Moral Relativism again

It has become a tired cliche that everyone has their own opinion on moral matters.  But consider that if that were really true, the Relativist would not be in a position to solve moral conflicts.  The relativist position does not allow for conflicts to have a resolution other than just an avoidance strategy.  This essentially is the non-interference posture.  "Just because my position differs from yours, you have not right to interfere with my position."  In some respects the Relativist and the Absolutist have this in common.  Both reflect a stubborn refusal to compromise and learn from others who differ.   Essentially this has been our problem throughout history.  We have thought ourselves correct and refused to learn from others.  So if we apply the cliche that everyone has their own opinion on moral matters, what we are really saying is that my opinion is just as good as yours, so I'm not altering my opinion - definitely a conversation stopper.  How can one come up with solutions to moral problems, if the other party is unwilling to engage in compromise.


Another more difficult issue with Relativism is its seeming self contradictory nature.  If everything is relative to a culture or subculture, then so is an opinion reflected by the statement "everything is relative".  So if relativism is itself relative, what allows the relativist position validity in any sense.  The relativist position is merely a function of the culture or subculture within which it arises.  Philosophers have sometimes tried to avoid this problem by pointing out the difference between statements made within a given subject, from statements made about the subject (meta-statements).  For instance there are mathematical statements and there are statements about mathematics; sociological statements and statements about sociology.  In some sense the statement that "everything in morals is relative" is such a meta-statement.  It is not  a statement from within the subject of morals, but a statement about morals.  In some sense therefore, Relativism is a Meta-moral theory and not an moral theory, and thus we should not expect it to solve moral conflicts.  Relativism cannot be made normative.

Moral Relativism (continued)

There can be no doubt that cultures vary extensively as to what they, as a culture, deem acceptable behavior.  In some societies it is acceptable, if not mandatory, that a woman be totally submissive to her husband and that the husband ought to beat her until she does his will.  In some cultures it is acceptable and in fact common practice to mutilate a female's genitals (female circumcision), so that she will find intercourse painful and unlikely to find sexual contact with another desireable (Alice Walker: Possessing The Secret of Joy). What do we do when these cultures come in contact with other cultures, say for instance our own?  Is it morally acceptable for one man to beat his wife and not another?  Here we should distinguish Moral from Legal.  In societies where beating one's wife is illegal it may be considered immoral not to, and may, and often does, go unreported to legal authorities because of cultural predispositions. According to the relativist position one should leave other cultural and moral practices to those who practice them and not interfere.  But can we really do this?  In a globalized world, where it is only a few hours flight time to another totally alien culture, it is difficult to maintain an Absolutist position (that there is one and only one correct moral right and wrong, and it is the one held by the person with that absolutist postition, commonly called Hard Universalism).  Likewise it is difficult to maintain a Relativist or Subjectivist position, since that would entail that we leave others alone and not interfere with their moral and cultural practices.  Morals can't be totally subjective to an individual or relative to a given culture.  There must be something else.

The pluralist or Soft-Universalist position is that although there are many cultural differences there is, and ought to be, some basic fundamental commonalities to moral questions. Here education, empathy, sympathy and respect come into play.  We ought to respect others for their cultural practices and moral beliefs, be sympathetic and empathetic to others, but also come to some compromises, so that we get at the commonalities and not let one culture dominate or dictate the beliefs and practices of others.  It is a difficult task, because some people for moral and cultural reasons will refuse to compromise. But we cannot persist in a series of culture wars that we today have as a plague on our house.

To illustrate the position of the Pluralist, consider the film Dances with Wolves.  In the movie John Dunbar finds a woman by a lone tree on the prairie who has tried to commit suicide.  In her culture it is right to kill herself, so that she might die to be with her dead husband.  But in our culture it is wrong, and John wraps her in his flag [our flag -- symbolic of our culture], so that she will not bleed to death and returns her to her people.  As the story progresses she is found to be once of John's culture and eventually becomes his wife.  Here cultures are in conflict and here for both cultures life is sacred, but they have different ways of expressing the sacredness of life.  On the one hand to die for one's husband is the ultimate respect for that husband.  On the other hand to live for one's deceased husband is the ultimate testament to him.  The problem is ultimately solved in the movie when John comes to be a part of the Sioux community and comes to take on some of their cultural values, but understands that their values are very much the same as his and not just because he falls in love with the woman (Stands with a Fist). In other words they do not leave each other alone, they come to understand one another and compromise. They learn and study each other's ways and in the process come to love each other.  As one of the Sioux warriors says to John just before the marriage "I know now why he died, it was because you were coming".  The Hard Universalists in the movie are the soldiers who beat Dunbar up for dressing like an Indian and adopting many of their ways and cart him off for a court marshal.
(To be continued again)

