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Samizdata quote of the day “People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this spectre by invoking it.”
– Christopher Hitchens, “The Perils of identity Politics,” Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2008. This quote came from a new book by Victor Davis Hanson.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are…” ordinary human beings.
Heinlein wrote that true morality must be based on the reality of genetics and humanity. I paraphrase and probably badly, but the closer the genetic relationship the more it affects us, and properly so.
The welfare of my half-witted, lazy and unemployable nephew is vastly more important to me than the plight of any foreigner, much more important than the welfare of people in distant cities in my own country and more important than the welfare of the people living next door to me.
FredZ, you’re missing the point. Hitchens was attacking identity politics and tribalism. I should have thought recent experience would remind us of where’s that leads. It’s not about affinity with one’s family.
I am with Fred Z on this, to “think with ones clan” is human nature, by contrast the ideology of the ‘brotherhood of man’ is a marxist fantasy.
Identification with and love of ones country and people is the most foundational form of identity politics, and right now it is about the only defence we have against the designs of the technocratic globalists (Klaus Schwab et al).
Thinking of one’s “clan” is human nature. Thinking with it is insanity.
I agree with Fred Z – kinda. Ordinary human beings have quite limited gene detection equipment, perhaps worse than some animals with better olfactory kit. We can spot skin colour, and some other fairly basic gene related external clues, but absent those we can’t really tell the difference between a natural brother and an adopted one.
So human family-ism is more to do with social experience – who we grew up with particularly in years 0 to 7. Indeed the experience from kibbutzes rather neatly confirms the non-genetic human basis for identifying siblings – kibbutz children generally do not grow up to fancy each other.
Notwithstanding Jonathan Pearce’s objection, the tribe is only an extension of the family in this social recognition sense. Hence we are naturally inclined – on average, all these things are on average – to be comfortable with the sort of people we grew up with, and their ways. Furriners (ie out of tribers, folk from the next village) are inherently (a) interesting and (b) suspicious.
So tribalism in this sense is entirely natural, and to some extent rational. People who don’t know the local social rules may do odd and disturbing things, because the odd and disturbing things are normal where they come from. Also furriners can bring horrible diseases. And nobody is likely to be more committed to saving the village from flood, fire and foe than a gang of your fellow tribesmen (and women.) They have skin in the same game as you do. The people in the next village, county, kingdom do not care about you, yours and your village as much as do your fellow villagers. Whatever may be said on the BBC.
But tribalism can be taken too far. See 20C. (And all previous ones.) And likely 21C.
the ideology of the ‘brotherhood of man’ is a marxist fantasy.
I’d say it was more of a Christian idea, that has been tolerably successful over centuries in seeping into the social fabric of Christian countries, and formerly Christian countries. Even to the extent of being thought worth purloining, at least as a slogan, by Marxists.
Reason is not determined by race, or by class, or by whether someone is a man or a women.
As Ludwig Von Mises often pointed out – there is no “Jewish reason” or “Aryan reason”, or “capitalist reason, or “proletarian reason”, there is just reason.
The laws of reasoning are universal – they are not subject to “historical period” (historicism), biological race, or whether someone is a man or a women. We are free will beings – we are capable of reasoning, including moral reasoning.
As Tolkien put in the Lord the Rings – moral good and bad are not different in different times or places (although evil may be more extreme in some times and places than at other times and places – more people may embrace it), and moral good and moral evil are not different for “elves and dwarves” than they are for men.
“But what of people who deny this – people who deny there are universal laws of reason, or that humans are beings who have the free will to choose between moral good and moral evil?”
In the end one often has to fight such people – to the death.
“He has a different skin colour to me – so it does not matter if he is robbed, murdered or enslaved”.
“He is a man and I am a women – so it does not matter if he is robbed, murdered or enslaved”.
“She is a capitalist and I am proletarian – so it does not matter if she is robbed, murdered, or enslaved”.
“The date is such and such, I am in a different historical period, so it does not matter if this other person is robbed, murdered or enslaved”.
“This is another country, on the other side of the world, so it does not matter if this person is robbed, murdered or enslaved”.
These are all examples of EVIL statements – if someone just says them that is NOT a crime (someone may say evil things – if they choose to do so), but if someone tries to put these statements into practice, actually do the things these statements try to justify, then they must be met with force. If need be lethal force.
See Edmund Burke (that much misunderstood thinker) – specifically his contempt for what he called “geographical morality” (which he attributed to Warren Hastings and others) i.e. the belief that it was O.K. to do evil things as long as one did them in “another culture” or some distant country (or some other time period).
As for the racial matter – Mr Burke answered a lady who wrote him a letter about why he cared about the robbing and killing of Indians.
“They do not have your lilies and roses in their faces, but they are made in the image of God just as much as you are”.
And an atheist may also believe in human personhood – the soul. They just hold that it dies with the body.
The soul – personhood, is what this is all about.
It should be noted that the Tory Dr Johnson had the same philosophical opinions (although not the same political opinions) as the Old Whig Edmund Burke.
Belief in human personhood (moral agency – the soul), and basic and objective universal moral law (with our ability, with great effort, to sometimes choose good in the great struggle between good and evil that all of us face every day within ourselves), being central to this.
Someone such as the Emperor Marcus Aurelius might NOT have been able (given the circumstances of his time and place) to establish a society where there was “the same law for all” “equal rights and equal freedom of speech” a government which valued most of all “the liberty of the governed” – but he knew that was the moral ideal, which the slave ridden Roman Empire so sadly failed to live up to.
Nor are men who achieve some measure of great moral good always very nice – for example, Louis X of France in the Middle Aged (who got rid of slavery and broke the back of serfdom) was a quick tempered and unpleasant man – known as “Louis the Quarrelsome”.
A good example of identity politics is Zionism, if one understands Zionism as a project by which people of a shared religious or ethnic characteristic politically organize for self determination.
Many if not most Jews alive today have a strong identification with the state of Israel, as they should.
to rail against ‘identity politics’ because of the antics of BLM or other groups is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
1) Paul Marks (December 11, 2021 at 7:14 pm), Niall-pedant-Kilmartin cannot resist replacing your (perfectly adequate) summary Burke quote with his exact words.
