There is a part that is dangerous and ugly
David Aaaronovitch heard ‘one of those fashionable voices that calls for more understanding of political Islamism and less confrontation’ on Start the Week on Monday.
The former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke, who has become a kind of Dr Dolittle of Islamist movements, was discussing his new book, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution with Andrew Marr. Crooke’s point seemed to be that we in the West could learn a lot from Islamism, since it was, in some ways, morally superior to our fly-blown, materialist, individualist societies…Islamists wanted “a society based on compassion and justice”.
Oh do they. Then why is it that the first thing Islamists do is to kick girls out of school or tell women to ‘cover up’ or publicly stone to death a teenage girl who reports being raped? If they want a society based on compassion and justice, why do they go about it in such a stupid malevolent way? That’s not a straight question, of course, it’s heavy sarcasm. Of course Islamists don’t want ‘a society based on compassion and justice’ unless we change the meanings of ‘compassion and justice’ to mean the opposite of what they normally do mean. You might as well say the Nazis wanted a society based on compassion and justice, or that Pol Pot did, or that Milošević did. There is no justice in throwing acid on schoolgirls to bully them into staying out of school, or in burning down schools, or in locking up women, or in burying people up to the neck and then throwing rocks at their heads until they die. How dare he say such a disgusting thing?
Sure, Marr said, but what about the position of women, persecution of gays and the tendency towards blowing stuff up. “There is a part that is dangerous and ugly,” Crooke agreed…
But it is as nothing compared to the morally superior vision of a society based on compassion and justice. ‘Useful idiot’ would be a flattering description of Alastair Crooke.
What Aaronovitch points to is indeed ugly. But his own pooh-poohing of abusing prisoners — in his comment, “it would be easier to demand that security heads should roll if we knew that Mr Mohamed had been wrongfully detained in the first place and that he was not, and had never been, a jihadi” — is not so pretty either.
On any issue there is really only one truth, but a thousand ways to deceive others and oneself. Appeasement of violent people is one of them.
“NB” refers to Aaronovitch’s “pooh-poohing of abusing prisoners”, which doesn’t quite tally with Aaronovitch’s writing “Should even a fraction of Mr Mohamed’s story of physical and psychological abuse in various prisons from Morocco to Afghanistan turn out to be true, he has been appallingly treated.”
The quote NB gives is in relation to Aaronovitch expressing caution about necessarily taking at face value everything that Binyam Mohamed says about his activities prior to his capture (none of which is to defend his being incarcerated without trial in Guantanamo). He gives the example of one of the “Tipton Three”, about whom a film was made depicted them as innocents who happened to stray into a war zone in Afghanistan. As Aaronovitch points out, one of them later admitted in a UK Channel 4 programme that he had been to an Islamist training camp where he learnt how to use an AK-47: http://tinyurl.com/dmpb9c
I don’t know what to think any more. Is it up to me to decide what is moral for everybody in the world at all times? If I can judge people from remote valleys in Pakistan can I judge a tribe who have never come across outside civilisation?
Kees. Yes, if they throw acid in the faces of little girls. Why is this a problem? When French teenagers are blown up in Cairo, and discontented Ethiopian drug addicts from England end up in a war in Afghanistan, and Americans resort to torture, it’s best if we have something to say. It’s a cliché, but we do live in a global environment. The world is at our doorstep, quite literally. Of course, there’s always an alternative – what they say that ostriches do. (Do they, by the way?)
I was going to remark on David Aaronovitch’s justified scepticism regarding the stories swirling around Binyan Mohamed, at the same time accepting as appalling even some of the stories of his reported abuse, if they turn out to be true. The man was clearly off the reservation. How much can we believe of what he says? That’s not clear at the present time. On the other hand, it is clear that there is still a problem, whatever name we give it, but calling it a war doesn’t help. And another word which mean’s war doesn’t help either, nor do synonyms for terror.
Allen Esterson:
So do you interpret Aaronovitch’s comment as meaning something like, “Maybe we shouldn’t take Mohamed’s account at face value”? It’s an odd way of saying that. It sounds more like, “If Mohamed really was a jihadi, then the appalling treatment he may have been subjected to can be condoned.” Otherwise, why is it so hard to demand that “security heads should roll” for abusing a guilty prisoner?
But Neil, Aaronovitch explicitly says the exact opposite of that. “Guantánamo was wrong despite there being a real problem of terrorism, and not because that threat was overblown by George Bush and his evil neocon advisers.” I don’t know how much more clearly he could say it.
OB (& Allen Esterson):
You’re right that Aaronovitch said things against Guantanamo & prisoner abuse; I just don’t know how to square them with the comment I cited. If Guantananmo is wrong and tormenting prisoners is wrong and prisoners were indeed mistreated, why isn’t it quite easy and natural to demand that security heads roll?
Ah. I take him to mean just – what he said: it would be easier. Simpler, less muddy, less complicated, more obvious. Less arguing to do, less back and forth; a more clear-cut case. Maybe I’m wrong. I thought it was a somewhat throwaway remark, but maybe it’s not.
Isn’t the thrust that torture and barbaric punishments are only okay if they are part of Sharia law?
After all just because *we* want compassion and justice (supposedly) – doesn’t mean our Moslem neighbours have to demand the same things!
Ah the irony….