Moral Relativism

Relativism is an attractive theory because it seems to advocate tolerance.  It is especially attractive to young people.  But just because it is attractive doesn’t make it viable. The goal of Relativism is non-interference, which one might interpret as a kind of tolerance. But true tolerance is much more than just leaving others alone, it is understanding, acceptance, learning and appreciating the value in others, perhaps walking a mile in the shoes of another.  Perhaps it is the pluralist (soft-universalist) position where we have or have developed many differing customs for dealing with social interaction, but still have some basic moral principles in common.  Note the word 'principles' here.  Often I hear people confuse specific acts of moral import with principles.  We might have widely differing moral specifics (customs for dealing with moral behavior), but yet have the same or very similar moral principles.  Tolerance, in some sense, is an attempt to get at the deeper level of principles, so that the surface level of our customary method of dealing with those principles, can be understood.

Essentially Moral Relativism stems from Sociological/Anthropological studies of various cultures and concludes that Cultural Relativism is therefore the guide for the theory often called Moral Relativism.  But just because the norms of one culture differ widely from another does not entail that there are not some basic moral principles that apply to all cultures. The principle thesis of Cultural Relativism makes a moral judgment here, that we have no right to interfere in their cultural norms, since those norms are valid for that culture.  If we carry that over to morals and develop a Moral Relativism on this same notion, that we have no right to interfere, we are making a moral judgment that one ought not interfere with the social ammenities of others and likewise their morals.

We should never confuse, however, morals and social/cultural norms.  Consider that in some societies it is not customary for a woman to shave her legs, or in some for a man to shave his face. But would it be immoral for a woman to shave her legs, or for a man to shave his beard?  Just because it is customary does not entail that it is immoral.  However some people in these societies believe it to be immoral.  In fact in some countries the confusion between morals and customs is so deeply entrenched that it is believed that to go against the prevailing winds of custom is immoral.  In some Muslim countries it is immoral for a woman to go outside the home without being completely covered, and escorted by a male member of her household.  We are told that this developed many centuries ago as a protective measure for the woman, so that she was not pummeled by blowing desert sands, and protected from thieves and robbers by her escort.  But now today this has developed into a moral question, and the woman may be detained by the morals police, if she doesn't follow these societal prescriptions.

We ought not develop such notions in our western societies.  Our social customs ought not be considered such, that it would be immoral to break them. There might be good reason to break a social custom, but it is unclear that there can be a good reason to break a moral prescription (law).  In a pluralistic society we ought to see that our social customs differ from morality.  We cannot allow ourselves to believe that the social customs we have developed are essentially morals, and to break them is not only socially taboo, but also morally reprehensible.  (to be continued...)

Our elderly

In our Western Society we are totally absorbed with YOUTH.  We therefore view elderly as non-contributors to our society.  This accounts for much of the lack of respect we have for the elderly.  We western societies lack a sense of gratefulness for what our elderly have given us in terms of achievements.  This leads to some thing we ought to think about!

Consider computers, wireless, radio and digital encoding.  It is frankly a matter  of fact that the next generation of computers are merely built upon past achievements.  The Internet seems pretty cool, but without past achievements it would not even exist. Right now I’m working on my new Laptop, which is on my dining room table, connected to the wireless network in my house.  Do I owe Marconi and Tesla (now dead) an unending debt of gratitude? Yes!  Because without Tesla I would not have an outlet to plug on the wall my laptop into and without Marconi there would be no wireless.