2) I suggest commenters distinguish between fake identities prostituted to political definitions (e.g. Joe Biden: “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black.”) and identity-oriented reasoning that at least submits to objective definitions. For example, I don’t mind a discussion that compares the Scots to others (culturally, genetically or however), but there’s no point talking to someone who resorts to the “no true Scotsman” fallacy the moment reality confronts them with a counter-example.
“The date is such and such, I am in a different historical period, so it does not matter if this other person is robbed, murdered or enslaved”.
I struggle to agree with that formulation. Slavery, for example, existed in these islands a thousand years ago. By today’s standards that was wrong. By the standards of the time maybe it was not. Actions can only be judged fairly against the standards of the time in which they were done. Even people accused of crimes are entitled to that much fairness.
I also deny absolutely all notions of inherited moral merit or guilt.
“Tribalism can be taken too far”, says Lee. Which is exactly why Hitchens’ point stands. Affinity to a group is one thing. But allowing that affinity to take primacy over using your rational faculties is quite another. Understanding the difference is to know the difference between civilisation and its opposite.
Niall – thank you for correcting a forgetful old man (myself), yes the exact words do need to be stated, and you stated them Sir.
ragingingnick – contrary to what is often claimed, Zionism did not mean the stealing of land. What little private land there was in the Ottoman Province and later British Protectorate (and it was the CHOICE of the Ottoman Empire to ally with Imperial Germany) was NOT stolen – some was voluntarily bought, and some of this private land remains under Muslim ownership. Most land in the area is (and was before) state land – not private land. Nor was there ever a policy of expelling Muslims – indeed there are MORE (not less – more) Muslims in the land than there have even been. Unlike Jews in other lands in the Middle East – they have been removed.
In short the media (and the education system) have things backwards – as normal.
decine – what do you mean “the standards of the time”?
The declaration of Westminster was more than 900 years ago – people knew perfectly well that slavery was wrong. “The abominable trade in human beings” was denounced (many times). And nor was it just Christians – every Roman legal scholar knew that slavery was against natural law, but they played the “law of all nations” dodge (basically “other people commit this evil – so we can”).
Should I slit someone’s throat for the money in their purse and then say “by the standards of the time” it was fine for me to do so? As it happens I have recently been to several areas of towns where murder is fairly common – that does NOT make it right. So spare us “the standards of the time”.
YES (a thousand times YES) it is easier to do evil if lots of other people around you are also doing evil – but that does not make it right. For example, Romans (and there were some) that said that it was wrong to force men to kill each other for the entertainment of the mob, were correct – not just “in our time”, in their time also.
However, I AGREE with you that “inherited guilt” makes no sense.
For example, our present Queen is a direct descendant of William the Bastard who slaughtered vast numbers of English civilians, reducing much of the north of England to wasteland. But the Queen (by the marriage of Henry the First – son of William the Bastard) is ALSO a direct descendant of Alfred the Great and the other English rulers.
The Queen is also the direct descendant of many ancient IRISH rulers – something that is often forgotten.
Also men can do good and bad.
For example, Robert the Bruce wept as he lay dying – not because of the pain of his disease, but out of SHAME.
“I have shed the blood of so many innocent men” he said, remembering the men he had killed unjustly.
Does this mean that Robert the Bruce was not a hero? No it does not – for he was a hero.
But he had done bad things – not just good things. And he knew it – and he repented of his evil deeds. We must remember both his good deeds – and his evil deeds.
Not “by the standards of his time” – that is nonsense language. Killing an innocent man is wrong – REAGARDLESS OF THE FECKING DATE.
Not “by the standards of his time” – that is nonsense language. Killing an innocent man is wrong – REAGARDLESS OF THE FECKING DATE.
Exactly. As far back in history as one can read, killing innocent people was regarded as wrong.
And for what it is worth, even slavery was denounced by people as far back as Roman times, but people were resigned to it. Being resigned to X isn’t the same as moral approbation, but far too few people seem unable or unwilling to make the distinction.
Honour people for their good deeds – but do not forget their evil deeds.
And we must not forget our own evil deeds – I have done much evil.
Presently the people who pull down statues are worse than any of the people whose statues they pull down – for the attackers of statues are Marxists (they are “Woke” – Frankfurt School Marxists) – and Marxism has killed over a hundred million people, and they would kill far more.
“Cast the first stone” if you are free of sin – and Marxists are most certainly NOT free of it.
The Frankfurt School Marxist (“Woke”) position can be summed up in a few words….
“Some people were slaves in the past – therefore ALL people should be slaves now.”
Make no mistake – the “Woke” Marxists, and the Saint-Simon style “Scientific” tyranny supporters – World Economic Forum, United Nations and-so-on, want to enslave everyone.
There is no one, on any statue they destroy, who was as bad as they are.
@FredZ’s comment really did make me think (thanks Fred!) I think there is nothing wrong with an affinity for the people you clan with whether a sports team or a gender or a skin color (though I feel socially compelled to state my view on this specific topic: people who are all about the “white race” are freaking scary, insanely wrong and I have ZERO affinity with those f**kers).
The problem comes when we back this with the force of law. Where we say black people, or women, or Celtic supporters should have different treatment under the law. The logical reason for this is that unlike other human to human interaction, we consider government mediated interactions to be a legitimate candidate for the use of force, the denial of the right to self determination.
Though it is worth pointing out that nationalism is the top level of clan, and we do distinguish in law (at the moment anyway) between citizens and non citizens.
I suppose that isn’t true — there is a level about that — speciesism. We do not treat animals outside our species as we do animals within our species.
@Paul Marks
As Tolkien put in the Lord the Rings – moral good and bad are not different in different times or places (although evil may be more extreme in some times and places than at other times and places – more people may embrace it), and moral good and moral evil are not different for “elves and dwarves” than they are for men.
FWIW, I do not agree with that, and neither does history. What has been considered moral has drastically changed throughout history, and throughout geography. I see not justification for a claim that there is some absolute moral code or definition of such, merely an agreement between humans to improve our moral code as time goes by and we learn more about our nature. To say it is improving is not to accept that it is asymptotic.