NB wrote:
>So do you interpret Aaronovitch’s comment as meaning something like, “Maybe we shouldn’t take Mohamed’s account at face value”? It’s an odd way of saying that.< No, I didn’t say that the quoted sentence was meaning this. I said it was *related* to his suggesting caution about taking Mohamed’s account at face value. I agree that (as Ophelia implies) the sentence in question was carelessly worded, and *in isolation* it could be interpreted as NB has. But I think elsewhere in the article Aaronovitch makes it clear enough that he is appalled by the treatment Mohamed received, on the assumption that he has given a truthful account (or, as Aaronovitch also writes), even if a fraction of it is true. I do agree with NB to the extent that Aaronovitch should have been explicit in saying heads should roll in the intelligence services if Mohamed’s account of their complicity in torture is true. Given what I know of his views, I suspect he failed to make this explicit because he was intent on drawing attention to the views about Islamism expressed by Alastair Crooke on a radio programme this week, and on combatting them.
“If I can judge people from remote valleys in Pakistan can I judge a tribe who have never come across outside civilisation? “
Yes. Why shouldn’t you be able to? In what way are you lacking in ethical understanding compared to this notional tribe?
But over and above this, if a member of that tribe says they don’t want to be tortured by another member of that tribe, which one do you support? If it’s the torturer, then why?
Hi dirigible,
In what way are the notional tribe lacking in ethical understanding compared to me?
Eric,
As well as condemning the throwing of acid in faces, OB condemned the throwing of girls out of schools. So is it up to me to decide on the morality of that kind of thing for everybody in the world at all times?
Well, Kees, since throwing girls out of school, keeping them illiterate and submission is arguably harmful to girls, and more generally to women, it is just wrong. My point is that when something is wrong, and you know it is, and have the chance to say so, you should add your voice in any way you can to counter trends that diminish human beings. Don’t you feel even the slightest responsibility to do that. You can’t decide for everybody, of course. They have to do that for themselves. But you do have to decide for yourself, and take it from there. Usually, when I see things happening in the world, I have some idea anyway whether it is a good or a bad thing, and whether, as an individual, I can do anything – even the smallest thing, like commenting here – about it. When I can, I do.
Kees,
Banning girls from school is always unethical. Even if the ones doing the banning a poor oppressed third world people, and the ones doing the condemning are nasty imperialist westerners.
What makes you think girls in Pakistan don’t deserve the right to an education?
Eric,
The people who would throw girls out of school would argue that school is harmful to girls and to the wider society. Why do your arguments prevail over theirs?
Jakob,
I don’t understand how you think you can say anything is always unethical. Where do you get your once-and-for all ethics from exactly?
Ah- we have a cultural relativist in our midst!
Kees- put it another way: Why do you think that banning girls from school is a good thing?
Or: Why do you think banning Pakistani girls from school is a good thing?
Saying “we can’t judge” is morally bankrupt- of course we can. If people suffer then we should point it out- and loudly.
These are our ethics. Our ethics apply to all humans- not just those with white skin.
To attempt to duck out of those claims is simply moral cowardice.
Kees,
“The people who would throw girls out of school would argue that school is harmful to girls and to the wider society. Why do your arguments prevail over theirs?”
Because our arguments are based on the notion of equal rights, and theirs are based on superstitious prejudice.
“I don’t understand how you think you can say anything is always unethical. Where do you get your once-and-for all ethics from exactly?”
Banning girls from school is always unethical because there is no case in which it isn’t unethical. It hardly requires much thought to realise that sexism is wrong.
“The people who would throw girls out of school would argue that school is harmful to girls and to the wider society. Why do your arguments prevail over theirs?”
Kees, the girls who get thrown out of the schools would argue that they have been subject to an injustice. Why should you accept the views of their oppressors over theirs?
Your confusion on this sort of thing comes from ignoring the views of the victims and privileging the views of the abusers. It is a common mistake. But it is still a stupid one.
Thank you, Tzimisces, Jakob, and John. I don’t really need to add anything, do I? But I will.
On what basis, Kees, could you justify disadvantaging girls? How could that possibly be, to use your words, ‘better for society as a whole’? Don’t the girls count here? Or did you just forget that they are people too, and part of society – well, half and often more than half, of society? The same people who ban girls from schools threw acid in their faces when they could go to school. Doesn’t that give you even a tiny hint? What does that group get to say what happens for the good of society, and the girls get to say nothing?
Tzimisces,
I didn’t say I thought banning girls from school was a good thing.
“These are our ethics. Our ethics apply to all humans- not just those with white skin.”
Who is “us” here? You’re claiming that your ethics apply to all humans: how come you get to be the one to decide?
Kees,
Why do you think some ethnic groups should have more rights than others?
You claim is the one that needs to be explained. Our claim that rights shouldn’t be different for different ethnic groups is a negative claim so all we need to do is point to the lack of support for your claim.
Kees- I don’t “get to decide”.
I am referring to a moral debate that has been going on for centuries and has ended up with the decision that women and men deserve equal rights- including an equal education.
Another strand of that moral debate has come to the conclusion that all humans are equal.
Why do you think that these conclusions are flawed?
You say:
“I didn’t say I thought banning girls from school was a good thing.”
Really? So what do you think?
To have no opinion is to have no opinion on an appalling abuse of human rights.
How do you justify this?
Jakob,
“Banning girls from school is always unethical because there is no case in which it isn’t unethical. It hardly requires much thought to realise that sexism is wrong.”
I agree that you can come to that conclusion without thinking very much. All you are doing is parroting the current moral thinking in your own society. If you think about it a bit more you’ll see that most people throughout history have had other ideas. Ethics aren’t forever.
“All you are doing is parroting the current moral thinking in your own society.”