 Consider the fact that strange men running around with pocket protectors and slide-rules put a man on the moon.  Today we think that pocket calculators and space shuttle flights and remote probes to the outer planets are cool, but they are just further developments of the technologies of those with the pocket protectors and slide rules. In fact, it took over 20 years for a space probe to reach Uranus and it missed its intended target 20+ years later by only a few Kilometers.  I guess what I’m saying is: it’s not the further developments that are of value, so much as the first invention of the technology.  We have little respect if any for the first inventions, we think them crude, primitive and not very cool.  But if you think about it for a while, the cool stuff is built upon the primitive and it is the primitive that is of real value, because it is from scratch, so to speak.  With a little more respect for past achievements will come respect for those who accomplished those achievements, in short the elderly.

Eastern societies are quite different, they honor their past and respect those who created that which we have today from the past.  Here in the west we honor the newest and the most sophisticated (complex).  But in the east they honor more the oldest and the simplest realizing that without the simple there is no complex and without the old there is no new.

It is not so much a matter of duty to the elderly as respect.  If one thinks on Kantian morality, duty and respect are in some ways linked.  It’s not so much a matter of what we ought to do, as a matter of attitude which gives us the impetus to do what we ought.

Today’s Gospel July 10, 2011

From the Common Lectionary The Parable of the Sower:

Ἐν δὲ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ἐξελθὼν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς τῆς οἰκίας ἐκάθητο παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν· 2 καὶ συνήχθησαν πρὸς αὐτὸν ὄχλοι πολλοί, ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς πλοῖον ἐμβάντα καθῆσθαι, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος ἐπὶ τὸν αἰγιαλὸν εἱστήκει. 3 καὶ ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς πολλὰ ἐν παραβολαῖς λέγων· 4 ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ σπείρων τοῦ σπεῖραι. καὶ ἐν τῷ σπείρειν αὐτὸν ἃ μὲν ἔπεσε παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν, καὶ ἐλθόντα τὰ πετεινὰ κατέφαγεν αὐτά· 5 ἄλλα δὲ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη, ὅπου οὐκ εἶχε γῆν πολλήν, καὶ εὐθέως ἐξανέτειλε διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν βάθος γῆς, 6 ἡλίου δὲ ἀνατείλαντος ἐκαυματίσθη, καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν ρίζαν ἐξηράνθη· 7 ἄλλα δὲ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὰς ἀκάνθας, καὶ ἀνέβησαν αἱ ἄκανθαι καὶ ἀπέπνιξαν αὐτά· 8 ἄλλα δὲ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν καὶ ἐδίδου καρπὸν ὃ μὲν ἑκατόν, ὃ δὲ ἐξήκοντα, ὃ δὲ τριάκοντα. 9 ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκούειν ἀκουέτω.

…

῾Υμεῖς οὖν ἀκούσατε τὴν παραβολὴν τοῦ σπείραντος. 19 παντὸς ἀκούοντος τὸν λόγον τῆς βασιλείας καὶ μὴ συνιέντος, ἔρχεται ὁ πονηρὸς καὶ αἴρει τὸ ἐσπαρμένον ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν σπαρείς. 20 ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων καὶ εὐθέως μετὰ χαρᾶς δεχόμενος καὶ λαμβάνων αὐτόν· 21 οὐκ ἔχει δὲ ρίζαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, ἀλλὰ πρόσκαιρός ἐστι, γενομένης δὲ θλίψεως ἢ διωγμοῦ διὰ τὸν λόγον εὐθὺς σκανδαλίζεται. 22 ὁ δὲ εἰς τὰς ἀκάνθας σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων καὶ ἡ μέριμνα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου καὶ ἡ ἀπάτη τοῦ πλούτου συμπνίγει τὸν λόγον, καὶ ἄκαρπος γίνεται. 23 ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων καὶ συνιῶν· ὃς δὴ καρποφορεῖ καὶ ποιεῖ ὃ μὲν ἑκατόν, ὃ δὲ ἑξήκοντα, ὃ δὲ τριάκοντα. Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

This is an interesting parable for someone like myself, who lives in a state where atop the Capital Building there is a statue known as the Sower.  Especially someone who is in the teaching profession and who spends some time meditating on whether or not the lessons taught really fall on fertile ground or not.  The gospel lesson is about spiritual matters, it’s a parable and ought not be looked at too literally.  Yet one can’t quite help thinking that Jesus is meditating on Himself as teacher and wondering whether his words, his lessons fall on fertile ground or not.  One wonders whether the stony ground (τὰ πετρώδη) referred to in the lesson are those, who like the Pharisees, do not have their minds open enough, or their thoughts deep enough, that they might allow the lessons to take root.  Are we stuck in a shallow stony soil of Dogmatism where the possibility of discovering new meanings in our conscious lives, are unable to take sufficient root that our minds wither away.  Perhaps we don’t hear the word with delight so that it can take root, in the deeper soil that we ought to be for minds (verse 20). 

