You do not understand what morality is. It is not just behaving a certain way.
With the concrete example of chastity I showed how a moral idea reorganizes the drives and empowers the individual. All you are doing is saying “No!.” I can’t help you any more.
It is also ridiculous to say men and women have the same drives. There is nothing that would suggest that.
You say we have the same drive to behave in a way that could be classified as moral. Morality is not a mere classification of certain behavior. As I said, it is a system intended to reorganize the drives- man’s psychic structure, in order to heighten his feeling of power. And if women have a psychic structure incompatible with a morality, their submission to it and following of it can have disastrous results for their psychological health.
You listed the ideas that monogamy and murder are wrong are “moral instincts” shared by men and women. That is honestly quite laughable.
in practice, morality is, first and foremost, a behavioral protocol - particularly as it is active in those social mandates that oppress women (or any other class of person)
i don’t think you understand what i am saying - but perhaps that’s my own fault
yes, in many cases, morality is a system of behavioral mandates used to oppress, repress, supress, and whatever else, i’m not denying that
i gave you examples, which you dismiss without argument
why? it seems almost self-evident to me
Not even different groups of men share the leaning that monogamy and murder are wrong, to say they are equivalent between the sexes is therefor ridiculous. And those were the only two examples you gave.
many different groups of men share the leaning that monagamy is good and murder is wrong, as do many different groups of women - we see it across a variety of cultures and societies - obviously it’s possible to make the case that monogamy is not good and murder is okay, and some people do (men and women), but that doesn’t erase the fact that there a strong tendency in both men and women to find many of the same such things abhorrent or virtuous. i would argue that this is indicative of the fact that men and women have similar moral instincts.
pick some moral principles not linked to sexual virtue or gender roles and i bet they will be equally intuitive (or unintuitive) for women as for men. i believe i mentioned a parent’s having an ethical obligation to their child, for instance - certain moral stances just seem intuitive, regardless of one’s gender
Are you saying all European men agree on chastity being a virtue? Do they practice it?
Vanita,
— Moral men respect the moral laws because those laws organize his unique impulses and drives, they heighten his feeling of power.
O- Incorrect. Laws are always a limit on a person’s feeling of power. This is the reason why laws are “enforced”, because otherwise men follow their natural desire to expand on their power whatever the cost, which is why it is deemed immoral.
— Women never created a morality. If they can live without it so can we.
O- Do you have a girlfriend? Women are the perfect moralist because they remember. No one lives without it. To even suggest it rests on a moral consideration.
Can anyone do whatever they desire to you and you don’t mind? Because that is what an immoralist would be required to do in my book- to bless everything done to him, his or her entire biography. I know of no woman that does this nor of any man. To have standards is the distinction of humanity.
Excellent posts, omar and uglypeoplefucking.
Morality is not a mere classification of certain behavior. As I said, it is a system intended to reorganize the drives-
Then a discussion of those particular drives ought to be integral to the present conversation. I.E. What is it about the drives of a woman that makes it impossible for men and women to morally agree on matters of honesty, theft, and murder? I tend to agree with upf that “moral principles not linked to sexual virtue or gender roles” are intuited similarly, if not equally, by both women and men.
The OP based this thread on a flawed premise, and that is that men and women are substantially different. I submit that men and women are essentially the same, barring a few differences in plumbing and hormone balances.
The evidence to support my position is clear. If women and men were not the same, they would by definition have separate roles in society. As we move forward and learn culturally, it is becoming generally accepted that no role is off limits to either gender, barring those that require the respective male or female plumbing and hormones. Both women and men can be world leaders, diplomats, taxi drivers, athletes, race car drivers, scholars, philosphers. They can be captains of industry, religious leaders, doctors, parents, teachers. Either gender can be creative, jaded, violent, insensitive, friendly, quiet, homosexual, afraid, generous, timid, needy, promiscuous, ad infinitum. Therefore, men and women are more the same than they are different, and thus are capable of constructing and understanding a moral context.
Furthermore, the moral structure created when women were “silenced” is no longer relevant. The moral structure of western civilization has evolved to meet the needs of an evolving society, particularly as it pertains to the needs and desires of women. It is not a stretch to say that women had a hand in this process.
And finally, what moral law? Barring a few obvious constants, there is no universally accepted morality in western civilization.
BL
We don’t have any “modern” moral structure.
Women can be all those things, certainly, but they’re not. Not to recognize a fundamental antagonism between the sexes is unthinkable to me. If you want to convince me of our equality, you are going to have to do better than list a few adjectives.
This is a mistake I see all the time. You cannot mistake the “social contract” for morality. The social contract is much older, it is intended to make society run smoother. We agree on the most basic things possible: not to steal, not to kill, (unless the person belongs to a different tribe or society) etc. Morality is much different. It evolves out of metaphysical, philosophical, and religious valuations of certain drives, impulses, passions: it is intended, like I said, to reorganize man’s psychic structure to allow it to function more effectively, to heighten the feeling of power.
As a matter of fact you can think of it like this. Just as the social contract evolves to allow the polis or social/political body to function more effectively, so morality evolves to allow man’s inner society, the inner polis of drives, passions, and hungers, to function more effectively. The former is very archaic, present even in the oldest and most isolated tribes, but morality is something we only see in higher culture.
Ah! Then you concede your position is flawed.
I didn’t say anything about equality. No two individuals are equal, so how could two genders be equal? I said we are mostly the same. Our similarities dramatically overshadow our differences. This is true across cultural, ethnic, and gender lines.
I would agree that certain human subgroups have experienced repression from other human subgroups in the past. Some of this oppression may be ongoing to this day. However, this oppression has no bearing on our fundamental sameness. I don’t understand the term “gender antagonism,” but it suggests mutual fear and misunderstanding between men and women. Hopefully this is something most of us outgrow sometime between high school and marriage.
And as to my “list of adjectives,” Consider Carly Fiorino, Condoleeza RIce, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Mother Theresa, Marie Curie, etc.
BL
It seems to me that you understand morality as some sort of social conditioning or behavior, it is not, it is a judgment of what is right and wrong.
Bored at work again!
Vanitas, your description of morality, or the narative you use to explain its origins, is very foreign to me… and apparently to most of the people on this thread. You tell this narative: “morality evolves to allow man’s inner society, the inner polis of drives, passions, and hungers, to function more effectively… morality is something we only see in higher culture.” as if its a well established historical record or something… I think you will have to convince people that this narrative is a correct representation before you can start advancing your position on women.
It seems to me that you severely over-estimate the process and elements involved in the origin and evolution of morality, especially abrahamic morality. Set aside for a moment the probably legitimate criticisms of corruption and abuse perpetrated by the purveyors of morality for selfish, self-empowering goals throughout its history. Even if we assumed that morality evolved only with the best, most sincere intentions of those advancing it, I would argue that that the people involved with its evolution were still… generally stupid. They were operating with notions about human nature and their environment that sucked.
Oh and your example of chastity doesnt work I think. Lets ask a catholic priest how empowered he feels from swearing off sex altogether. I think that one of the most empowering experiences for a man in this world… is to get some fine ass.
But to what extent is this intentional? Did men sit down somewhere long ago and say, “let’s create a morality that subjugates women?”. Or did it flow more from gender roles that evolved slowly and organically over thousands of years? In more primitive cultures, for example, man did the hunting, woman stayed at home. The women had the primary role in raising the children and/or cultivating crops. How much of this is nature and how much of it in nurture?
Morality is always rooted in history and in cultural. And these never stop changing. So it seems the key question then is this: Can philosophers distill all of this down to the most rational set of gender norms?