That claim is prevalent throughout western academia and the chattering classes.
It is either true outside of that cultural context, in which case other claims may also be true outside of their own social context, or it is false outside of its cultural context, in which case it can be ignored.
Either way, it cannot do the work you would need it to in order to destroy everyone’s claims to truth outside of their own social context except for your own.
Kess,
So you think sexism is okay? How do you justify giving rights to one sex that you don’t give to another?
“most people throughout history have had other ideas.”
Just for a start, no one knows what “most people throughout history” have thought, because most people throughout history have left no record of what they thought, because most people throughout history have been powerless and easily silenced. What you mean is that most people throughout history who had enough power and material wealth to impose their ideas and also get them recorded have had other ideas.
You seem surprisingly clueless about the need to ask ‘cui bono?’ and to distinguish between the rulers and the ruled.
Kees-
You say:
“All you are doing is parroting the current moral thinking in your own society. If you think about it a bit more you’ll see that most people throughout history have had other ideas. Ethics aren’t forever.”
First of all, I doubt that anyone on B&W parrots anything. It is part of the ethical debate that has being going on in the left for some time.
So here is your first error. You see the fact that ethics change over time as an excuse for relativism.
This is an error because the reason ethics change is quite often because of reasoned debate. It progresses because we try to debate rationally about ethics. (This is not to deny that it might go backwards for various reasons)
Your second error is to believe that relativism is not itself a moral position. Unfortunately it is because it has disastrous consequences for our fellow human beings (such as allowing the taliban to rule).
You cannot stand apart from morality and claim that all moralities are equal- that is in itself a moral position (and a repugnant one).
Your final error is to think that you can stand aside from individual judgments in the moral debate. You can’t. You have to make judgements. To not make judgements is to ignore the problem- which is itself a moral stance.
Hi Tzimisces,
You say:
“I am referring to a moral debate that has been going on for centuries and has ended up with the decision that women and men deserve equal rights- including an equal education.”
The debate obviously hasn’t ended. The Pakistani government have just handed control the Swat valley back to the locals, telling them they can have Sharia law there. The Archbishop of Canterbury thinks we should have it here in the UK! He may be a deluded and silly man, but plenty of people here take him seriously.
“Another strand of that moral debate has come to the conclusion that all humans are equal.
Why do you think that these conclusions are flawed?”
I don’t think they are conclusions.
>The Pakistani government have just handed control the Swat valley back to the locals, telling them they can have Sharia law there. The Archbishop of Canterbury thinks we should have it here in the UK!< Kees: Are you seriously saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury wants in the UK the same Sharia law as they are getting in the Swat valley?
Kees,
Stop dodging the issue and tell us if you think sexism is acceptable.
I suspect your position is the sort of confused nonsense usually exhibited by moral relativists: “[i]I[/i] think it’s wrong, but actually it’s not.”
Kees:
Anyone who wants to think coherently about ethics needs to keep in mind the distinction between ethical values, on the one hand, and people’s opinions about ethical values on the other. (This distinction holds even if one rejects the objective reality of ethical values, or believes that we humans cannot judge what real ethical values are.) Differences of ethical opinion between cultures tell us nothing at all about actual ethical value, if there is such a thing.
Kees, this won’t do. If you want to claim something, you’re going to have to argue it. You can’t just drop a few sound-bites and leave it at that.
NB,
This is part of a wider PoMo habit of equating truth with belief. They say things like “it’s ‘true’ that the earth is round, but it used to be ‘true’ that the earth is flat!”
When they talk about ethics they use the same fatuous reasoning. “It’s wrong to throw acid at school girls, but it used to be wrong to teach girls how to read!”
“…your ethics apply to all humans: how come you get to be the one to decide…”
Because there are only a few choices left if they don’t apply to everyone:
A] we are bound by ethics to treat everyone well, while others are not so bound, in which case we oblige ourselves to stand by while others are treated in ways we acknowledge are unethical. This is a pose of handwringing non-intervention that scarcely qualifies as an ethics at all;
[A(1) of course, is where we get treated unethically, while being bound by our own ethics not to respond in kind, or perhaps at all. This is fine for the occasional martyr, suicidal for a society overall.]
Or B] we are not bound to treat everyone ethically. This is a license for conquest and exploitation. We did that, for quite a few hundred years. It was bad. This, too, scarcely qualifies as an ethics. [Which is why for most of those centuries of exploitation, imperialists claimed, in both bad and sometimes good faith, that they were doing it for their subjects’ benefit.]
So, you see, for an ethics to be meaningful, for it to describe and prescribe ‘ethical’ behaviour in anything approaching the usual meaning of the word, it must at least point towards universality, for which the ability to declare, of an action anywhere, by anyone, ‘that is wrong,’ is surely a minimum requirement.
Hi OB,
“You seem surprisingly clueless about the need to ask ‘cui bono?’ and to distinguish between the rulers and the ruled.”
I’ve looked through what I’ve said, and I don’t see where I’ve given you evidence of my cluelessness in this regard. I think I can see as well as you can what is going on.
Kees, I told you where – it was the bit about your wild claim that ‘most people throughout history have had other ideas.’ My point is related to the one John Meredith made earlier:
‘Your confusion on this sort of thing comes from ignoring the views of the victims and privileging the views of the abusers.’
You didn’t respond to John’s point or to mine; you also ignored most of the other replies. As I said: this won’t do. You can’t just make clownish announcements and then ignore all the substantive responses. It is, to be sure, very amusing and instructive to have a genuine cultural relativist on the premises (so many people think the beast is mythical), but not so amusing that you can just go on being gnomic and arbitrary indefinitely. Put up or shut up.
