by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
I had in interesting argument the other night. Not interesting because of the content precisely. It was old ground about the rationale for being in Iraq and Afghanistan and this person took the position of the post hoc rationalization “to contain Iran” and that – and this was a new one, funny but new – that our reason for being there was based on our need as driven by the hostage crisis of the 70’s. It wasn’t a match against a skilled opponent. He was about as smart and skilled at argumentation as a house plant and that is really an insult to house plants. But what was interesting was when the topic turned to the idea of just wars and ethical relativism. I’ll summarize the just war argument to give some context and then show how ethical relativism came into the conversation because it got me thinking about ethical relativism (and its natural cousin moral relativism). Is it a good idea or a path to anarchy?
Summary of the just war argument:
A’s Primary Contention: We went to war in Iraq to contain Iran because we’re on a 70’s style revenge mission for the hostage taking. (Ed. Note: Seriously. That was the claim.)
B’s Primary Contention: The rationale given the public for invading Iraq was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” In the end, there were no WMDs, no support of terrorism, and the Iraqis were a lot better off before we removed the only stabilizing force holding their secular country together and destroyed their infrastructure. The just war would have been to attack those who attacked us on 9/11, the Saudis with help from Afghani terrorist training bases. It would have given us the same benefits as invading Iraq (oil, common border with Iran) and come at a substantially lower cost to materials and troops when combined with an in and out strategy in Afghanistan (which history has proven to be fairly immune to long term occupation because of geographic and societal factors).
A: There is no such thing as a just war. Name one.
B: I can name two. American entry into WWII and the Revolutionary War come to mind, but there are other examples of just war through history.
A: We went to war to make rich men richer.
B: Really. And that is a reason to wage war that is just?
A: I haven’t heard the term “just war” since Medieval History class. You’re a (*#$#($*#head.
B: That’s all very interesting but I think you don’t know what a just war is. %$*($%$.
A: I know there is no such thing.
B: I can think of a couple of examples. Coming to the defense of your allies in the face of outside aggression, in defense of attack or in retribution of an attack by foreign forces.
A: There’s no such thing as a just war. Just depends on your perspective.
B: No. It doesn’t. There are some ethical absolutes.
A: No there aren’t.
B: Saying there aren’t and proving there aren’t are two separate things.
A: You *()$(#)($#) $)#$()#$ ()$#$!
B: That’s still not proving there aren’t, )($#)()@head. Are there are are there no ethical absolutes? Yes or no.
A: That’s a stupid question.
B: It’s not stupid just because you can’t answer it. It’s a simple question.
[Much back and forth of “stupid” and/or ($#_)#@$#% combined with a rebuttal of “non-responsive, try again”.]
A: People make ethical judgements all the time.
B: That’s not what I asked. Are there ethical absolutes or not?
A: Have your ethics changed over time?
B: Yes they have but that is irrelevant to the question here: are there ethical absolutes or not?
A: You’ve got nothing!
B: You saying I’ve got nothing is not the same as you proving I’ve got nothing. Are you an ethical relativist?
A: Give me an example of an ethical absolute.
B: Human life has value. Protecting it is a good thing.
A: That’s true, but I just want to see some people die.
B: Then you are an ethical relativist and we really don’t have much more to discuss.
A: You’re jumping to conclusions.
B: No I’m not. If human life has value except when you “want to see someone die”, then you are an ethical relativist.
The rest of the conversation was basically A drunkenly ranting about how I (B) didn’t know $*(# and that he had me just where he wanted me (on my knees) before he called me a little girl and proclaimed victory. I was very not impressed. I’d say it was embarrassing for him, but he proudly proclaimed that “ignorance was not a problem for him” and that he thought “retrograde drunken Neanderthal” was a compliment. But I digress . . .
It all got me thinking about ethical relativism though.
What is ethical relativism? It is the philosophical theory stating that ethics are relative to the norms of one’s culture; whether an action is right or wrong depends on the ethical and moral norms of the society in which it is practiced. There are no universal ethical or moral standards and the only standards against which a society’s practices can be judged are its own. The implication of this is there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for reaching agreement on ethical matters among members of different cultures. We know from history that this is not the case. Some acts are considered to by universally wrong or right among the human species. Most ethicists reject ethical relativism because while the practices of societies may differ, the fundamental ethical and moral principles underlying these practices do not. Consider cultures where euthanasia is practiced like some Eskimo tribes when parents declare they are ready to die because of old age or illness, their families would kill them directly or leave them on the ice to die at the hands of nature. This would be frowned upon in our culture, but if you look at the underlying principle – taking care of one’s parents – both societies hold this principle as valuable.