OK, now you’re just confusing me. When you speak of some agreement to improve our moral code, doesn’t that necessarily mean that we’re hitting short of where we ought to be, and that there truly is some ideal out there to which we ought to aspire but have yet to attain? Because to me that sounds like you’re saying there IS an absolute and timeless moral code.
And, IIRC, your view concerning slavery and early American slaveowners supported this idea of the timeless ideal – that slaveowners of that time can not be excused on the basis that slavery was acceptable at the time, that it has always been morally repugnant even if accepted as normal.
@bobby b
OK, now you’re just confusing me.
Yeah, it is why I could never be a lawyer, too much mumbling… that and all the looking stuff up in books. Too much time in the library makes Jack a dull boy.
When you speak of some agreement to improve our moral code, doesn’t that necessarily mean that we’re hitting short of where we ought to be, and that there truly is some ideal out there to which we ought to aspire but have yet to attain? Because to me that sounds like you’re saying there IS an absolute and timeless moral code.
I just bought a house, and I am doing things to improve it. Does that necessarily mean that there exists some perfect house? Or, to use a example from morality, let’s say you believe that the greatest good is the maximum happiness of the society as a whole, while I believer that the greatest good is for each to seek his own happiness. We have two different ideas of what a perfect morality would be, nonetheless, we both agree that when we stop pumping toxic waste into a river we share that society is improved. Your ideal of a perfect moral society can no more claim pre-eminence than mine, but that doesn’t mean we can’t both agree on things that will improve morality. To take today’s controversy, some people think that stopping the murder of in utero babies makes the world a better place, some think that protecting a woman’s right to control her own body makes the world a better place. They both might favor better education on contraception, and doing so they both may agree makes society better, but they surely do not think of the same of some promised, abortion free, Gilead.
Morality improves for a number of reasons, such as — we know better (for example we know that you don’t HAVE to cut people’s hearts out at the top of a ziggurat to ensure the sun comes up tomorrow) or because our big picture goals have changed (for example, our goal is not to become an entirely militarized society as Sparta, so we think it is wrong to kill new born babies because they are not physically perfect), or because we have stripped away assumptions that proved false, often related to religion or para-religious activities (for example, women are, despite previous beliefs to the contrary, able to muster the rationality to vote, and work and manage property.)
Was the sacrifice of enemies at the top of the Ziggurat morally wrong? By our moral lights yes, but within the context of Aztec society it can be argued that to not do so would be immoral. And as some future people look back on us will they also judge us immoral too because, for example, we treated animals worse than we used to treat captives from west Africa?
Morality is framed by the society it is formed in, and it is often a dance on eggshells. For many people in the west the idea of eating cats and dogs is morally repugnant, despite the fact the humans have been doing it since the dawn of time, and a large portion of the humans alive today think it is perfectly ok. Why is it any different than eating a pig or a cow? (And of course some places are horrified at the thought of eating a pig, in one place, or a cow in another.) There are surprisingly few things that are considered immoral though all societies in time, even though all societies today. For example, most societies are opposed to stealing, but what “stealing” means is EXTREMELY variable, compare, for example, the attitude of stealing in communist countries to western countries, or the idea related to stealing in native American cultures or Australian Aboriginals, or, for that matter, certain groups of people in downtown Chicago.
Much of the breakdown in society we are seeing comes from the fact that different groups found their morality on different core moral axioms. These moral axioms have been fairly steady through American history (with some ugly warts) and I guess we have to give some credit to religion for that. However, the core moral axiom sets are drifting apart and we are quickly getting to the point we don’t talk the same language (an experience that most libertarians will have been familiar with for a VERY long time.) Oftentimes some bad actors manage to get a stage where they can provide a putative moral framework to allow people to justify their taking terrible acts. The crusades, the conquistadors, and, to a lesser degree, the idea of critical race theory and “reparations” used to justify the raiding of Neiman Marcus and YSL stores in downtown Chicago.
If you can get past the liberal sneering of Johnathan Hait, and can be open enough to see the point he is making without getting to offended by some of his examples, I would recommend this Ted talk. I don’t agree with Hait on much but I do think he says some interesting things in this video.
I also highly recommend (and especially to you Bobby given your profession) David Friedman’s book “Legal Systems Very Different from Ours” (I linked Amazon, but I think he has a version for free on the web somewhere) where he discusses his analysis of legal systems (and I suppose the moral frameworks on which they are founded) completely different than the traditional ones rooted in English Common law and French Civil law systems that pervade the modern world. Legal ideas from the Romani, the Hasidic Jews, the Comanche law, Pirate law, and ancient Icelandic law (for which he is quite renowned, for example. Doing so strips away many of the assumptions we have built into our own thinking.
And, IIRC, your view concerning slavery and early American slaveowners supported this idea of the timeless ideal – that slaveowners of that time can not be excused on the basis that slavery was acceptable at the time, that it has always been morally repugnant even if accepted as normal.
If you look at what I wrote you will see that I did not indict them by MY view of what is right and wrong but by THEIR own view of what was right and wrong. Both Jefferson and Washington were painfully aware of the immorality of slavery, yet their did it anyway.
JP : “Tribalism can be taken too far”, says Lee. Which is exactly why Hitchens’ point stands. Affinity to a group is one thing. But allowing that affinity to take primacy over using your rational faculties is quite another
Hitchens was a good sloganeer and provocateur, but prone to exaggeration. The point is not that reason should be discarded in favour of tribal feeling, but that reason does not get you all the way to the solution. It only helps a bit. Problems in the real world involve limited and doubtful information about the present, uncertainty about the future and truncated decision times. Reason is not enough.
But as I say, reason can assist decision making. And one of the obvious conclusions from reason is that tribes which do not think loyalty to the tribe is valuable aren’t likely to stay in business very long. With negative consequences for tribe members.
Besides which, as somebody said, but I have forgotten who – whoever says he loves everyone loves no one.
@Johnathan Pearce (London)
Exactly. As far back in history as one can read, killing innocent people was regarded as wrong.
That isn’t true, or it isn’t universally true anyway. I gave two examples above — the Aztecs killed entirely innocent people to ensure the sun came up in the morning (please note they did kill prisoners of war, but they also killed innocent people from their own population too), the Spartans left “less than perfect” babies to die on a hillside, and there is little more innocent than a new born child. Even today, depending on your perspective, the Supreme Court is having a controversial decision about the right of mothers to terminate the lives of their babies, unless you indict the babies as non innocent by virtue of trespass. Those people did not do so despite it being, in their view morally wrong, they did it because, in their view, to NOT kill that innocent would be morally wrong.
