Should Morals Be Judged In A Cultural Context?

[LuckyR]

Spectrum seemed to be saying violence is always wrong? I may have misunderstood?
Also I disagree with your definition of morals. The whole planet could agree that a particular action was moral and the whole planet could be wrong. They would of course call it moral. It would be in the dictionary under moral. But it still wouldn't be moral.

You seem to be alluding to an extra-human judgement (the whole world getting it wrong, but if so, who is right?). That may or may not exist, but even if it does it should not be called moral (individual), nor ethical (community). It should be called something else, say... dogma?

[Eduk]

You seem to be alluding to an extra-human judgement

Nope. It's a simple fallacy. Appeal to majority. Just because the majority believe something doesn't make that thing wrong (that's the fallacy fallacy) but just because the majority do believe something doesn't make it right.

[Lark_Truth]

I agree with Eduk. What is right is not always popular, what is popular is not always right.

Take for instance the family crisis (or so I call it) that is happening today. I think that we can all agree that heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman is a best sort of situation in which to raise and foster children and prepare them for later on in life. It's the way that things have been for thousands of years (which is not to say that it *is* the right and moral thing but I see a pattern as heterosexual marriage has been present in just about every culture that has ever existed). Today, couples get married, and within a matter of time they divorce because they can't get along or the love that they once felt for each other is nonexistent. I see a lot of (subtle) promotion against marriage. Having sex outside of marriage, having children outside of marriage, not being married and heterosexual couples can live together, etc. On TV, in books, pop culture, liberal media; in the United States, aren't they paying more welfare to couples with families who are not married?
I rest my case.

[Dolphin42]

Lark_Truth:

I agree with you that heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman is the best sort of situation in which to raise and foster children and prepare them for later on in life. (Although I think there are some who wouldn't agree). But I don't agree with your implied conclusion from that.

You've pointed out the downside of a culture in which marriage breakdown is easier and having children outside of marriage does not carry the social stigma that it once did. It means that fewer children are brought up in stable two parent families.

But, at the same time, I wouldn't want to go back to the culture that existed where I live (the UK) and probably also existed where you live a few decades ago where a girl gets pregnant and is regarded as having brought shame on her family. The child is taken from her. Would you want to go back to that? A similar culture still exists in many places.

It seems to me that this is not a simple choice. Our modern liberal culture has both its pros and its cons.

[Eduk]

Today, couples get married, and within a matter of time they divorce because they can't get along or the love that they once felt for each other is nonexistent.

I agree that marrying and then quickly divorcing is a demonstration of poor decisions (on the whole). Sex for recreational purposes is again on the whole a reflection of poor decision making. Likewise children outside of marriage is also another sign of poor decision making (mostly).
But it's possible to make good decisions, have sex outside of marriage, have children outside of marriage and live a good moral, happy, life to the benefit of your children, yourself and others as a whole. Marriage in and of itself is not moral, it is neither good nor bad. Being committed to welfare is good, marriage may or may not promote that but it isn't a requisite.
Also sexual preference is not a moral concern in and of itself. People who are not heterosexual are just as human as anyone else. And two non heterosexuals are just as capable of rearing children in a moral, stable, high welfare home as anyone else. The reverse is also true they are just as capable of getting it horribly wrong.

[Dolphin42]

I think this issue of the pros and cons of a socially liberal society (family cohesion versus individual liberty) can be summarised by a word that was used as the title of a UK TV series, which then transferred to the US (with William H Macy in the starring role): "Shameless". It's an interesting word because it has historically been used as an insult but it raises the issue of how the concept of "shame" is used by society to promote social cohesion.

In days gone by, it was fear of the "shame" of having a child out of wedlock or a failed marriage which promoted marriage and discouraged sex outside of it. But we only have to consider the abhorrent concept of "honour killings" and remember that our society is only a couple of generations away from such ideas to realise that we wouldn't want to simply go back to the old pre-shameless era, would we?

[Eduk]

People still love to label and shame people as much as they ever have. Perhaps the punishments are lesser nowadays?

[Dolphin42]

Is there not any role for the concept of shame? Should we all aspire to be completely shameless?

[Lark_Truth]

Good points Dolphin42. I had forgotten that the sort of situation you described in post #214 and I thank you for bringing it to light my thoughts in this conversation.

Honestly, I think that sort of situation of deliberately shaming the poor girl is plain awful, not to mention that I consider it shameful to further shame the girl by treating her as if she is something to be abhorred, and then take away the baby for her. Shame on the shamers and their high-minded attitudes! If they think that their daughter has brought dishonor on their family, then they need to look at themselves first and see whether or not they care more for their own daughter than their selfish sense of dignity. Somebody needs to pull the sticks that they jammed up their backsides. I'd rather not go back to those days.

Modern liberal culture has its pros and cons, yes, but I'd much rather prefer to live in a moderate culture.

I do think that we should aspire to be completely shameless. But in the event that we do something that we know is wrong *and* we feel guilty over it, we should be using shame to get us back to where we *want* to be.

[Nick_A]

Good points Dolphin42. I had forgotten that the sort of situation you described in post #214 and I thank you for bringing it to light my thoughts in this conversation.