Jakob Tomasovich,
I’ve noticed this post-modern habit of thought, and it makes me livid. I much prefer frank ethical nihilists, whose views, even if mistaken, are not a hopeless muddle.
Jakob: “I’ve noticed this post-modern habit of thought, and it makes me livid…”
I think that was Kees’ intention. Making provocative statements but avoiding dealing with responses is known as trolling. Some find it fun.
In any case, even the most turgid postmodernist thinker would probably argue that the decision whether or not a given girl should go to school should be that girl’s own, and not left up to some wild-eyed fanatic from the local madrassa.
Sorry Jakob, my mistake.
NB, please take note.
Ian,
I don’t mind being mixed up with Jakob; I agree with his comments.
I don’t believe there are moral rights and wrongs. I think almost everybody would accept that other animals don’t behave morally or immorally, well I think that the same is true for humans.
I don’t see where a universal moral code could come from. What is right and wrong depends on what you are trying to achieve, on the assumptions you make.
A small group of men recently came to Britain from the Pacific island of Tanna. Tanna is populated almost entirely by Melanesians and they follow a more traditional lifestyle than many other islands. Some of the villages are known as kastom villages, where modern inventions are restricted, the inhabitants wear penis sheaths and grass skirts, and the children do not go to public schools. From what I saw of them they seemed outstandingly happy people, their main social pleasure on the island was to get together in the evening in a clearing and sing and dance.
The men of Tanna were morally outraged by a British poodle parlour. They saw the dogs spending the day being pampered, groomed by humans, having their hair washed and dried in a comfortable, warm, clean, well-lit room, while outside homeless people were sleeping on the cold streets outside vacant buildings. On their island, they said, they eat dogs, and if you need a house, everybody will get together and build you one. If you were a long way from home and had nowhere to sleep, anybody you asked would take you in and feed you.
Would you want to say that these people are behaving immorally when they deprive their children of any right to education?
I haven’t been able to find much about relations between the sexes on Tanna,
but “Tanna boys, may, after their circumcision at age 5 to 11 “chew kava for their elders and have sexual intercourse” (Mills, 1961).
However, on the adjacent island of Mewun:
“While the wishes of men from a given “ples” contracted the pool of marriageable women for would-be suitors from another “ples”, the suitors tried to circumvent female infanticide and to expand the pool of possible wives through pre-natal betrothal. Because of the shortage of women, Mewun adult men frequently tried to betroth a wife before the wife was born. The story goes that they would go up to a pregnant woman, put their hand on her belly and claim the unborn child if it proved to be a girl. The bargain was sealed with a gift of a pig to the parents, refundable if they had a boy instead. Usually, affianced girls were left with their mothers until they were weaned. At that time the future husband would claim his bride by delivering the rest of the bridewealth and taking his adopted wife home to his own ples. There she would remain in the custody of one of his female relatives until she was into puberty at which time her husband would build her her own house and begin having intercourse with her.”
Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004
……………………………………………..
I’m not prepared to say those people are wrong. I’m not prepared to say the right thing is for them to have the moral values of the society I happen to be in. Who am I to judge that? Who are you to judge that?
Welcome to Introduction to Anthropology, MWF 8 a.m., Mead Auditorium.
I’m not making provocative statements and failing to deal with the responses, I’ve tried to deal with the responses during the course of a busy working day, then this evening I’ve been for a meal with the family! When I got home I spent two hours on the message above.
I notice a number of my own questions haven’t been adequately responded to. Some of you are very sure about the validity and superiority of your moral code, but I don’t believe anybody has said anything about what that certainty is based on.
Kees, the issue here is not whether the people of Tanna have a right to be left alone to do as they please. That is a red herring. The isue is how we judge (and we have a right to judge) certain people who for whatever reason turn up in stories in the media. Like for example, the Taliban, and how they coerce others in the areas they control in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“I’m not prepared to say those people are wrong. I’m not prepared to say the right thing is for them to have the moral values of the society I happen to be in. Who am I to judge that? Who are you to judge that?”
Fair enough if you are talking about the people of Mewun or Tanna, though some issues are raised, like whether or not prenatal girls should be betrothed by their parents. (Do we bloggers have a right to hold an opinion on that, and to express it, like… here?)
But if you are talking about the right of the Taliban to go about in their customary ways throwing acid in the faces of girls who want an education, are you honestly saying that you are not allowing yourself to take a position on that?
Back earlier in this thread you asked Eric “The people who would throw girls out of school would argue that school is harmful to girls and to the wider society. Why do your arguments prevail over theirs?” Of course, that was yesterday. You might have changed your mind since. But if you haven’t, a further question: Why should anyone here be bothered with you?
Kees, several people have raised substantive objections to your (apparent) point, without necessarily dealing with your questions as such, probably because the questions seem both crude and rhetorical. I mean, you don’t really want us to answer ‘Who am I? Who are you?’ do you?
“Would you want to say that these people are behaving immorally when they deprive their children of any right to education?”
Idyllic tropical islands are a somewhat special case, and isolated groups are a somewhat special case. I might not want to say that about the people of Tanna (it would depend), but it doesn’t follow that I therefore wouldn’t want to say it of anyone. It certainly doesn’t follow that I don’t want to say it of the Taliban in Swat, where the girls were in school and were forced out of it by violence and threats.