The Marxist “Woke” movement was summed up by their destruction of the War Memorial (the “Soldiers Memorial”) in Santa Fa, New Mexico in 2020.
Supposedly the Marxists (the “Woke”) destroyed that Memorial because it referred to Indians as “savages” – that word was removed (by an act of vandalism) in 1974, so it is hard to see what it had to do with the destruction of the Memorial in 2020. And the nomad bands that were fought in New Mexico WERE SAVAGES – the word referred specifically to the warriors fought in the battles (not to any general population) and anyone who thinks those warriors were not savage knows nothing about them.
But, I repeat, the word “savages” had not been on that Memorial since 1974, and it was destroyed in 2020 – so what was the destruction really about?
It was about removing the memorial to soldiers (some of them Hispanic soldiers) who fought for the United States against the invasion of Confederate (i.e. pro SLAVERY) forces in the Civil War.
Three sides of that Memorial were about the Union soldiers who died in those battles.
And the Memorial also marked Spanish land grants going back hundred of years.
Often these land grants were very vague – but there was no great confiscation of land in New Mexico after it became part of the United States.
Certainly the Hispanics in New Mexico did NOT think Mexico was a better governed place than the United States – they did not think their rights were better protected in Mexico. And an Hispanic War Veterans group is suing the city government about their failure to protect the War Memorial, their failure to punish the white (collage boy types) who destroyed the Memorial, and their failure to rebuild it.
See how all of this is not convenient for the Marxist (“Woke”) narrative.
That is why the Memorial in Santa Fa, New Mexico was destroyed in 2020.
Frasor Orr.
As you know Sir – what matters is not what people say they regard as right, but what is actually is right.
It is wrong to rob, rape and murder other people.
And people know that – regardless of what they say.
By the way – even the Nazis knew it.
Eric Brown (Commander Eric Brown – look him up) made a point of having a long talk with each guard at Belson before they were hanged.
They knew that whatever they said they were going to be hanged – they had no reason to lie to him.
And every one of them admitted to him that they knew what they had done was wrong, and that they knew AS THEY WERE DOING IT that it was wrong.
People face choices between good and evil (if only in small ways) every day of our lives – and we all fail sometimes.
And as we do evil – WE KNOW.
@Paul Marks
As you know Sir – what matters is not what people say they regard as right, but what is actually is right.
Do you honestly believe that the Priests at the top of that Aztec ziggurat believed that they were doing wrong when they cut out the heart of their innocent victim? I have no doubt that the believed they were performing a solemn duty, a duty that they were morally obliged to perform, and that far from being wrong, they believed they would have been wrong not to do it.
To say “actually right” assumes your conclusion that such an absolute even exists. I assure you the universe cares little for your or my ideas of morality. They are just things that we, as a society, made up and agreed upon for a variety of reasons, one of which is certainly ensuring society’s survival. (Not at all dissimilar to how genes developed claws and shells to ensure their own survival.)
PM : what matters is not what people say they regard as right, but what is actually is right
I think you’re missing out a relevant third category – what people believe is right. What is right and what someone believes to be right are not the same thing, unless your definition of what is right is purely subjective.
As for whether some people have sincerely believed that killing innocent people is sometimes right, I am with Fraser on this one. Aside from his examples I would offer normal pre-civilised tribal behavior – raiding the next tribe, killing some men and carrying off a shapely female or two was (and to the extent that it persists now is) not done despite its believed wickedness, but because it was not believed to be wicked. It was believed to be perfectly OK.
And thusly with bigger tribes. Did the Romans think it was wicked to throw Christians to the lions ? Well maybe a few of them did, but mostly not. Did the samurai chopping off a peasant’s head think he was being wicked ? Doubt it.
Soaked in several hundred years of Christian propaganda, we find it hard to imagine how any normal human could enjoy watching another human being torn to shreds by lions. But they did. I recall going round the pit in Syracuse where the Athenian prisoners had been held after their failed attack. The guide explained that the high and aristocratic ladies of Syracuse would enjoy walking round the pit in their fanciest duds in the cool of the evening, when the Athenian prisoners were there, admiring the good looking ones as they starved to death.
The idea that homo sapiens has a built in John Locke module which controls our feelings and beliefs is somewhat fanciful. We have conflicting pyschological models of other humans – one based on family, which is warm, cuddly and sharing; and a second based on other humans, as one of, or a mixture of – prey, predator or mate. (Mate and prey obviously include more complex social manifestations of the same basic ideas – the mug we can sell our dodgy car to, the unpleasant lady from social services who wants to take our kids into care and local baker who sells good, but expensive, muffins.)
I think y’all misunderstand morals. (OK, what I really mean is that you don’t understand them as I do.)
To me, the moral ideal is really a First Principles idea. I fall into a sort of Randian belief that there is really only one – serve life. After that, everything else is just how you choose to support and follow that main ideal. Strategy versus tactics, really.
That Aztec priest was following his moral ideal of serving the life of the people by appeasing his god with one sacrifice. He was being moral. The only priest who was NOT serving his moral idea (of that time) would have been the priest who allowed his god to become displeased by refusing to sacrifice an innocent, thus endangering the peoples’s lives.
(And religion really throws a wrench in the system of natural moral ideals. It overlays its own arbitrary rulebook over the timeless morality of (for instance) “serve life.” Religion, to me, follows morality instead of defining it – a religion announcing its new moral code usually quite closely mirrors the existing natural moral code in its broad strokes, but introduces fashionable and profitable details along with that. If it failed to mirror the existing moral ideal, acceptance would be sparse.)
Re: the slave owners discussion – those guys let a confused secondary system of the details-work mess up their service to their main moral ideal. They misdefined “life” to not include some humans. The intellectual confusion that such a mismatch induces – the cognitive dissonance – was apparent in their behavior and writings.
So it ends up that people can be attempting to serve the First Principle of serving life – and have moral intentions – but screw up in the details.
