Originally Posted by Skybird
I have a more unpersonal, absolute view here, it seems.
No matter whether I am an Aztec or a modern man, the value system of humanism is superior to that of the Aztec empire that waged wars only to produce hundreds of prisoners that it could sacrifice to its deities. The Aztec may find that okay, and the modern man not. But I claim it remains to be an act of barbary that remains to be wrong for an outside view, no matter what a person embedded in the cultural context would say about it.
When I enforce my will onto a women and violate her will and rape her, this is an act of evil no matter what the culture says in which I do it. It remains to be wrong to rape somebody.
To torture women to make them confess their witchcraft and then burn them alive, remains to be wrong, no matter whether it is done by Christian inquisitors , or by a mob in some primitive village in Kongo or Sudan.
To burn Indian widows just because their husband has died before them, is evil. The culture in which it takes place may accept it or not - I claim it remains to be evil.
To torment and act cruelly on the weak just for the sake of enjoying it, remains to be evil,. no matter the cultural background of the person doing like this.
So, I object to your claim that just any value is context-sensitive and depending on culture. Some lesser values are like that, yes. But there are also some for which the above examples may serve as illustrations that remain to be what they are in there quality - and any acceptance or rejection of them by the cultural environment in which they are enacted tells us not so much about these values - but only about the culture itself, its level of education or primitivity, barbarism or humane civilization. The culture does not judge the value, but the value judge the culture. Indifference towards these values and relativising them only means to refuse to accept that different cultures are not all of same equal worthiness and development level. But I claim there is a hierarchy of possible development levels and feature levels of human civilizations, and that some civilizations are superior/inferior in their worthiness to others. It is not everything just indifferent and to be treated as if being on same eye level with the others. And thus, there are some moral values and golden rules that remain to be true, no matter where, no matter when.
Also, you may remember that I have often argued that to me it makes no sense to judge war by the set of moral values of peacetime, and that to me war has a different set of morals. While for example rape remains to be evil no matter whether in peace or war, other values like "you should not kill" obviously are not of the same nature in peace and in war. So it may make sense to admit that there can also be something that I - for the purpose of putting it into words here - could be named a unified, single-entity "context-value", a moral value that is inextricably involved in a certain specific situational context, and is not valid outside that context. So, in the above example, there is not "you should not kill" in general, but there are two such moral rules: "though shall not kill in peace", and "killing may be necessary to do in war". Or in self-defence. Or on behalf of protecting somebody.
To me, such multiple context-value-entities do not mean to relativise, since relativising would mean to chnage the good-bad orientation of one and the same value according to different context (for example your cultural contexts). I am talking about different context-values where "context" means the context in which the context-value always remains of the same good or evil quality.
Hm, not sure I got it described like I mean it, I struggle a bit here. Hope you get the general idea.
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04-13-13, 06:07 PM
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