Secondly, it’s an important topic because a kind of ethical relativism is encouraged in law schools under the guise of giving all comers adequate representation and ensuring a fair trial. It’s also something you see more often now in public behavior than in the past: rationalizations of bad behavior based on personal desire rather than ethical or moral principle. “I wanted to feel what killing someone felt like,” said 17 year old killer of 9 year old Elizabeth Olten. Truly a sign of someone with a broken ethical compass probably based in mental illness, but it illustrates the first problem with ethical relativism. It injects ego into the equation.
Consequently and concurrently we cannot remove ego from the equation altogether. If the ethical rightness or wrongness of an action depends on a societal norms, then the logical implication is that to be ethical that one must obey the norms of one’s society because deviance would be unethical or immoral. This leads to an interesting conundrum. If a member of a society that believes that racial or sexist practices are ethically wrong but they are permissible within that society, then one must accept those practices as morally right. This view is both oppressive and narrow in promoting unthinking social conformity and leaves no possibility for ethical and/or moral reform or improvement within a society. Consider that a lack of uniform majority though on a matter may not have created an ethical or moral standard to follow with the members of a society holding different views. Consider the example of the United States. Need I say more than “abortion” or “animal testing” or “medical marijuana” to provide examples of such unsettled ethical questions?
One of the strongest arguments against ethical relativism comes from the assertion that universal ethical and/or moral standards can exist even if some practices and beliefs vary among cultures. In other words, it is possible to acknowledge cultural differences and still find that some of these practices and beliefs are wrong. Consider that although the Aztec had a society that was in some ways more advanced that their contemporary European counterparts, that their practice of human sacrifice is simply wrong. Just so, the barbaric treatment of the Jews, Roma, homosexuals and the mentally handicapped by Nazi society is ethically and morally reprehensible regardless of the beliefs of the Nazis. Ethics are an intellectual inquiry into right and wrong through applying critical thought to the underlying reasons of various ethical and/or moral practices and beliefs. Ethical relativism fails to recognize that some societies may have better reasons for holding their views than other societies.
However, although ethical relativism has much going against it, it does remind us to examine and consider that different societies have different ethical and/or moral beliefs and invites us to examine those forces influence within our own culture. The only way to reach universal ethical truths whenever possible is through examining and challenging our own ethical systems by comparing them to other systems.
Can ethical relativism lead to anarchy? When everything is relative, there are no true stable standards, so I think the answer is yes.
Should ethical relativism be discouraged in our educational systems and society as a whole or do you teach it with the proper caveats and perspective to make it a useful tool instead of a dangerous tool?
Is ethical relativism a good thing or a bag thing?
Or is it like most tools dependent upon the user’s intent and application?
What do you think?
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger.
Bed? We don’t need no stinking bed!
These is prime working hours—I’ll try to go to sleep before dawn… 😛
Now, go to bed or I’ll make you write a book report.
slarti,
Got your email and I think it is the best one either one of us has done!
I will attempt to rise to the occasion. 😉
[re: Blouise]
E-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t! *steeples fingers*
I’ll have to play as frequently as possible tomorrow while she’s distracted…
Bwa-ha-ha-HA-ha!
Tony C.,
I read your post and wish to respond but I’m too tired tonight to do your post justice so will wait until sometime tomorrow or Weds. (due to my grandchild’s visit)
Perhaps you might consider setting up a fake facebook page and joining us in Scrabble … just think of all the ideas we could discuss on the “chat” window while we play … we might save the world!!
Did someone say bingo?
Bob Esq is a brave soul in that he hadn’t played Scrabble in years and then had only played it a couple of times. However, within 2 games he had caught onto the strategy and, of course, his vocabulary is incredible. I’m so glad he said yes to the challenge.
And I am just as appreciative of the rest of my worthy opponents … I do so love the game! However, I am running out of virgins to sacrifice in order to woo the Scrabble gods … things could get ugly here on Lake Erie.
I will see you on the boards tomorrow but it will be haphazard as the 4 year old is with me.
Blouise,
I’ve been trying to resond to your scrxsbble invitation since you sent it, but I haven’t been able to load it on my Kindle Fire. What is the procedure for loading it for facebook? However, given some of the comments here perhaps I’m a lamb to the slaughter.
Bingo.
“The ‘state of nature’ before we had government and laws was not anarchy at all, and there never were any absolute freedoms.”