Fraser, surely an important point is that the Spartans and Aztecs were described at the time by others as doing evil things. After all, consider how the practice if witchcraft and the hanging and burning of said suddenly ended. It ended because humans learned to make fuller use of reason when it came to morals.
Of course people have often believed in things we consider horrible. The point is that this changed, and one reason was because we became less tribal and more able to think in principles. In short, we moved away from identity politics, as per Hichens’ quotation.
“Do you honestly believe that the Aztec priests knew they were doing wrong when the cut out the hearts of prisoners?”
Of course they did – they may have told themselves “this is the lesser evil – I have to do this or the sun will not come up and we will all die”. But they still know they were doing an evil thing – although they may have told themselves that it would have been even more evil not to do it.
They were not blind or stupid – they could see the people struggling as they were dragged to the stone, they could see their faces as they plunged in the knife.
Possibly some of the priests did not believe in the lesser evil thing (after all they knew that the temple was not that old – and that the sun had come up every day without the sacrifices), but for some of them (YES) it would have been a lesser evil thing.
As for the full on moral relativist – someone who holds that there really are different moral principles in different “historical periods” or among different “social classes” or “races” or “genders”.
Well if someone is just stating that as an OPINION that is contemptable – but they have not actually done anything.
But if someone tries to carry out IN PRACTICE – then one, in the end, has to kill them. But ONLY if they try and put relativist theory into practice.
Someone saying “Whiteness is evil – whitey must die” is expressing an opinion, ditto “women are evil – women must die”, or “capitalists are evil – capitalists must die”.
It is only if they try and put theory into practice that they have to be killed.
According to American universities and government (and corporate) bodies objective reason, including objective moral theory, is part of “whiteness” – and is, therefore, evil.
They are wrong – objective reason, including objective moral reason, is universal. It is not a matter of skin colour. There is no “white reason” or “black reason” – there is only reason.
They are also contradictory – because they are saying that objective morality is objectively evil, which objective moral statement.
It is unfortunate that most large Corporations are teaching this, and that the American government is teaching this – including the military.
This Relativism will lead to much killing and destruction.
Mr Biden may not be to blame (although he has always been a bad man – he is now senile and may not be responsible for his actions) – but the people who control this puppet are committing a great evil.
There is no Jewish moral reason and there is no Aryan moral reason – there is just moral reason.
There is no capitalist moral reason and there is no proletarian moral reason – there is just moral reason.
The evil things that I have done are evil – and they would have remain evil even if I had dome them in the “historical period” of Julius Caesar.
Did I know they were evil when I did them? Yes I did.
Why do people do evil things? Because it is FUN – not because we do not know we are doing wrong (we do know), but because it is FUN to do wrong things. It is FUN to inflict pain and humiliation on other people – it is not “a few mad people” who feel a thrill doing such things, at times (if only in small ways) EVERYONE does. That is why we have to fight the evil-in-ourselves every day – the evil is not just “that person over there”, the evil is in-ourselves.
One of the problems with the English language is that we use the same word “good” to mean a moral act and a pleasurable act.
They are very different things – indeed they are often in conflict.
We know how we should live – and we know what is fun to do, and they are not the same.
Doing the right thing does not always lead to happiness – indeed it may lead to one’s own suffering and death.
On the other hand, the evil man (someone who gives in to the evil we all have within ourselves) may have a grand time – raping, robbing, and all the rest of it. And may die aged 90 – surrounded by praise and adoring fans.
@Paul Marks — to much to go into every point, but let me pick and choose the essence of the matter:
There is no Jewish moral reason and there is no Aryan moral reason – there is just moral reason.
I don’t agree at all, or more specifically, I think what you say is strictly right, but there is an underling assumption that is wrong. Logic and reason are processes, and without something to process they are useless. Logic and reason must be applied to a set of axioms and from that we can derive moral conclusions, but unless we agree on the axioms we will not share the same conclusions. I refer you to the video I linked in reply to BobbyB from Johnathan Hait, which discusses this point in some detail. (Just to be clear, I don’t care for the word axioms here, since that implies they are unchanging, but societies have and do refine axioms over time.)
For example, Orthodox Jews do not keep dairy and meat together or eat them from the same plate. This derives from two moral axioms — namely that it is wrong to eat a kid boiled in its mother’s milk, and the idea of hedges — wrapping guard spaces around moral rules to prevent violating them. Applying the “moral reason” you mention leads to a moral imperative to have two refrigerators. The reasoning is sound, but that axioms are one ones to which I would subscribe.
The samples I gave were deliberately chosen to illustrate different modalities of moral conclusion.
In the case of the Aztecs they sacrificed people because they were objectively wrong about something: the Sun would have come up the next day were it not for the sacrifice.
In the case of the Spartans they killed children because they had a different set of moral axioms than you or I do — namely that the militarization of the state is the pre-eminent value. This is very different than post enlightenment ideas of the pre-eminence of the individual, their happiness and their free choices.
So we can say objectively that the Aztecs were wrong, but we cannot say that about the Spartans. There is no law of the universe that says western moral axioms are superior to Spartan ones. I certainly think they are, but only on the basis that that is the way I was raised. Again, which universal law giver determined that? What is the scale by which you judge the two?
We can say that there is an absolute law that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light. We can say that you cannot divide an electron into smaller pieces. We can say that two masses attract each other. These are absolute, certain laws that derive from the properties of the universe itself. The idea that the collective is inferior to the individual is not, it is simply a choice we make. To the universe we are a bag of chemicals, it makes no more sense for the universe to impose a moral scale on us that it does to think water is evil for drowning someone.
It might be argued that the Spartans are gone and we are still here, so our culture has a higher survivability, and that is evidence of its superiority. But that simply doesn’t fly, it is a further reduction — why is survival a measure of success? Is it, for example, better to live a short happy life or a long painful life? I’d probably chose the former.
So I think you are simply projecting your own values onto these people in the past. TBH I think it is kind of ridiculous to imagine that the Aztec priests or the Mongol hoards soaked in blood somehow felt guilty about doing what they thought was morally right. Like I said, to project into the future, it might well be some future Paul looks back on today’s Paul and says “surely he felt guilty as he cut up a piece of a beautiful living creature and ate it?” I doubt though that you are any more wracked with guilt about your chicken nuggets than the armies raping and destroying during the Mongol invasion.