Suppose you learned that some of the children of Tanna wanted to go to school? What then?
I crossed with Ian. We’re saying much the same thing.
It’s funny, just a few days ago I was reading selections from the transcript of the Supreme Court case Wisconsin v Yoder which was about the right of Amish parents to keep their children out of school after age 14. The SC decided unanimously that the Amish do have such a right – but many people think they decided incorrectly, and Douglas included a reservation which as far as I can see makes his joining the decision incomprehensible. He pointed out that the children have rights too, and that the decision ignored that fact. Well quite. I think it was a bad decision.
“Kees, the issue here is not whether the people of Tanna have a right to be left alone to do as they please. That is a red herring.
The issue is how we judge (and we have a right to judge) certain people who for whatever reason turn up in stories in the media.”
…………………….
I’d like an explanation of this. Why is it that the remote and isolated island of Tanna is not your business but the remote and isolated Swat valley is? Why, Ophelia, is your moral compass so affected by geographical degrees of latitude? Why is it different if the uneducated children are on a tropical island?
……………..
“Fair enough if you are talking about the people of Mewun or Tanna, though some issues are raised, like whether or not prenatal girls should be betrothed by their parents. (Do we bloggers have a right to hold an opinion on that, and to express it, like… here?)”
……………..
The question isn’t about whether you can have or express an opinion, the question is whether you can say your morals are superior to somebody else’s.
I have in mind statements like this, from this thread:
On any issue there is really only one truth. (Ian)
Since throwing girls out of school, keeping them illiterate and submission is arguably harmful to girls, and more generally to women, it is just wrong. (Eric)
Banning girls from school is always unethical. (Jakob)
These are our ethics. Our ethics apply to all humans- not just those with white skin. (Tzimisces)
I think these statements, delivered with such certainty, are very much open to challenge, I think the example of the island of Tanna shows you why. The men of Tanna were morally outraged by aspects of our society that we take for granted, while behaviour that they see as morally acceptable would land you in jail here.
Dave,
Thanks for your comments. You said:
“So, you see, for an ethics to be meaningful, for it to describe and prescribe ‘ethical’ behaviour in anything approaching the usual meaning of the word, it must at least point towards universality, for which the ability to declare, of an action anywhere, by anyone, ‘that is wrong,’ is surely a minimum requirement.”
My argument then is that since we can’t meet that minimum requirement, as illustrated by the example of Tanna, then our ethics are indeed not meaningful in the way you want them to be. Agreed?
Kees,
There are some pacific islands where people worship aeroplanes and build bamboo runways to entice them into landing.
Does the fact that their plane-related beliefs are different to ours prove that aeronautical truth claims are relative to culture, or are they just wrong?
Kees: “In what way are the notional tribe lacking in ethical understanding compared to me? “
That is not what I asked. And it is certainly not what I am implying.
If they were superior in ethical understanding to you, then, and if they argued that relativism is not true, would you abandon relativism?
OB: “Idyllic tropical islands are a somewhat special case, and isolated groups are a somewhat special case. “
But they are not special or exceptional cases for our ethics where we are called on to support individuals in such situations.
Kees: “I don’t believe anybody has said anything about what that certainty is based on”
I tend to avoid certainty. I don’t however change my mind without good reason. You have not so far provided a good reason for me to change my mind about relativism.
You seem so certain that everybody has to obey relativism for starters.
Jakob,
This is a discussion about ethics, about morality. I really don’t see the relevance of questions about aircraft engineering, and I suspect you are consciously or unconsciously attempting to shift attention away from questions you find it difficult to address. You said:
“…even the most turgid postmodernist thinker would probably argue that the decision whether or not a given girl should go to school should be that girl’s own, and not left up to some wild-eyed fanatic from the local madrassa.”
In my (EU) country parents are put in prison if they do not force their children to attend school, and these schools have compulsory daily religious worship. Can girls in your society decide for themselves whether to go to school or not?
Dirigible,
You seem to be rather more certain about my position than I am myself. You say I appear “certain that everybody has to obey relativism for starters”.
I’m not at all sure I am a relativist. I’ve said I don’t think there are (fundamental) moral rights and wrongs.
dirigible
“But they are not special or exceptional cases for our ethics where we are called on to support individuals in such situations.”
No indeed; that’s why I was careful to say ‘somewhat’! Also why I said it depends. It depends for one thing on how much, and what, we know. If we investigate and discover that the tropical island contains people who are systematically deprived of resources, exploited, excluded, ostracized, subordinated, etc, then yes, we damn well can make moral judgments.
Kees have you ever had a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? And its background? It might interest you.
“I think these statements, delivered with such certainty, are very much open to challenge, I think the example of the island of Tanna shows you why. The men of Tanna were morally outraged by aspects of our society that we take for granted, while behaviour that they see as morally acceptable would land you in jail here.”
Wrong, Kees. You stated that the men from Tanna found unacceptable the contrast between people dining high off the hog while outside in the street there were homeless and hungry people camped in the street. Personally I find that outrageous and repugnant, as do many, many others. It is the sort of thing that is threatening to bring down governments. Extremes of wealth and poverty have always been politically destabilising in both the West and the East. Read the history of China.
However, if you believe that a man should be able to get married to a baby, and even prenatally, then I suggest you start a campaign in your own EU country to have the relevant laws changed. See how you go.
I would go on, but for this: I asked you a question, to which you have made no reply: “…But if you are talking about the right of the Taliban to go about in their customary ways throwing acid in the faces of girls who want an education, are you honestly saying that you are not allowing yourself to take a position on that?”