Proof positive that you criticize social contractual theory without first comprehending it.
Social contract theory is not an anthropological survey of human rights throughout history; it is a restatement of the origin of rights and society from which we build government.
Taunting Blouise continued…
Blouise learns from the master…
MEPHISTOPHELES
I would not lead you willingly astray,
But as regards this science, you will find
So hard it is to shun the erring way,
And so much hidden poison lies therein,
Which scarce can you discern from medicine.
Here too it is the best, to listen but to one,
And by the master’s words to swear alone.
To sum up all–To words hold fast!
Then the safe gate securely pass’d,
You’ll reach the lane of certainty at last.
STUDENT (a.k.a Blouise)
But then some meaning must the words convey.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Right! But o’er-anxious thought, you’ll find of no avail,
For there precisely where ideas fail,
A word comes opportunely into play
Most admirable weapons words are found,
On words a system we securely ground,
In words we can conveniently believe,
Nor of a single jot can we a word bereave
Blouise
Ethics shmethics; where do I sign?
LOL
@Blouise: in other words, you do not think there was any time before government?
I do not think there was any time (for modern humans) before society, and I do not think there was any time (for modern humans) before rules of behavior. I believe, due to what I believe is compelling evidence, that both rules of behavior and society existed for the ancestors of home sapiens before the current cognitive power of homo sapiens evolved.
Society and rules of behavior are not government; chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, elephants and even dogs (to a limited extent) have these, inherent in their emotional nature. So do we, inherent in our emotional nature, although our rules are not identical to theirs.
The difference is our language and cognition and foresight (living in something other than the immediate moment) that I believe developed after we already had, built into our emotional makeup, all the primitive impulses to rules, protection, sharing, cooperation and punishment for transgression that we see in various modern societal animals.
That is what flips the ‘state of nature’ argument on its head. The ‘state of nature’ before we had government and laws was not anarchy at all, and there never were any absolute freedoms. There was a social order, friendships, trust, and ad hoc enforcement of rules of behavior. Language and cognition and foresight, our ability to use abstractions, only let us formalize and extend what was already there, and I think that was (and is) the purpose of government.
I believe that as soon as people developed the cognitive power to recognize more subtle patterns of cheating (unfairness) than just taking too much food or refusing to share, they developed formalized rules to stop that kind of cheating.
That has been true from the earliest known writings on law 4100 years ago, before Hammurabi (and including Hammurabi). The point of the earliest laws we can see was to create equity and punish cheating. That remains the central point of the law today. I think what we consider bad law is law that promotes cheating, like protecting the powerful more than the weak or the rulers more than the citizens. What we consider good law is law that gives people recourse to what we see as unfair treatment, or punishes people for engaging in unfair treatment (like defrauding somebody, or destroying their pension).
I do not believe the ‘state of nature’ was ever a viable choice; the world was far too dangerous a place. That was not the alternative when humans invented formal laws, and probably later formal government to enforce the laws. The society was there all along, it evolved before the cognitive power did; and the alternative to a just society was a less just society.
Bob said: “Is it ethical for Blouise to play Scrabble without giving her opponents at least a 50 point handicap?”
I wouldn’t think so. Right now I’m desperately trying to hang on to a narrow lead (and frustrated because I’ve got a seven-letter word in my hand that I can’t get on the board), but I fear she’s just toying with me…
Swarthmore mom,
Our latest game was pretty even until I got both blanks—how can you not play a seven-letter word when you get that lucky? 😉
Blouise,
I have alliteratively taunted you via email! 😛
Blouise scored a bingo flashes on facebook a lot. I just hope that when it appears, it is in a game that she is playing with someone else.
SWM, I have to agree with Gene; I’m sure there were contracts duly executed.
Categorical Imperative: “Adopt only that maxim that you would will to become a universal law.”
Categorical Imperative in Cinema: From “Unforgiven”
BLAM! Smoke and fire from Little Bill’s pistol and Little Bill’s arm collapses from the effort and the pistol falls with a bang. Categorical imperative (CI) steps over to him and kicks the pistol away from Little Bill’s outstretched hand. Little Bill is bleeding from the mouth having taken a shot in the lung and he is very weak and all he can do is look up at CI and speak weakly.
Little Bill: I don’t deserve this… to die like this. I was building a house.
Categorical Imperative: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.
[aims gun]
Little Bill: I’ll see you in hell, [Categorical Imperative].
Categorical Imperative: Yeah.