Morality is an evolutionary process, starting with the law of the jungle we have evolved and changed our morality, trying out different things, and producing the current version after trial and error and suffering the consequences of different choices. We ended up where we are today which is better from a utilitarian point of view than earlier moralities, but it is continuing to evolve. Just as with species evolution there isn’t a goal or an endpoint, there is no perfect species. Just an ongoing process of change to adapt to the environment.
Tom Stoppard’s play ‘Jumpers’ is well worth reading (or watching if you get the chance) for fun, but – like many of his plays – it conveys deep moral reasoning in its entertaining context.
At one point the hero points out to his boss, the cynical head of a University Philosophy Department, that his (im)moral logic justifies the Nazis (like the Aztecs, in Fraser Orr above) as moral by their code, not evil, at worst merely mistaken. The department head gets angry, complaining that it’s a cheap trick, that the Nazis are always being thrown in the face of people arguing for a relative morality. The hero points out that it’s only fair; by rejecting the relative morality in which Mongol, Aztec and Nazi mass-murderers are all as good as us, the hero ends up with “this distinctly tricky God-person”, and the Department head is always throwing that in his face.
As it’s mistake to reason morally about the Nazis while treating their belief the Jews started the world war as if it were a mere honest error, not an expression of their will to think wrongly rather than face shame, so it’s a mistake to treat the Aztecs’ belief in the sun’s ravenous appetite for human sacrifice as if it were a mere honest error they unfortunately fell into, not a consequence of a more basic immorality.
@Niall, I might try to find that play and check it out.
I want to draw the distinction again between the Aztecs and the Spartans. The Aztecs were objectively wrong, the Sun did not depend on their sacrifices. The Spartans though were coming from a different set of moral axioms which, if you accept them, would allow for their actions to be moral. So who is to say which moral axioms are right? The answer is not “nobody” as seems to be the case put forward to opponents of moral relativism; rather the answer is “we do”. We, together, agree what we accept in our society. That doesn’t mean we are right, or that our conclusions are universal laws of nature, it is just what we decided.
Moreover, we don’t decide and then stop deciding, it is an ongoing evolutionary process.
I have been thinking a lot about abortion recently, since it is a hot topic here in the USA because the USSC is looking at it and everybody is going nuts. For the record I am mostly pro abortion, which is to say I think a woman has a perfect right to kick out the trespasser up until the point of viability, at which stage she has a moral obligation to remove it in such a way as to not damage it, even if that means keeping it in her body for a few more weeks.
But my view is not so important here. What is important is not “what shall we decide”, but rather “how shall we decide.” If we oppose abortion on the basis that the fetus has a right to life, why then are exceptions like rape/developmental defect/health of the mother relevant? If it has a right to life then none of these (except perhaps the latter) are really all that relevant. But what we see is people asserting “the fetus is a child and we cannot kill it” or “my body my choice”, how do we determine which of these moral axioms are correct? In fact I’d like to ask that question differently: “how do we DIVINE which is correct”? For if we believe in moral absolutes, given by God or the universe, we are not deciding, we are divining what that power would have us know.
And that is where the rubber meets the road. AFAIK there is no way to divine this, since such an absolute doesn’t exist. Instead we, as a society, have to decide what we think is right. And unfortunately, on some questions we can’t, we dance on eggshells. So the assumption that there is always a right answer to a moral question is simply incorrect. Some questions are undecidable, because we can’t get even most people to agree.
I think a woman has a perfect right to kick out the trespasser up until the point of viability
It’s not a trespasser. Which is the answer to your question :
If we oppose abortion on the basis that the fetus has a right to life, why then are exceptions like rape/developmental defect/health of the mother relevant?
The fetus is – on this theory – possessed of equal status to the mother. It is not superordinate.
And in dealings between post birth humans, Human A and Human B do not owe unlimited consideration to each other. Their moral, and even more so, legal, obligations to each other are somewhat limited. So – morally – if an actual trespasser sneaks into your house, you have every right to push him out into the snow, even if he may freeze to death outside. Maybe if he was 99%+ likely to freeze to death, that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do, but the fact that he has snuck into your house uninvited puts him in the wrong and you in the right.
Thus if the fetus really were a trespasser you would be entitled to push him out into the snow. Though abortion methods like killing him first with chemicals or chopping him up before evicting him would be more questionable. But as I say the fetus is very rarely a trespasser. He is formed of the fusion of an egg and a sperm – the egg was always around inside Mom, it’s one of her cells. And the sperm, most of the time, is invited in too. Sometimes, such as when you use contraception, you really would prefer it not to come in, but that doesn’t mean it trespasses when it does come in. It is as if the “Come on in and make yourself at home” note on the back door has been left up after the Christmas party by mistake, and a cold person comes in out of the snow thinking he had been invited.
So rape does not contradict the “this fetus is an equal person” claim, it is simply a case where the clash between mother and child (if she wants an abortion) has a pile of arguments in favour of Mom that does not exist in the non-rape cases.
As for health of the mother – that’s straightforward. Self defence.
Can’t help you with developmental defect, but then I’ve never heard a pro-lifer claim that abortion in the case of a development defect is OK.
Fraser Orr – let us agree to disagree. I have said what I have said – and I hold to it. There is no point in me just typing it again and again.
As for those who deny that a multi racial society can work (which is what this is really all about) – I think Florida shows it can work.
Florida is far from perfect, but it does work. Florida contains people of all races and (obviously) both sexes. It also contains people with very different cultural opinions – from “fundamentalist” Christians to the Gay community in parts of Miami.
What unites people? What is the core of unity?
Liberty – that is what unites people of different races and different cultures in Florida, as summed up by the Constitution of Florida of 1968 and the policies of such people as the Governor.
That is why multiracial Florida works – and multiracial New York, New Jersey, California….. do NOT work.
The principle of liberty, of live-and-let-live, can unite a society – create a society that works.
Lee Moore – yes I am also against baby killing. By the Spartans or by modern “liberals” (who are not liberal).
The baby is not a “trespasser”, although many people make an honest mistake in thinking that the baby is a trespasser, the baby made no choice to be there.