So on that: yes or no? Position or no position?
I’ll give you a hand. I take a position. Moreover, I don’t go about throwing acid in the faces of young people of either sex who want to go to school, nor of those who do not want to go to school. I believe that makes me morally superior to those who do throw acid, like the Taliban. Would you like to challenge me on that? If not, then what position on that do you take? On that.
By the way, I know a bit about south sea islands, because I have been to a few and happen to live on one. It is in fact the biggest south sea island in the world. It’s called Australia. I encounter here lots of people from other islands of the Pacific, because they come here looking for work.
Kees wrote:
“The Archbishop of Canterbury thinks we should have it here in the UK! He may be a deluded and silly man, but plenty of people here take him seriously.”
Tzimisces replied:
This *is* part of the debate. However, the reason he is deluded and silly is because Sharia Law breaks several fundamental- and agreed- moral principles, such as equality between the sexes and equality before the law.
I know this is not part of the main debate, but it really is rather silly for people to keep saying (three either on this thread or on a previous thread) that the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks we should have Sharia law in the UK. I agree that Rowan Williams is a silly man, but he was not suggesting what either Kees or Tzimisces say he was. He was talking about certain civil matters, specifically aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and mediation for conflict resolution. And he explicitly stated that any such inclusion of civil Sharia law within the British legal system must not remove from any individual the rights they were entitled to enjoy as a citizen of the UK.
As I say, I know it is not part of the main debate, but I hate it when people make manifestly false statements about someone’s views.
Kees,
I’m sorry, but “Who are you to say that p?” is a valueless rhetorical question. It offers no evidence against p, no evidence for p, no reason for thinking anything at all. It is just a sneer, with no actual point to it.
Or, if you think there is an actual point to be made, then please please make it.
I don’t see what the Tanna case is supposed to establish. I mean, yes, different cultures have different practices. That is true. But, from that fact, absolutely nothing follows about morality. Knowing about the Tanna case tells us absolutely nothing about whether it is wrong to deprive women of education.
Of course, something might follow if you accepted the following thesis:
* A moral claim must be universally accepted in order to be true.
Is that your thesis? It’s an absolutely crazy thesis, so I’m hoping it’s not yours.
Damn it. I spend two weeks house-hunting and book-writing, and I find I’ve missed an honest-to-Pete cultural relativist. Please come back, Kees? I’ve been reliving my glory days in Introduction to Gender and Sexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa. I think I might have sat next to you when we were discussing female genital mutilation – weren’t you the one asking how we could judge that?
Aw, that’s sad, Josh.
:- )
Ian,
I’ve said several times now that I don’t believe there are moral rights and wrongs. I said:
I think almost everybody would accept that other animals don’t behave morally or immorally, well I think that the same is true for humans.
I don’t see where a universal moral code could come from. What is right and wrong depends on what you are trying to achieve, on the assumptions you make.
……………………
So it doesn’t make sense to keep asking me to state my moral position on acid throwing, sexism or anything else: that’s like pressing me to speak out explicitly against lions killing gazelles.
In an article about Butterflies and Wheels I see this suggestion:
“…it is never a good idea to allow one’s political, ideological and moral commitments to infect the judgements that one makes about truth-claims which have nothing to do with such considerations…”
If I understand the above writer correctly, I think what they describe is actually happening in this discussion. People can’t bring themselves to seriously consider the question of whether morality has any foundation, because of the consequences if it hasn’t.
I don’t believe in fundamental moral rights and wrongs because I have never heard a persuasive justification for their existence. I don’t believe in God or his/her/its doings or teachings for the same reason.
I think your belief in a fundamental morality is similar in nature to a belief in God.
If you have a rational justification for your belief in a fundamental morality I would be genuinely pleased to hear it.
Dave2,
You said:
“I’m sorry, but “Who are you to say that p?” is a valueless rhetorical question. It offers no evidence against p, no evidence for p, no reason for thinking anything at all. It is just a sneer, with no actual point to it.
Or, if you think there is an actual point to be made, then please please make it.”
You’re the second one to say something like this. I don’t agree with you. If I had simply asked “who are you..?” it might have been a rhetorical sneer, but I also asked “who am I to make this judgement?”. The question I am asking is, what is it about me, you and our society, that entitles us to over-rule the judgements of other people and their societies.
You said:
“I don’t see what the Tanna case is supposed to establish. I mean, yes, different cultures have different practices. That is true. But, from that fact, absolutely nothing follows about morality. Knowing about the Tanna case tells us absolutely nothing about whether it is wrong to deprive women of education.”
What the Tanna case establishes is that different cultures have not just different practices but also different moralities. The Tanna deprive everybody in their society of education, not just women, and they regard that as a moral action. They want to live in the way they did before they were contacted by the outside world. They seemed happy with their lives, they were shown my society and they didn’t want it.
So what entitles me or you to say that they must accept our morality?
You said:
“* A moral claim must be universally accepted in order to be true.
Is that your thesis? “
No, I think none of them are true.
Kees, don’t just keep repeating your own aphorisms, answer the questions we’ve asked you.
Kees: “If you have a rational justification for your belief in a fundamental morality I would be genuinely pleased to hear it.”
I have such a justification, and I will give you the pleasure you anticipate of reading it; when you answer my simple questions. Otherwise you are just playing a troll’s game.
I’m sorry Ian, OB, I really thought I had answered your questions, which ones do you think still need answering?
