Cultural Morals

This is split from the Vampire thread currently going on.

Yabuturtle:

Well if pedophilia is normal in a culture, does that make it ok, because it's ok in that particular society?

To them, yes.

There is no moral absolutism. There is a culture in a parallel universe where it is ok to burn people at the stake for the gods. (or, just rewind in our universe a bit...)

There may be or may have been cultures where pedophilia is "ok" and "normal". Our reasoning for pedophilia (older person taking advantage of a minor sexually where the person cannot comprehend their own sexual desires and cannot make decisions on their own) is steeped in our cultural knowledge. Now, we say that pedophilia is WRONG because... why? Because science has told us that children cannot process sexual emotions? Because we empathize with that innocence and we do not want to ruin it? Because sexualizing kids is degrading and manipulatory? All of those things. But, those biases may not exist in other times and cultures. Kids have different roles in different civilizations. If we believe in absolutist morals, we are cutting ourselves off from understanding those cultures.

Most importantly, though, we live in this culture at this time. And, in our culture at this time, the following disclaimer is needed:

I should also qualify this a bit. I do NOT condone pedophilia. I do not think it will be normal in our culture ever. I think it is wrong for those who suffer from pedophilia to act upon those urges they have. If you have this condition, please speak to a professional and get help.

Perhaps in 2 million years, we will have devolved and we'll be eating babies as a ritual sacrifice to the gods of MACINTOSH and MICROSOFT (I just realized that could be a penis joke...).

*shrugs* My point and TL;DR is that "ok" is moral absolutism, and while I'm not smart enough to argue why it is not ok to be a moral absolutist (lol, is that a hypocrisy I just made?! hahah), I believe in what I think.

I assess things in terms of harm first, then other things after. Or more accurately the potential for harm, as it would have to be proactive and not reactive ideally.

So the example of pedophilia would not be acceptable to me because of the physical and mental factors associated to adult and child interacting in that way. Could it exist in a non-harmful way physically, perhaps, but in the psychological aspect I think there are too many factors at play between a non-pedophilic adult child relationship to justify the risk of at the very least blurring the concept of consent in the domain of sexuality (considering sexuality itself is something not really fully manifest until puberty), not to mention all the other psychological impacts it might have by such a mismatch in an area which is generally heavily censored in adult social structures for various reasons.

So for me I guess its harm first, consent/morals second, ethics third, laws fourth, efficiency fifth. If any preceding elements are issues then I tend towards disagreeing with it. Third and fourth might flip yet, I dunno, thinking sounds.....

I sense an underlying suggestion of a dichotomy between absolute morality and moral relativism. Yet I think that they are not the only options here.

Just becaus absolute morals can't exist that doesn't mean that everybody's opinion is equally valid for them. If that were so, morals would be static and changing one's mind about them either individually or as a society over time would be impossible.
However, just because morals aren't completely relative like that, that doesn't mean there is any sort of universal standard either.
Morality is complicated. Life is complicated. So likewise the answers to questions of this kind should be matchingly deep and nuanced.
So I don't think that pedophilia is either evil or wrong in either the society that tolerates or the one that condemns it. I don't know what evil means or what wrong means. And while a sexual attraction to the prepubescent may be just that and for this reason completely acceptable insofar as the person experiencing it has the strength from either within himself or third party support to deal with it (seeing as little can be done about the attraction itself), actual sexual relations with children may be harmful to different extents to both the child and the adult. Harm, in many cases, is measurable. Not all of it, and not all of it with equal accuracy either, but it is at no rate a cultural thing.
We know that societies plagued with slavery, racial or religious segregation, religous law, sexual discrimination against or in favour of both persons and practices, classism, and other things, tend to do more poorly in the arts and the sciences, economics, healthcare, mortality rates and pretty much anything else we identify as signs of a prosperous people. Of course, this is no standard of morality per se, but it is a starting point to consider what we individually stand for or what can motivate us, be it only for our own benefit and our loved ones'.
Now, the only questions left to answer are whether we should care and why and to this there is no answer.
Historically, the answers have been (in order) "because the gods commanded it", "because it makes us worthy humans", "because our reason inevitably leads to it", and "because it would be kinda bad if we didn't". All of them are attempts at giving a simple answer to a complicated question, all of them also only push the question back one step, and all of them are primitive and childish for this very reason.

Gisteron wrote: I sense an underlying suggestion of a dichotomy between absolute morality and moral relativism. Yet I think that they are not the only options here.

Just becaus absolute morals can't exist that doesn't mean that everybody's opinion is equally valid for them. If that were so, morals would be static and changing one's mind about them either individually or as a society over time would be impossible.
However, just because morals aren't completely relative like that, that doesn't mean there is any sort of universal standard either.
Morality is complicated. Life is complicated. So likewise the answers to questions of this kind should be matchingly deep and nuanced.
So I don't think that pedophilia is either evil or wrong in either the society that tolerates or the one that condemns it. I don't know what evil means or what wrong means. And while a sexual attraction to the prepubescent may be just that and for this reason completely acceptable insofar as the person experiencing it has the strength from either within himself or third party support to deal with it (seeing as little can be done about the attraction itself), actual sexual relations with children may be harmful to different extents to both the child and the adult. Harm, in many cases, is measurable. Not all of it, and not all of it with equal accuracy either, but it is at no rate a cultural thing.
We know that societies plagued with slavery, racial or religious segregation, religous law, sexual discrimination against or in favour of both persons and practices, classism, and other things, tend to do more poorly in the arts and the sciences, economics, healthcare, mortality rates and pretty much anything else we identify as signs of a prosperous people. Of course, this is no standard of morality per se, but it is a starting point to consider what we individually stand for or what can motivate us, be it only for our own benefit and our loved ones'.
Now, the only questions left to answer are whether we should care and why and to this there is no answer.
Historically, the answers have been (in order) "because the gods commanded it", "because it makes us worthy humans", "because our reason inevitably leads to it", and "because it would be kinda bad if we didn't". All of them are attempts at giving a simple answer to a complicated question, all of them also only push the question back one step, and all of them are primitive and childish for this very reason.