BLAM! CI shoots Little Bill and then looks around and Clyde is still groaning and that is the only sound. Then, suddenly, he is ALL BUSINESS. He walks quickly over to Clyde and shoots him once with the Spencer and the groaning stops.
And I’ve beat Blouise too, Bob. I will stipulate she’s a fearsome opponent though.
No, Bob, but it doesn’t matter because she has made a pact with both the Devil and Noah Webster. Her ability to pull bingo scores out of thin air is truly impressive and I believe one of the few credible pieces of evidence for supernatural agency.
Bob, I just beat Blouise.. We play fairly evenly. Slarti is the one I can’t beat.
Is it ethical for Blouise to play Scrabble without giving her opponents at least a 50 point handicap?
Tony,
“@Gene: Then anarchy and lawlessness among social creatures is not a real phenomena?
I certainly did not write that, if you infer that you have failed to comprehend what I wrote.”
No. I wrote that. It was a question for you.
“@Gene: And there is no distinction between the state of lawlessness and a state of civil order?
Those are obviously (to me) two ends of a spectrum of states, neither of which is ever attained; much like the temperature scale. The spectrum in this case depends upon the extent to which people are subjected to fair treatment; which is very little in the anarchic state, and very much in states we would consider stable civil order.”
Fairness has nothing to do with it. Lawlessness and civil order are not the difference between fair and unfair or just and unjust. They are the difference between order and chaos. That neither exists in a pure state is irrelevant.
“I think it is funny how you resort to authoritarianism and a presumption of my ignorance whenever I disagree with you; Gene.”
I think it’s funny how you think pointing out the flaws in your thinking is some sort of authoritarianism when it is simply pointing out you’re wrong in your thinking. Then again, getting to you admit you are wrong is practically impossible because of that *ahem* “healthy ego” of yours. Yeah, yeah, you’re going to say you admit you’re wrong all the time, but having seen that in action, it’s usually a sideways admission and as difficult to get out of you as pulling out horse’s teeth with a pair of tweezers. While the horse is awake. And bucking. Stubbornness can be an admirable trait. But bullheadedness (to mix animal metaphors)? Not so much.
“Of course I have read Locke, and Malthus, and Darwin, and many others. I just do not read with reverence, and I do not assume that because the world accepts something that I must accept it also.”
Good for you that you’ve read Malthus and Darwin. Neither of them have squat to do with the social compact theory though ergo they are irrelevant to discussing the topic. You’ve read Locke, but that doesn’t answer my question about other writers (Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and their work on the social compact. Their work is heuristic and as such is as based on the realism of observation as science is even when Locke veers into Creator language. Nor does it address the other writer’s distinct lack of reliance upon spooky language. It is also important to note that in the evolution of the study of the social compact theory that the natural rights approach to the subject was surpassed in the 19th Century and replaced with Hegelian, Marxist and . . . wait for it . . . utilitarian approaches to the idea. And while the writer of the 20th Century best known for his work on social compact theory, John Rawls, was in favor of the fairness theory of justice, his approach to the social compact differs from my stated preference for soft rule utilitarianism in that Rawls did not adopt a universal ethical principle such as the maximized utility behind all forms of utilitarianism. He didn’t view political science as applied ethical or moral philosophy but rather as a distinct thing in itself (which I and many others don’t necessarily agree with) and said “The correct regulative principle for anything depends on the nature of that thing.” Despite this, his conclusions about the social compact are shocking much like the results one gets by applying soft rule utilitarianism to the subject. And you know what I think about that.
“I read as a scientist, not a philosopher, and as a scientist my first principle is that I must be convinced of the assumptions, both stated and unstated, in order to be convinced an argument is sound.”
And I read like a Stoic. I have been really giving ol’ Marcus a workout recently. “If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” However, your reliance upon being convinced of assumptions, not so much the stated ones and the unstated ones, presumes that you have 1) seen all of the unstated assumptions and 2) that your interpretation and/or understanding of them is factually correct and contextually relevant. You seem to think you are confusion proof. I don’t think you are ignorant, Tony. I think you are in error. There is a difference. One is correctable but the other is only correctable if it is not wilfully self-imposed.
“The assumption of a ‘state of nature’ is not one I think is necessary in order to arrive at a philosophy of government. In fact I think by using an alternative approach based in reality, the arguments are strengthened.”
And I think you don’t know what you are talking about regard social compacts. The argument for them is based soundly in the reality that ultimately the governors rule at the consent of the governed and it asks the question what is it that makes governance a legitimate or illegitimate exercise of authority.
Tony C.,
Gotta go but I’ll see you on line tomorrow.