Oh for heaven’s sake, Kees, I can see a slew of unanswered questions just by scrolling up with my eyes half-open. This does look like trolling.
Answer the question I asked you on the UDHR thread, for a start.
Kees: Those in my post of 2009-02-27 – 13:11:13.
I have just looked back over the discussion, as I have many times over the last few days. I can not see any questions from others which I have not responded to in some way. Most of the questions are along the lines of “do you agree that x is morally acceptable?”. I’ve said several times that I don’t believe in absolute moral rights and wrongs, of the kind OB thinks can and should be universalised.
I don’t think you can tell the Tanna they are absolutely morally wrong not to educate their children, or to buy babies to breed with when they grow up. I don’t think you have any reason to prioritise your moral values over theirs.
If you can point me to a question I haven’t answered I’ll try to answer it. I strongly object to the “troll” allegations. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into what I’ve said, and the responses have been hostile, bullying. I’m accused of speaking in aphorisms (what rule does that break?), I’m accused of running away when I’m spending hours on my responses, I’m ordered to get on and answer questions just as I’m in the middle of answering them!
Meanwhile nobody has made the slightest effort to answer my questions: what is the foundation for your morality? Why should your morality be preferred to that of a group like the Tanna?
Kees: “If you can point me to a question I haven’t answered I’ll try to answer it. I strongly object to the ‘troll’ allegations.”
Noted.
Kees, we have tried to answer your very crude questions by asking you questions in return (cf Socrates) in an attempt (at least in my case) to move on a few steps by getting you to realize that you (probably) do have some moral views. You haven’t answered any of those questions but instead keep asking silly crude basic ones. I don’t have time to start at the beginning with every commenter who asks damn fool questions; I have other things to do.
Kees: “I’m accused of running away when I’m spending hours on my responses, I’m ordered to get on and answer questions just as I’m in the middle of answering them!”
If it’s taking you hours to tap out the content-free paragraphs above, you should really work on the signal to noise ratio. You haven’t answered anything of substance, and you’ve simply ignored – as if no one posed the problems – questions designed to elicit some ethical/intellectual engagement on your part. And that takes hours?
This sort of behavior is understandable for a college freshman first confronting such issues in Anthro 101. From anyone older it’s pitiful.
Quite. And I haven’t undertaken to teach Anthro 101 here, or Poli Sci 101 or Ethics 101 or any other introductory course. Kees has the choice between engaging with the questions or being ignored, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Ian, I responded very specifically to the post you mention, in my post of 2009-03-01 – 12:09:44
It took me a long time to write that response to you, to say what I wanted clearly and concisely, and reading it again I remain satisfied with the end result. Will you read what I said there again please, treating it as my sincere attempt to answer your question. If you think I have failed to answer your question, please put it to me again.
And would you also like to answer my question to you, about the foundation for your own moral beliefs?
Kees – no – if you’re this hopeless you’ll just have to give it up. Go do some serious reading, or something. You have not answered our questions, and I don’t want to clutter the place up with your basic education.
Enough said.
Kees,
You write: “The question I am asking is, what is it about me, you and our society, that entitles us to over-rule the judgements of other people and their societies.”
But this presupposes that the truth or falsity of a proposition somehow turns on the authority of the people asserting it. And that would be absurd. If my moral judgments are correct and others’ are incorrect, it has nothing to do with my authority over them. Rather, it would be a matter of objective moral fact, absolutely independent of what we humans happen to think or where we stand in relation to each other.
“What the Tanna case establishes is that different cultures have not just different practices but also different moralities.”
Yes, it establishes that different cultures can have different moral beliefs. But, quite obviously, nothing follows about the truth or falsity of those beliefs. It is possible, after all, to have false beliefs.
And, again, “what entitles me or you to say that they must accept our morality?” rests on the false presupposition that saying their beliefs are false somehow rests on one’s own personal authority. Or alternatively, what entitles us to say it would be that what we say is true—which is nothing about us, and everything about what we say.
You also write that you think no moral claims are true: “No, I think none of them are true.”
That means you accept the following:
* It is untrue to say that animal torture is wrong or that genocide is very bad (or even that wholesale slaughter of the Tanna would be bad).
But that is a conclusion that cannot be taken seriously. Any view which leads to it must accordingly be rejected or modified.
And note that I don’t have to provide foundations for morality, or even to believe that morality has foundations, in order to point out your errors in reasoning.
Dave2,
Animal torture, which you are putting forward as an unquestionable, universal moral wrong, is legal almost everywhere in the world. It seems that almost everybody in the world believes it is moral. Hunting, shooting, fishing, animal fighting, animal performance, animal captivity, animal experimentation.
You said:
“If my moral judgments are correct and others’ are incorrect, it has nothing to do with my authority over them. Rather, it would be a matter of objective moral fact, absolutely independent of what we humans happen to think or where we stand in relation to each other.”
I’m saying there are no such objective moral facts, in the same way that there are no objective moral facts about animals.
OB,
I think you are right after all; by “easier” Aaronovitch probably meant “easier to make the case to others” rather than morally easier. So I was being too hasty.
Kees – no – if you’re this hopeless you’ll just have to give it up. Go do some serious reading, or something. You have not answered our questions, and I don’t want to clutter the place up with your basic education.
Right, I’m happy enough with that Ophelia. To sum up: I’ve tried diligently to answer any questions put to me, I’ve rebutted many points made to me, without reply, I’ve expressed a willingness to answer any further questions people wish to pose.
