular set of variables quite often leads the betrayed party to have a psychotic break and murder one or both of the people who have betrayed them, in a fit of rage.

Does that mean that everyone who fits those variables is a murderer, even if they don't actually kill anyone?

Not at all. It merely means that people who don't commit murder under those circumstances, require a different set of variables to become a murderer.

I'm sorry Greg, but unless and until a person actually commits the act, they only have the potential to commit the act. Until the specific variables that will cause them to act are met, they are in fact, incapable of committing the act.

Prosecute the Officials Who Ordered Torture, not the Operatives Who Followed Their Orders

There has been a lot of discussion about the Obama administrations release of the torture memos and the decision not to prosecute the operatives who actually engaged in torture. The two that I've been involved in the most, is this one at Greg Laden's blog and this one at Dispatches.

Let me be very clear before I continue, as many folks seem to be making assumptions about my position that couldn't be further from the truth.

1) I do not condone torture - at all.
2) I do not want to leave operatives with the notion that they should commit acts of torture in the future, if they are ordered to.
3) I absolutely want to see the DOJ investigate and I want to see officials that made the legal recommendations, the officials who counseled the Bush administration and those who gave the orders to torture go to prison.
More...
The bottom line however (to borrow a phrase from Comrade Physio Prof), is that we do not live in a world that resembles a fucking care-bear picnic. While I absolutely do not want to see our intelligence operatives engaging in torture, I also don't want them to be put into a position where they will have to argue the law with officials who tell them to do something and make it clear to them that it is legal for them to do so. Intelligence operatives have to do a lot of things that are morally and legally dubious - and sometimes we need them to do those things.

Indeed, sometimes we need them to do things that are pretty clearly illegal - something that should be prosecuted in court and for which they should then be pardoned, unless it is found that they committed an egregious abuse that was either unnecessary or was outside their purview of protecting national security. I basically would consider the court proceedings an additional level of oversight that requires operatives to justify their actions and provide an accounting of why they felt it was necessary to operate outside the law.

I believe in the rule of law, but also recognize that there may arise occasions when the law would prevent intelligence operatives from preventing clear and present dangers to our national security, to the security of our allies, or the security of civilian populations of our enemies. Breaking the law should not be common, nor should actions that do be taken lightly. But pretending that there are never situations where breaking the law is not justified is complete and utter fucking bullshit.

Most importantly though, there are a lot of situations where the law is not so explicit and arguments could be made either way. Not to mention actions that while not necessarily illegal, would tax the conscience of most people. We need to make it clear to the operatives who are doing their damnedest to keep us safe, that they can follow orders given, without fear that we will turn around and decide that since the lawyers and officials who gave those orders were wrong, we must prosecute the operatives who followed those orders.

Now it's easy for you and me to say that this wasn't the least bit unclear. It's really easy to assume that the interrogators who engaged in acts of torture are just sadistic fucking bastards who get off on hurting people - and you know, I wouldn't argue that some of them probably qualify. But we aren't those people, people who we have trained to think and act differently than you or I would act. We push these people to the very limits and sometimes encourage them to go beyond, because what they do - what we need them to do sometimes requires skirting that line.

Rather than prosecuting them, we need to take steps to ensure that this never happens again. First and foremost, we need to make it clear to the people who gave the orders, the architects of this torture, that what they did was a crime against humanity. That if they are found guilty, they will go to prison. In effect, we need to ensure that the folks in power in the future, will never give these sorts of orders again. That they can and will be prosecuted if it is found that they ordered operatives to commit criminal acts. Second, we need to create fundamental interrogation guidelines that make it clear where the line is and make it clear that if this line is crossed, the operative who does will be prosecuted and punished, to the full extent of the law.

It is not easy to simply say that these folks should be let off of this. I am pretty certain that there are operatives who are sadistic fucks who wanted to do this. But I think that it's far more important to avoid sending operatives the message that they cannot simply trust the folks giving the orders, not to fuck them and leave them open to prosecution.