i enjoyed reading this post

there are specific ideas id like to respond to, and i dont know if i promote a "universal morality", but i do believe that as human beings we can come to something very near to "universal" provided that we limit the "universe" to meaning "universal to the human species, on earth, in the 21st century"

like how i did that? took the whole universe and made it about us? lol

Gisteron wrote: Harm, in many cases, is measurable. Not all of it, and not all of it with equal accuracy either, but it is at no rate a cultural thing.

We know that societies plagued with slavery, racial or religious segregation, religous law, sexual discrimination against or in favour of both persons and practices, classism, and other things, tend to do more poorly in the arts and the sciences, economics, healthcare, mortality rates and pretty much anything else we identify as signs of a prosperous people. Of course, this is no standard of morality per se, but it is a starting point to consider what we individually stand for or what can motivate us, be it only for our own benefit and our loved ones'.

and there ya go, that's the genesis of "universal human morality"

it is difficult to draw precisely the line where "health" begins and ends, but theres a certain level of analysis where we can say that there are circumstances that are associated with health in the human organism which apply to all humans equally - and there is a level where we can say "these conditions definitely cause breakdown of the organism" and a level where we can say "these cause breakdown of society"

i think its much like our range of temperature tolerance - there are extreme limits at the ends, where life just isnt going to be sustainable, then moving inwards, life is difficult but not impossible, then a relatively comfortable middle range

but its not like we can say "this exact degree is where we have to draw the line"

Gisteron wrote: Now, the only questions left to answer are whether we should care and why and to this there is no answer.

well that depends on what your criteria are for determining the validity of an answer

if we consider "fairly high probability of the eventual self-caused extermination of the entire species" on one end of a scale of potential outcomes to the mishandling of the "morality question" and "very high likelihood of flourishing as a species in every way that we recognize as important" on the other, i personally consider that to be as good of a reason as any biological organism can have for why it should care

it does presuppose that we, as individuals, should feel invested in the continuance of the species

in an abstract sort of way, its perfectly reasonable to say that "it doesnt really matter if the species survives"

but my response to abstract ideas is that we dont get to LIVE abstractly - we can think and ponder and wonder abstractly, but the only life we get is a totally personal, subjective experience

the only truths which have any relevance for us, are truths which somehow manifest within the real of subjective experience

and for that reason, i believe that it is contrary to our nature, and to our interests, to deny the value of the subjective

About the latest part, sure, that's sort of where I was going, a somewhat Nietzschean approach. Yes, most of us may be hardwired to self-preservation and empathy, some more strongly so than others, but the meta-ethical question remains. Nothing can (or should) tell us that we should feel a specific way, including to care about either ourselves, or about each other, and consequently about any question of morality. "Why be moral?" is not something nature provides us with an answer to and frankly every of our own attempts are reductive in one or multiple ways, trying to argue what is beyond argument, to be an authority over what no authority can help with. Ultimately, we either care or we don't and while some things may change how we feel, no reason is enough to change a psychopath's heart and the "normal" folks amonst us didn't end up where they are by means of reason either.

Gisteron wrote: About the latest part, sure, that's sort of where I was going, a somewhat Nietzschean approach. Yes, most of us may be hardwired to self-preservation and empathy, some more strongly so than others, but the meta-ethical question remains. Nothing can (or should) tell us that we should feel a specific way, including to care about either ourselves, or about each other, and consequently about any question of morality.

so we are all "free" to see the world as we "will"?

i think this begs the question: what is morality?

is morality "how you think", or is it "how you behave"?

my guess is that it would be MOSTLY (not entirely) the behavior, at least at the legal level for sure

though we (theoretically) allow each individual freedom of thought, and belief, (its recognized that it would be immoral to do otherwise) its well established that society has the right to impose some sort of morality upon itself in the realm of actual behavior

Gisteron wrote: "Why be moral?" is not something nature provides us with an answer to ...

well i think that semantics and interpretation are going to come in to play here:

what exactly do we mean by "moral" and "nature" and "provides" ect

if we regard ourselves as being "naturally evolving organisms" within "the natural world", then we can look to the patterns and attributes of the many species that we are able to study, and see which of these patterns and attributes have most clearly advanced our own species

we can make a very strong case that cooperation is fundamental to our humanity- that without it we would literally not have evolved into modern humans

and I THINK we can also make a case that "morality", as a topic, is fundamentally concerned with how individuals and societies cooperate

and from there, the principles and patterns which are consistent in making cooperation more, or less, effective

and we can see that nature does provide plenty of other examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_pkurcA_nw

is that "morality" in the sense of divine proclamations from "on high"?

well, possibly that is also semantics and interpretation - to me "divine" and "on high" just mean "whatever the rules by which we actually live and flourish, turn out to be"

so the morality that i advocate does not derive its justification from the literal interpretation of any particular religious doctrine