Everybody hopes that life is like a dancer's pirouetteWith grace we've dodged each conflict and decision that we've metEverybody tells themselves that they must be justifiedThey do what they do because they're trying to get by-Murder By Death, The Devil Drivers
I don't believe in good or evil or moral relativism. I spent at least a half hour talking to Christians trying to convert me and when I said I didn't believe in good or evil they said ahh moral relativism and I said "ahh not really"
I believe that people do things for various reasons with various consequences and all we can do is be aware of our impact on others and be aware of it.
I had to look up Moral Relativism to see if it meant what I thought it meant. It turns out that I primarily look at things as a subcategory of Moral Relativism called Descriptive Relativism. Basically I don't judge things initially I understand them.
When a tiger attacks it's trainer, it isn't because it's evil, it's because it is a tiger. When a corporation fleeces it's customers, it isn't evil, it's a corporation. When John Edwards and Newt Gingrich cheated on their sick wives, it isn't because they are evil, it's because they are men.
I hope the tiger one is pretty self explanatory. Tigers and other animals do not have less powerful versions of our brains. Each species has it's own operating system. And when an animal attacks it is because the human didn't understand the animal's "programming".
Corporations are legal constructs that are designed to make a profit. And as I've said before the executives have a legal obligation to make a profit. You can not blame a corporation for shady practices when their employees are obligated to be cut throat.
John Edwards and Newt Gingrich can't be blamed for wanting some non-chemo nookie. Men are made to have certain needs, that are different than the needs of women. A man's "programming" puts greater emphasis on the physical aspect of love where a woman's "programming" puts greater emphasis on the emotional. Men and women tend to become unfaithful for very different reasons.
But saying they can't be blamed for WANTING these things mean that the rest of us shouldn't hold them accountable.
We don't let tigers roam the streets because we know it will lead to attacks. We have Animal Control to keep dangerous animals from interfering with human beings. And yeah, it sucks that means that if my friendly huskies tunnel out of my yard, I pay the price. But I understand why animal ownership is REGULATED in this way.
We REGULATE corporations to make sure that the natural controls of a free market (competition, supply and demand) can not be circumvented. It's understandable for businesses to want to be deregulated, the same way the huskies don't like that I ran fencing on the ground in their favorite digging area. The point of regulation is not to inhibit business, but to keep business from inhibiting the freedom of their competition and the consumer.
As for the cheaters, the didn't do anything wrong by cheating on their wives. The did something wrong by breaking their agreement with their wives. If the wives of these men forgive them then that should be the end of it. The only business it is of society is if the wife doesn't forgive him. Then as a society it is in our best interest that she takes him to the cleaners for violating their contract (wedding vows).
My way of seeing the world isn't a way to make some 'evil' or 'wrong' things alright. It's about making an honest assessment of the situation and deciding what actually matters and what we should let slide. It also opens ourselves up to solutions to problems. For example:
Ron Paul was booed for saying that Bin Laden's justification of 9/11 was our foreign policy. He wasn't saying that Bin Laden was justified or that we shouldn't have killed him (Ron Paul actually supported going into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden back in 2001). Ron Paul was explaining if we do not want to inspire future Bin Laden's we should change our foreign policy.
It is plausible to argue that humans are hard-wired to be imperfectly monogamous and that incidents of marital infidelity should be resolved privately between spouses. As you would have it, perhaps we should try to "understand" people who commit such transgressions and perhaps try to hold them "accountable," but not "judge" them as "wrong."
ReplyDeleteSo can we try a more challenging example? What about violence? It's plausible to say that humans are hard-wired to be imperfectly peaceful. We can "understand" this about each other. We can also hold each other "accountable" for acts of violence, just as we would hold a dog or a tiger accountable by somehow restraining it. But the way we address violence in human society goes beyond the way we address violence in domestic or wild animals. Typically, we don't want to stop at understanding the violent person; we also want the violent person to come to understand himself and his motivations, with the hope that he will realize how to change his behavior. Sometimes we refer to this as awareness of "wrongness". "Wrong" can be a complicated word, and perhaps you do not want to use it; but surely you can agree that the way humans understand human ethical behavior is not the same as the way we try to understand tiger behavior.
I don't see anything wrong with trying to get people to see their impact on others. The point of the posting is not to eliminate the word "wrong". The idea is to give others a tool for honest accessment of situations.
ReplyDeleteI want people to examine the priorities of the country . I think in looking at the world through Descriptive Relativism we are accessing the causes of problems instead of simply responding in a way that is cathartic to us as a whole.
Going back to 9/11. We should have assassinated Bin Laden and re-examined our foriegn policy to see if there is any truth in what he tells his recruits. Instead we proved him right and let him live (and inspire) another ten years.