This is just might makes right. Their actions where moral but became immoral when others could enforce it.
No, you're not paying attention.
There is no such thing as an 'absolute moral'. There is no such thing as absolute right and wrong. Morality is always relative, and always defined by the prevalent and predominant culture in any given area. Yes, might helps by providing enforcement of morality, but it is not the only way that morality is reenforced.
It was an aboriginal man who married a young girl and then raped her when she refused him sex. SO he raped her. In his culture this was accepted, so he really shouldn't have been punished because he was not aware of Australian law, and so had no way of knowing that raping a young girl was wrong.
Ah. I don't know how much exposure aboriginals have to the Australian culture, so I'm going to have to guess that, in general, aborigines are largely unaware of the prevailing culture of Australia itself. But, no, within context of his culture, what he did was right. In context of OUR culture, it was wrong. In context of Australian culture, I assume it was wrong. But was he enmeshed in that culture, or was that culture largely unavailable to him?
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He got one month in prison precisely because of your position here. How can he be punished for something that is condoned by his society?
That sounds a fair judgement to me. Since he was unaware of the greater cultural situation, his punishment was soft enough to serve as education for him. Obviously, the predominant society - the non-native Australian society - has decided that the aboriginal practice of raping unwilling wives is wrong, and is taking steps to change the subordinate culture appropriately.
Sounds good... what's the problem?
You say it is because his society is inside a larger one, but that is just the result of conquest, by that rational many of the so called war crimes are moral in WWII because they where in conquered territory.
And if those territories remained conquered, AND there were no global society to supercede the conquering society - then, yes. Absolutely.
Fortunately, that's not the situation.
The only reason war crimes ARE considered immoral is because we DO have a larger predominant culture that superimposes over local cultures, and THAT culture defines certain crimes as immoral. If the global community didn't exist, there'd be no punishment for 'war crimes'.
Consider, for example, the many very harsh, terrible things done to Native Americans in our past - and there haven't been tribunals assembled to seek reparations for war crimes in our culture. Why? Because the predominant culture here did not see the extermination of entire tribes of Native Americans to be immoral. And, frankly, the world doesn't care much about the Native Americans any more, so that's not likely to change either.
By whose standards? By what context?
[qutoe]Yes it is. There is nothing that is not permissible just as long as it is legal in your society.[/quote]
As long as it is permissible within the predominant culture under which you live.
Because some activities are wrong, period.
Like what? Can you name any specific activity that never, ever, under any possible circumstances or cultural states, has been considered ok?
This is a great way to be an apologist for say the inquisition, nothing immoral or wrong happened, because society sanctioned the torture and burnings, so there is no need to apologize or consider that something bad happened.
...except for the greater global culture under which we all exist.
As it is, at the time and in those places, there was nothing immoral happening. Only in context of our modern culture do we see the Inquisition as wrong - and not everyone today does, by the way. There are those who think the torturing and murdering of infidels and blasphemers is a GOOD thing, and who long for a modern Inquisition.
But the prevailing, predominant culture of the Global Community considers religious persecution to be wrong.
I am not arguing for static morality, you have not asked me at all what I would base a moral system on, and that is moral philosophy backed up testing to make sure that you are not making unsupported assumptions, like say about the superiority of men.
Actually, you are. You are claiming that some things are 'just plain wrong', without offering evidence as to why. You are arguing for absolute morality, which by definition is also stagnant morality.
Consider what started our argument in the first place, was that you were bothered because age of consent laws differ from state to state. You would have age of consent laws be universal, it seems - in other words, static.
You are the one who would not view a static morality as bad because there is no absolute morality so you can not view a moral structure that say treats women as property and burns all homosexuals as any worse than one that does not do these things.
What? That made no sense. My entire point is that morality is not static, that it is dynamic and cultural-specific.
If the overarching culture of the global community thought women should be property and homosexuals should be burned, then those would be moral actions. Indeed, some think these opinions are VERY moral actions, and that treating women above their stations (as equals) and not murdering homosexuals is immoral.
But - to use a better phrase - there is a metacultural taboo against treating women as property, that is growing and spreading across the globe; and a similar taboo against mistreating gays is also spreading.
As to one being worse than or better than another - I think that's an almost impossible statement to make without referring to some moral framework. IS a society that treats women as property better than one that does not? In the USA today, no. In a strictly conservative Islamic or early Catholic society, yes, it's far better.
But there's no absolute framework to view these issues from. You ALWAYS have to define your framework when discussing issues of morality.
Is it better, economically, to own women? (I don't know, but I'd guess not) Is it better psychologically? As regards population control? Family discipline? Advancement of human knowledge?
Different frameworks, different answers.
It is my personal opinion that women are superior to men, and that men should count themselves lucky to not be the property of women; likewise, it is my opinion that no one's sexual orientation (as long as it's between consenting adults, regardless of number, race, or gender) should ever be an issue for anyone. But that's within my personal beliefs, which have nothing to do with morality.
The culture in which I exist counts men and women, gay, straight, bi, transgender, etc. as all equal. The metaculture of Ohio has less respect for equality based on sexual preference, but the prevailing metaculture of the United States is growing towards considering sexual-orientation equality to be moral. Globally, I'd venture to say that the metaculture is similarly warming to treating all sexual orientations as equal. So, of course, I feel that doing so is a good thing, since this is the culture in which I live - to several levels.
So as they are equal why try to change it?
Recall also that cultures exist that are not embodied in law and government. After all, the lessons we've learned regarding government is that it is preferable for the government to answer to the people, rather than the people answering to the government. So if the social and cultural morality should change and come into conflict against the prevailing legal morality, then that legal morality is likely to change - though over time, of course.
Moral systems are never either equal nor comparably better or worse than one another, in absolute terms... you can only compare them by first applying another moral framework over them.
Hence, morality remains, as always, relative.
Yes, in our current culture, I agree that some things are wrong. Incest, rape, sexually abusing children, sex with animals, murder, torture... but I also am willing to recognize that these things are wrong within our cultural system, and that other cultural systems may disagree.
I think part of the problem is that you are unwilling to step out of your own framework for even an instant to look at the situation. Are you willing and able to step out of your current system of beliefs and morals, and step into an alien system for a moment, to consider what would then be right or wrong?
Since this started with a discussion about teenage girls, let's start there. The current situation is that teenage girls are generally considered taboo as objects of sexual desire, though there is much grey area to be explored on the subject. Now step out from this framework and into a different one - say, one where the population is only a few hundred people, and health care is almost non-existent; where a person's lifespan may be no more than four decades, and two-thirds of babies never survive to reach puberty.
Does a teenage girl become more appropriate as an object of sexual desire? Of course. Old enough to breed, old enough to help ensure the survival of her tribe.
On the other hand, in an overpopulated society, where survival and success is measured by gaining an excellent education, where lifespans are expanded, and where taking time to have a child as a teenager might also mean losing many opportunities for education and career, the teenage girl becomes less appropriate as an object of sexual desire.
In theory, we could even generate a cultural condition in which sexual activity with anyone under 21 would be strictly taboo, if we create the right conditions.
Yes, we could consider it apologetics, and I agree it would be a terrible stretch to come up with a social/cultural environment where, say, executing newborn boys six weeks after birth is right. But the fact is, it is possible, and goes to show that morality is a dynamic and relative condition.
Now, with the growing and maturing global culture we have today, many taboos are becoming globally predominant. Though these moral codes aren't by any means absolute, they can be considered to be universal. Yet if the global society collapses, those universal morals will fade and vanish once again.