Of course technology may solve this – by allowing the baby to be removed at a fairly early stage WITHOUT being killed (the baby developing in some artificial womb), but we are NOT there yet.
The Non Aggression Principle (the “NAP” as libertarians) applies to the weak – not just the strong.
Live and let live.
And that includes the basic moral obligation to one’s own children – which applies to FATHERS (not just mothers).
As for Jewish doctrine.
An Orthodox Jew does not hold that following certain customs leads someone to go to Heaven – “we do not do these things for a reward”. Indeed Judaism does not hold that someone has to be Jewish to go to Heaven – the Righteous Gentile goes upstairs as well, and Jewish customs do NOT define what being “righteous” means. Moral reason is the same for an Orthodox Jew as for everyone else (in all times and places basic human personhood, the reasoning “I”, exists) – contrary to the false claims of the National Socialists.
This reads very strangely. The concepts of invited-guest / trespasser and consensual sex / rape have an obvious relationship. (I discuss some technicalities of the issue in this old comment.)
Why? The Spartans suffered a catastrophic decline in their citizen body during the classical period. I first mentioned that fact in a very old guest post, while hypothesising about a another matter, but it is alternatively (or also) relevant to your point. The Aztecs survived their evil until the arrival of Cortez showed how many subject tribes were just waiting the chance to rebel. The Spartans needed no such unforeseeable irruption from without to see their society fail for lack of citizens.
I want to draw the distinction again between using the long-dead Aztecs or Spartans, as against the within-living-memory Nazis, when studying a morality that (like fiat money) appears to claim no value beyond the will of those dominant in a society to say it has. Certain Nazis said we could kill them but not judge them. In Stoppard’s play, the Philosophy Department head’s beliefs mean he cannot disagree – although in another passage (very funny, but it would take long to explain), the hero assures a policemen how wildly unlikely it would be for his boss ever to commit murder.
Like Paul, I am happy to agree to disagree and let this subthread end.
We must remember that all this is independent of religion.
As the Schoolmen used to say – “natural law (moral reason) is the law of God – but if God did not exist, it would be exactly the same”.
The key is the existence of the human person (moral agency – free will) NOT a claim that it is immortal. The human “I” may die with the body.
@Niall Kilmartin
This reads very strangely. The concepts of invited-guest / trespasser and consensual sex / rape have an obvious relationship. (I discuss some technicalities of the issue in this old comment.)
Were you to invite me to your home for dinner, and find me still there a couple of weeks later you might rightly argue that my invite had long since been rescinded. Were you to have a party at your house to which I was not invited, but which caused you to leave the door open and I snuck in, your open door does not in any respect translate into an invitation.
BTW, I read your comment on a stolen kidney, which was interesting, but don’t want to open that up in this thread. Sometime in another thread, I’d enjoy discussing with you though.
I want to draw the distinction again between using the long-dead Aztecs or Spartans, as against the within-living-memory Nazis, when studying a morality that (like fiat money) appears to claim no value beyond the will of those dominant in a society to say it has.
I think this is an interesting comparison because it brings up an old hobby horse of mine — dollars and pounds are only worth something if we all agree they are, but exactly the same is true of gold. It is only worth what we, in the market, agree it is worth. It is certainly true that gold has a utilitarian value, though its utilitarian value is substantially less than its market value. Paper dollars also have a utilitarian value too (fire starters, wall paper) which is also far below its market price. (FWIW, dollars do have an intrinsic value — they are a future contract selling the labor and wealth of future tax payers… but that is another story.) I think morality is in a sense similar in that it does have a utilitarian value, but also the fact that it exists, irrespective of the contents of the rule book, adds considerable value beyond its specific utility. Having law is in itself an intrinsic good, even if the law itself flawed.
Certain Nazis said we could kill them but not judge them.
But that is self evidently not true, we obviously could judge them just as you can judge me and I can judge you. Perhaps they meant “you have no objective standard by which to judge us” and that is certainly true. So what did we do? We got together as a larger group and said “this is what we consider the moral standard, one that largely predated Nazism” and we judged them on that. One important thing to consider about Nazis verses Aztecs was that Nazis lived in a society of the moral ideas shared throughout Europe and violated them, within the living lifetimes and memories of the Nazis. The Aztec priests had been raised from birth with their particular moral system — so they didn’t know better.
BTW, going back to slavery and Jefferson, this is a point I did try to make. The common knuckle dragging, ignoramous in the south might have some more excuse for enslaving people than Jefferson, since they were raised that way and didn’t know different, whereas Jefferson clearly did know that what he was doing was wrong.
Nonetheless, in all the thread here I still haven’t heard any reason or explanation for where this absolute morality comes from. Is it a property of the universe? Who made it? Where did it come from? Atoms and molecules (come to that most animals) have no concept of morality. Where then did it come from if not from the evolution of the human mind? It is true that for morality to assert its imprimatur of authority it needs to convince you that it is absolute and irrefutable. But just because it pretends to be so doesn’t make it so.
TBH, Paul, I don’t really understand your point.
When the “Woke” Corporations (propped up by the Credit Money of the Central Banks) teach that “whiteness” is inherently evil, and that objective truth, logical thought, and objective moral right and moral wrong are part of this evil “whiteness” and should be exterminated, what are we to say?
We should say “no – you are wrong”.
Objective moral reason has nothing to do with being a man or a women, or what skin colour someone has (it is NOT “whiteness”), or whether someone is Jewish, Christian or atheist. Nor is it one thing in one “historical period” and another thing in another “historical period”.
Someone may deny this – and that is fine, as long as they are just stating their opinion. It is only if they try and do this IN PRACTICE that one, in the end, has to use force against them.
I hope this point is not difficult to understand – someone can say that that robbing, raping, enslaving murdering, is not wrong. It is only if they try and put their moral relativism into PRACTICE (actually do these things) that one has to use force against them.
Someone who, just in theory, denies the human “I” (moral agency – our ability to discern moral right from moral wrong and, with effort, CHOOSE between them) may be like David Hume – quite charming. But someone who behaves like this IN PRACTICE is someone like Charles Manson.
The non aggression principle (do not aggress against the body or goods of someone else) comes first – the Common Law (and so on) is an effort to put the principle of natural justice into practice – when faced with actual cases (actual violations of it).