I have put one question myself, and you have refused to answer it. I’ve put the same question to Ian, he said he would answer it if I answered his. I answered his, but he won’t answer mine. Nobody else in the discussion seems willing to say what their moral authority rests on, what allows them to make moral rules affecting everyone else for all time.
You don’t like having your authority challenged. You don’t like having your own arguments used against you. You know your moral attitudes have no ultimate foundation, and that’s why you can’t talk about it.
“I’ve put the same question to Ian, he said he would answer it if I answered his. I answered his, but he won’t answer mine.”
No Kees. You ducked and weaved like the best of them on my question, for which the answer is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
For the ultralast time, the question is: “…But if you are talking about the right of the Taliban to go about in their customary ways throwing acid in the faces of girls who want an education, are you honestly saying that you are not allowing yourself to take a position on that?
“So on that: yes or no? Position or no position?
“I’ll give you a hand. I take a position. Moreover, I don’t go about throwing acid in the faces of young people of either sex who want to go to school, nor of those who do not want to go to school. I believe that makes me morally superior to those who do throw acid, like the Taliban. Would you like to challenge me on that? If not, then what position on that do you take? On that.”
So once again on that: yes or no? Position or no position? One or the other. Not both.
So far, all you have illustrated is the moral blind alley that your relativism has got you into.
Well it’s at least ambiguous, Neil, so you weren’t being all that hasty.
Kees, you may have ‘tried diligently to answer any questions put to’ you but you have failed dismally. Actually I don’t even believe you have tried, because there are such obvious ones that you never made any (visible) attempt to answer at all.
I don’t consider myself to have any ‘authority’ and I also don’t consider you to have challenged me. Your assertions are much too crude to be a challenge and your responses are hopeless. I would have ‘talked about it’ if you had managed to engage, but you never did. I don’t have time to teach you your ABCs.
Kees, I’ve just been through the comments again. You really do have a nerve. You got a whole slew of substantive replies and you ignored all of them; you ignored follow-up questions urging you to answer; you ignored challenge after challenge and simply talked at cross-purposes instead of replying. Now you’re pitching a fit because we’re sick of your silly game.
Go away now.
You know that your moral posturing has no ultimate rational foundation, and you are afraid to discuss the matter because that lack of support would be brought into the open, and the whole structure you have erected would collapse.
Prove me wrong: tell me what your universal morality rests on. You could do it in a couple of sentences, or refer me to some text, here on your website or elsewhere, that sets out the rationale for your position. But you won’t do this, because you can’t.
No, of course I couldn’t do it in a couple of sentences. It’s not a couple of sentences subject – this is part of what you misunderstand. You yourself have just discovered that there are different moral views, and you draw two sentence conclusions from that well-known fact; but that is your mistake, not mine.
You want texts – read some Martha Nussbaum, or Kwame Anthony Appiah, or Sen, or Austin Dacey, or Tom Clark, just to name a few with recent ‘texts’ on the subject.
PS – here’s a bit of morality for you. Don’t presume to read people’s minds. Address what’s on the screen, not what you guess to be other people’s motivations. Don’t accuse people of being afraid merely because, after multiple attempts to get you to answer reasonable questions, they give up and tell you to go away.
Kees,
Here’s another suggested reading: Schopenhauer’s The Basis of Morality, the best piece I have ever read on the topic. Report back when you are finished.
I’ve read though the first chapter of Austin Dacey’s book twice, and the nearest thing I can find to an explanation of the source of his claimed moral authority is this:
………………………………
Secularists believe in moral rights and wrongs, and it is in these terms that they must stake their public claims about secular government, freedom of expression, human rights, the integrity of science, as well as culture war issues like stem cell research, gay marriage, or the right to die. What makes these liberal values moral ideals, as opposed to mere personal tastes or prejudices? They are the ideals that have emerged from the historical exercise of conscience: they are the conclusions arrived at by thoughtful people who in deciding how to live have endeavored to take into consideration all the relevant interests and reasons of themselves and their neighbors and fellow beings.
…………………………..
Is that really supposed to persuade me that I should accept the moral authority of secular liberalists? Because they have thought about it? Does he mean, anybody who disagrees hasn’t thought about it? That anybody who takes all the relevant interests and reasons into consideration will come to the same conclusion as him? Well clearly it isn’t so!
Kees,
First, you appear to be guilty of a horrifying non sequitur.
1. People have different moral beliefs.
2. Therefore, there are no objective moral facts.
2 does not follow from 1. In no way does it follow. Not even close, not by a long shot. It’s not up for debate. It just doesn’t follow.
If you have another argument for your position, please use it, instead of this monstrosity.
Second, your view doesn’t merely reject the universal wrongness of types of behavior; it also rejects the particular wrongness of individual people doing particular things. In other words, you end up with the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with what Josef Fritzl did. But that conclusion cannot be taken seriously. So any argument you could give for your view is fighting a near-vertical uphill battle.
Also, since everyone’s making book recommendations:
G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica
W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good
A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
C.L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language
A.C. Ewing, The Definition of Good
R.M. Hare, the Langauge of Morals
J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics
Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings
Simon Blackburn, Essays on Quasi-Realism
Michael Smith, The Moral Problem
Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defense
Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics
Richard Joyce, The Myth of Morality
Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism
If you want to discuss metaethics, you need to know something (anything!) about metaethics.
[…] Kees? I mean “Kees”? The troll who appeared in February-March 2009 pretending to be a naive observer who had just discovered moral relativism by watching a tv documentary about a South Pacific island where the men (prepare for a shock) ran […]