Moral Judgments

This idea was suggested by a conversation I was having on another thread ("Emotions and Consciousness separate from the Brain?") which drifted off-topic.The issue is as follows: If we believe that all morality is subjective, or relative, or culture-specific, is it reasonable for us to judge other subjective, relative, or culture-specific moralities?The example used initially is my own view that a certain type of Islamic conservatism looks to me like gender apartheid, which I deplore.So I have judged this other morality, knowing full well (presumably) that my own views are merely derived from my own culture and are certainly not absolute.Am I justified in making this negative judgment?I say no, logically I am not, since any reasons I can come up with will beg the question of my providing a ground for that reason, which I do not have.Nonetheless I will continue to make such judgments.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-03-2005 01:08 AM

The ground would have to be an absolute ground; otherwise we have not advanced the argument. Holmes suggested that we could argue that the Islamic conservative is not being consistent within his own moral system in his mistreatment of women.So Holmes is advancing the following rule:Thou shalt not be inconsistent within one's own moral system.If this is an absolute, Holmes has a good reason for judging the Islamic conservative negatively (assuming he's right about the inconsistency). But if it is not an absolute rule, if it just a subjective idea or something out of his own culture, then he has not advanced his argument.The Islamic conservative can reply,"Why should I be consistent? One of your own writers said, 'consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.' Islam is a dynamic and vital religion. We must change with the spiritual and social conditions of our time. We must protect the virtue of our women against the vulgarity of Western influence."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-03-2005 07:52 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-03-2005 07:54 AM

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "conceptions about the world," but if you are suggesting that there is a difference between a moral idea and an idea about the nature of reality, I agree. An example I read somewhere would be this: People used to punish witches, but we no longer do. Is that a moral advancement? One might say, no, because we know longer believe in witches. It's an advancement in knowledge about the world. If we still believed in witches, and believed they did horrible things, no doubt we would punish them.So if you are saying that a moral system is based on some viewpoint we have about the nature of the world, and that this viewpoint may involve something that can be corrected objectively, which has nothing to do with morality per se, I think I agree with that. I don't at the moment think there are moral absolutes (but am eager to be proven wrong), so I will just take a stab at this.1. Suppose we came up with a rule that we thought absolute.2. We would have to think up all sorts of scenarios in which the moral rule would be applicable. This rule has to be applicable in all situations, anywhere, anytime.3. Through these scenarios, hypothetical or real, we should be able to intuit morally that yes, the rule should apply.4. We have to assume that moral intuition is as valid as logical intuition.5. This moral rule would be as objective as a mathematical theorem, and we would have to be able to intuit this. It would have to be obvious that yes, the rule applies.6. If you could do all these things, you could convince a reasonable person of the truth of the absolute moral rule.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-03-2005 13:28 AM

If it's a deductive logical rule, then it can be an absolute. That's fine with me, but I think that's what you are introducing.By itself, of course, it's rather limited. Some moral system might be consistently vicious in which case it would not be violating the principle of consistency.Also, I'm not sure that facts about the world are going to be very relevant in the contrast between moralities. If someone says that family honor is more important than women's rights, this surely falls into the category of a moral statement. I don't see how any facts about the world are going to change that.Need to figure out how a moral statement differs from another kind of statement.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-04-2005 13:41 AM

Not sure what your point is here--although the info. was interesting and maybe can used as examples in this discussion.From my own "system," all the actions were bad except the outlawing by the government. But logically I can't judge since I have no grounds for disapproving of revenge and head-shrinking and the commercialization of head-shrinking and the like.Holmes might be able to discuss non-moral concepts about the world as regards this case.

Man, this topic went to hell in a handbasket. I still maintain the assertion in the OP is valid, however.