IN part. If we work with formulation FJ gave, then morality is an assessment of what works well for the individual person - when we look at a particular act. There are a couple of possibilities if this is the case. 1) if individuals do what benefits them (in some comprehensive sense), then this will also benefit other people in the group. That this is an assumption of causation. Or 2) if individuals do what benefits them (in some comprehensive sense), it may not be good for the group, but still you think that a good act can be determined this way. All this if in fact you accept his formulation. If you do, then I think it needs to be demonstrated that there is this line of causation from what benefits the individual to the group. I do note that you include effects from these acts such as the reactions of the community. So obviously there are potential lines of causation that instantly link the self-interest of the individual to the group’s well being. I still think it needs to be fleshed out - which you may do later in the debate. IOW I am skeptical.
I think, though I am not sure, that I am the same. I do think about having been hurt by others and some teeth gnashing can occur much later in the game than I am proud of, but when I have been an asshole, that sticks in the sticking point.
However…perhaps not everyone is like us. Perhaps one could argue that it might be prudent for individuals NOT to notice this as much as we might or some might. Something along the line of N’s pride and memory.
And it is my experience that at least many seem to function this way. If they noticed and could face, then, yes, perhaps they would also cringe and find this worse, but they do not seem to register.
And frankly this does seem to give them an advantage, as long as they keep focus mainly on people who don’t have much power over them or other kinds of direct unpleasant influence. (there are cultural structures that also protect such patterns of not noticing)
Right and good, this was clear to me and it seems to be inherent in your view. It raises the issue of us all being the same and you know I don’t think this is the case. I don’t want to pursue a parallel debate with you, but I am trying to get clear what your position is, in a sense so that it can be communicated very clearly.
If you judge an act immoral then you should be able to demonstrate how it was not in the best interests of the one who performed that act. Of course some people can act against their own self-interests, I know this too well from my own experience. I bring up the sociopath precisely because a lot of the feedback from the community means nothing to him or her. And they do seem to have different brains, so this may not be simply an example of them not knowing what is best for them.
Let me jump to another probe…
Female genital mutilation.
To claim that this is wrong to do, one must be able to demonstrate that it goes agazinst the interests of the ones who carry it out. If we focus on the mothers who generally arrange these things, to not get their daughters ‘changed’ is to set up all sorts of suffering both for themselves and for their daughters. This would include economic problems, social pain and perhaps even violence directed at them. If they are in a culture where FGM is an accepted part. Their daughters very long term survival may be connected to performing this act. (I realize you allow very much for context factors and I do think a consistent position can be held here, but I think it might be useful to put it out very clearly ((and perhaps you have, I have to take these things piecemeal and I have only gotten so far in the debate. Here’s the thing Mo, I think your conception of morality is so different to modern ears that it might be good to start with the ways in which what the modern ears is straining to hear can hear up front. Perhaps you have done this, but that is what is setting up my probes.)))
If I look at this example one thing it entails is pockets where acts, given the generalized contexts can make acts that elsewhere in the world would be considered immoral, moral.
IOW this is different from a lot of moral squeeze analyses, where the context factors are within a larger context that generally weighs against such acts.
Generally it is bad to put out someone’s eye with a fork, but a child who is being held captive by a serial rapist and gets to eat a meal with the rapist before being raped which he has heard happen to other kids…etc.
Here the factors are individual-focused and create exceptions to rules of thumb (or eye).
I think this is one area where people will get confused about context and objective morality. Because pockets - cultures, subcultures - may lead to acts which would be judged elsewhere as immoral, not getting that judgment in a local, but general way.
Here we have a hope that whole cultures can be moved towards states where all members are more able to pursue their self-interest and that some faulty ideas about certain things being necessary can be defeated. So the objectivity from an outside vantage is aimed at the whole culture, rather than judging individual acts in the ways we are used to them being judged morally and especially when there are claims to objective morality.
Now, please, Mo, let’s not get too bogged down in the particular example. Perhaps you think that the negatives on the mother of that girl if she does not carry out the FGM cannot possibly outweigh the negatives of performing that act. I don’t want to get in that argument.
I think you can imagine at least some acts where a culture’s norms make them no longer bad, whereas if they happened to you on main street wherever you are, you would think, shit, that was immoral of X. Perhaps something less horrific like bribes and other forms of what we would call corruption and what are like waiters’ tips in many places to the other mindset.
The cultural relativist, while seeming to share your position here, is at a dead end at this point. They simply have to respect the other culture’s norms. You on the other hand, need not respect the culture’s norms and can still try to demonstrate, both to members of your own culture and that other culture, that the acts are wrong and perhaps part of some more complicated web of morally incorrect ideas and behaviors.
It seems to me that to be consistent, you would have to not judge the mother or at least some actors as behaving immorally. The shift of the judgment is up to culture level. This does not leave your kind of objective moralist hands-tied in interpersonal discussions with such a person. One can still present a case and in fact this could be part of a complex problem solving approach - though conversations with men would likely be even more important.
I think this may be an area where people get confused in relation to your position. Because, I believe, it entails, a withholding of judgment from actors in certain contexts, while allowing for, demanding judgments of the contexts. This is something foreign to most conceptions of objective morality.
If my example was a poor one for you, please try to think of others where you would withhold judgement, even from acts that in your home town you would easily call the act immoral and even if the act is widespread in the other context.
You may think there are no such examples. If that is the case, I think there is a problem with the model and I can try to pursue that. If you agree there are examples, then I think this whole issue should be up front, to make it very clear to readers that this is something other.
I did not read your whole OP in the debate. Sorry, that’s just more than what I come for when I come here. I want something more like ping pong than postal chess or whatever a good analogy would be. If I end up managing to get somethign useful across for you great. If not, just ignore those parts or the whole thing. This was a sincere attempt to engage and see how your position can be put out more clearly and perhaps consistantly.