I often wonder about this: are we so shallow and so stuck in our dogmas and clichés, that we have no depth of thought (soil) in our minds so the ideas we are taught cannot take root and flourish.  It seems that way.  This seems to be the problem with our education system today, that we cram a bunch of facts into stony ground and expect the student to get it and move on.  But the seed, the idea, never takes root, for the soil is so crammed full of stones there is no place for the root to grow and receive nourishment.  We have become rich in information, but poor in knowledge.  There is little depth to our thinking anymore, because in some sense we are stuck in the stones of the facts we memorized to pass the true-false, multiple-choice parts of tests and soon that information is either gobbled up by our desire for fun times, or the stony soil does not allow us to receive the idea with delight and let it take root in the depths of our consciousness.  If one thinks of stones as facts or dogmas in this case, the analogy works quite well for my profession, especially for the professional teaching Philosophy.  I have noticed in students that once an idea is received with delight (μετὰ χαρᾶς) it seems to take root and that idea becomes related to a number of other ideas in the mind of the student and flourishes, like a root which grows deeper and deeper into the soil and entangles itself into ever more and deeper soil.  Is the Christ asking us to have sufficient enthusiasm for the idea to allow it to flourish, sufficient depth of thought to give it space to grow.  I think so, and I think the parable is really asking us to forsake our shallow dogmatic fact oriented ideologies for deeper understanding of what it is that we are supposed to be about as conscious beings.  And perhaps even more importantly, He is asking us to have that depth of thought with delight, to take delight in our deeper and more involved thoughts.

Two poems about what every woman should know.

My wife and I were travelling to a wedding in Texas, and during the journey had the opportunity for a long discussion about what women should know before treading the deep waters we call marriage.  When we stopped for lunch near our destination, I wrote this poem on the back of a receipt.

What Every Woman should Know

If a man treasures his money,

a woman can never have his heart.

If he is absorbed over his reputation,

She will never have his devotion.

When his toys and the boys are his pleasure,

she can never be entertained by him.

But if he values duty, honor and his word,

she will have these things all her days.

All of this reminded me of another poem I wrote long ago:

Two important questions 

The Philosophic question:

Is the self an empty shell,

in which are deposited,

all one’s sense experiences?

The Lovers’ question:

Is the “we” an empty love,

in which are deposited,

all our hopes, dreams, desires and needs?

In each case there is a door,

into which new may enter -

sense, hope, dream, desire or need,

so long as each one of us shall live.

Her Quilt

My wife is quite a quilter, and I used to enjoy going to quilt shows to see the work of other women.  I always thought a quilt displayed a woman's art, her self, because one's art should always express one's self.  Once I was quite impressed by a quilt with a Christmas tree in its center.  The woman who made it was married on Christmas Day, so the quilt reflected her married life.  When I went home I wrote this poem:

I stood there looking

into her handiwork.

She had painted a picture

of who was she and hers.

Her love was there

and she spoke to me

of her love of sixty years.

Her theme was simple and clear

a symbol of her togetherness

with hers, of years of love,

of tears, joy, hope and sorrow,

all mixed up in the colors,

but most of all the Christmas tree,

under which it all began.

“But you don’t know her” someone said,

as I wiped my watering eyes.

Oh no, I said, I know not her name;

but I know her just the same.

You see I know her Art,

and I see her love, it’s there

in her quilt, before our very eyes.

Yes friend, I have never met her.

But I know her deep inside.

You see I saw her there,

that day I viewed her love.

It was written in the stitches.

I stood there with her soul,

and truly her soul touched mine.

            `           October, 1993