Honestly, I think that sort of situation of deliberately shaming the poor girl is plain awful, not to mention that I consider it shameful to further shame the girl by treating her as if she is something to be abhorred, and then take away the baby for her. Shame on the shamers and their high-minded attitudes! If they think that their daughter has brought dishonor on their family, then they need to look at themselves first and see whether or not they care more for their own daughter than their selfish sense of dignity. Somebody needs to pull the sticks that they jammed up their backsides. I'd rather not go back to those days.

Modern liberal culture has its pros and cons, yes, but I'd much rather prefer to live in a moderate culture.

I do think that we should aspire to be completely shameless. But in the event that we do something that we know is wrong *and* we feel guilty over it, we should be using shame to get us back to where we *want* to be.

Have you ever thought about the difference between shame and guilt? Could a young girl allowing herself to become pregnant feel guilt from societal pressures but not shame? Is there a difference?

[Dolphin42]

Lark_Truth:

Honestly, I think that sort of situation of deliberately shaming the poor girl is plain awful, not to mention that I consider it shameful to further shame the girl by treating her as if she is something to be abhorred, and then take away the baby for her. Shame on the shamers and their high-minded attitudes! If they think that their daughter has brought dishonor on their family, then they need to look at themselves first and see whether or not they care more for their own daughter than their selfish sense of dignity. Somebody needs to pull the sticks that they jammed up their backsides. I'd rather not go back to those days.

As with the girl, I think I'd rather try to understand what it is that causes a family to take that attitude towards their daughter rather than condemning them for it. Several decades ago that kind of attitude was commonplace. Now (in our societies) it is not so common. But our great grandparents were human beings just like us. My great grandfather was a father just like me. If we were in their situation, with their upbringing, living in the society in which they found themselves, under the pressures that they were under, can we honestly say with 100% certainty that we wouldn't act in similar ways?

I think the main reason why treatments that seem to us unbearably harsh and cruel existed in the past is simply because life in general was even more unbearably harsh and cruel. Having a child outside of the support of a family was possibly a life-and-death scale crisis.

I think attempting to understand while neither condoning nor condemning is the best way to attempt to find solutions to human problems.

[Lark_Truth]

Have you ever thought about the difference between shame and guilt? Could a young girl allowing herself to become pregnant feel guilt from societal pressures but not shame? Is there a difference?

Good question.
I looked it up online and apparently there is a difference between guilt and shame. It seems to me as if they are almost the same, but they are different in the context of who the emotion relates to. Guilt is empathy for others while Shame is focused on one's self. If you're still confused by that here's the link I found it at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sh ... -and-shame

Back to the pregnant girl, it could be possible for her to feel guilt from societal pressures but not shame. It would depend upon the girl's background, how her parents raised her, her ethics, the influence from her friends and boyfriend, etc.

[Nick_A]

Have you ever thought about the difference between shame and guilt? Could a young girl allowing herself to become pregnant feel guilt from societal pressures but not shame? Is there a difference?

Good question.
I looked it up online and apparently there is a difference between guilt and shame. It seems to me as if they are almost the same, but they are different in the context of who the emotion relates to. Guilt is empathy for others while Shame is focused on one's self. If you're still confused by that here's the link I found it at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sh ... -and-shame

Back to the pregnant girl, it could be possible for her to feel guilt from societal pressures but not shame. It would depend upon the girl's background, how her parents raised her, her ethics, the influence from her friends and boyfriend, etc.

IMO the distinction between guilt in shame is extremely important yet underestimated.

Guilt is feeling bad about what you do. Shame is feeling bad about who you are.

Guilt is inflicted on a person by respected others or society itself. Inflicting guilt is one of the greatest mistakes secular religion makes. It can destroy another psychologically, Genuine remorse is the experience that we suffer the human condition. Rather than crippling, remorse serves to awaken us to reality. We see that we are the "wretched Man" and can strive to become balanced not to please others but to help ourselves and our connection to higher consciousness so as to become what we ARE.

[LuckyR]

Sorry to break up the self congratulatory party (on the decision that married, heterosexual couples are the best environment for child rearing). But the above posts suffer from a concentration on the mean and ignoring the standard deviation.

For the sake of simplicity let's stipulate that the above statement is in fact true, which itself could (and has) been argued by intelligent people without a clear conclusion. If you plot the "bestiness" of child rearing of married heterosexuals vs homosexual couples vs divorcees vs never marrieds. In our experiment the married heterosexual's mean would lead the pack (as stipulated), the unaddressed issue is that the bell shaped curves would overlap such that there would be examples of singles, divorcees and homosexual couples who outperform individual married heterosexuals. What of that?

A common example of what I am speaking of are adults who report that their (heterosexual) parents never divorced, which they would preferred since their dad made their home life unbearable. Thus divorce would have been superior. That individual occupies a low area of the married hetero curve and would have been on a higher part of the divorcee curve had the divorce happened.

Another take on the topic: what if data was uncovered that plural marriage led to even better mean outcomes than heterosexual married couples? Should folks all get another wife?

[Eduk]

LuckyR not everyone agreed with lark_truth.