The Common Law (and other systems) presuppose the existence of objective moral right and objective moral wrong – and, with effort, our ability to discern the difference between good and evil and CHOOSE between them.
Yes everyone fails at times (if only in small ways) – but that does not mean that objective right and wrong do not exist, or that it is impossible (with great effort) to do what is right against our desire to do evil – for evil is often FUN (I have never denied that – I know it only too well, the pleasure one gets from the suffering of others).
And again, one does NOT use force against people who just deny all the above in a theoretical way – one only uses force against someone who tries to put their relativism into PRACTICE (actually do these evil things).
Moral relativism is an excuse people use for their crimes – as with the Romans “slavery is against natural law – but the law of all nations…..” basically “everyone else is wicked – so we can be wicked as well” (an argument that does NOT work). But it is NOT the excuse one punishes – one punishes the crimes. People can say what they like – one punishes what they DO.
“But law and crime is just defined by the will of the ruler or rulers” – if someone, such as Mr Thomas Hobbes, just SAYS that, no response (other than contempt) is needed. It is only if they try and ACT UPON IT that a response is needed – “the ruler said I could do this, indeed that I had to do it, so I….”.
Then the response may need to be a short rope and a long drop.
Would have been better if, for example, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius had put the fine words near the start of his “Meditations” into practice? Yes it would – but it is hard to see how he could have done so, in the circumstances he found himself in. Basic good and evil do not change – but it is lot harder to do what is right in some circumstances than in others.
Had Marcus Aurelius actually tried to enforce “the same law for all – equal rights and equal freedom of speech” (ending slavery and so on) he would have been killed – and he knew it. If personal sacrifice will actually achieve these things – then go for it, but dying as a “gesture” does not make much sense.
Nor is a person who actually achieves things always a nice person to meet.
For example, Louis X of France (who, if my old memory serves, died utterly-worn-out at the age of 26) who ended slavery in France and (basically) got rid of serfdom as well, was a hot tempered, driven, even tortured man, known as “Louis the Quarrelsome”.
I am sure it would have been much nicer to have dinner with Sir Francis Bacon, Sir William Petty, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume or Jeremy Bentham – than it would have been to have dinner with Louis the Quarrelsome (having dinner with the Louis the Quarrelsome might well have been an unpleasant experience).
However, in a serious situation (where your life is at stake) the charm of Bacon, Petty, Hume and Bentham is of little use – you would turn round and find they were no longer there. Somehow they had slipped away…..
As for the other sort of man – the old saying “they may not be nice to have around – till you need them” springs to mind.
On second thoughts – sometimes (in some circumstances) death-as-a-gesture may indeed make sense.
For example, the suicide of Cato the Younger – rather than living on due to the good will of a tyrant.
His death inspired later generations – over thousands of years. “Cato” was one of the most popular plays of the 18th century.
@Paul Marks
We should say “no – you are wrong”.
Why is it wrong? FWIW, I obviously agree that it is wrong, but you and I share a similar upbringing. But, were some aliens to arrive from Mars, how would you explain to them why this is wrong? Imagine this alien culture treated blue aliens different than green aliens, how could you convince them that treating brown people differently than white people was wrong?
I mean in my opinion and yours it is self evidently true that everyone should be treated equally (under the law at least), but you are making a far stronger claim, namely that it isn’t just your opinion but that it is a law of the universe. What basis do you have for such a claim? I see none.
Instead I see the very obvious reason that it is “wrong” is because we, as a society, have all agreed together that it is wrong, and we enforce this both by using our culture to instill guilt into people who violate such a moral precept, and use the law to punish and disincentivize such behavior. But that is just a group of people agreeing together. We color the whole thing with this idea of “objective morality” or “evil/good” primarily to give that moral code an imprimatur of authority. So a certain moral suspension of disbelief is required, because having a law or moral code is, in and of itself, a beneficial thing. But all the dressing up doesn’t make it any more objective, much as dressing up a king in pomp and circumstance to convey the idea of authority makes him any more or less than a man.
Frasor Orr – I know the late Harold Prichard used to say “if the man on the bus passing this lecture hall could not understand what I am saying about philosophy – the fault is MINE not his”, but I have explained the matter rather clearly, at least as clearly as I am able to do.
If you do not understand – well O.K. you do not understand. You have said that you agree in practice (although not in theory) – and that is enough for me. As long as you do not actually aggress against the persons (bodies) or goods of other people (and you do not), that is fair enough. Good.
If the aliens turn up and start aggressing against the persons and goods of other moral agents (self aware beings – the reasoning “I”) – then I will kill them, if I am able to do so. And you will help me try to do so – for which I honour you Sir.
I think I gave examples of people who most certainly were not from my “historical period” or brought up the way I was – who still understood basic moral right and moral wrong. And it is often a matter of rejecting “arguments” (at least in practice) rather than following them.
For example, Aristotle (the product of a slave society) wrote out the “Natural Slave” argument – but when he died it was found that he had freed all (all) his slaves in his will.
In short – deep down (regardless of what he had said – and his up bringing, and so on) he understood the difference between right and wrong and had managed (at least in death) to behave rightly.
If Aristotle been a Martian – moral right and moral wrong would have been the same. Even though his culture might have been much more evil – I do not know what alien societies (if there are any) are like (it might be much harder for a Martian to do what is right – if their society is much more evil). But I do know what an “I” (a free will moral agent) is.
I am one – the terrible burden (and it is a terrible burden) of moral responsibility is upon me – and I often FAIL.
An elderly professor witnessed some of his students celebrating the coming into office of the National Socialists in Germany in 1933 – and he asked the students why they were celebrating.
“Now we will be free” the students replied.
“But”, said the elderly professor, “the basic principle of the National Socialists is that individual freedom must be subordinated to the Collective”.
“You fail to understand”, replied the students, “now we will be free not to be free”.
I know exactly what those students meant – the terrible burden of moral responsibility (moral choice) had been taken from their shoulders. Now they were free from it – and could do any act (no matter how bestial) they were ordered to do, and ENJOY DOING IT.
Evil is present in every human soul – man or woman, Jew or Gentile, black or white, and in every “historical period” and “society”.
I am only too well aware of that – I also have done much which is evil.