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[Vikarion]

This attitude of "that's why we're better" is precisely the reason why these geopolitical fault lines are emerging.

If people overcame their arrogance in this thread and actually read up on these cultures, rather than relying on demagoguery they read on reddit or tumblr, they will learn that hateful behavior in these other societies stem from ignorance and poor education rather than cultural prerogative.

Culture isn't just about the food you eat or your social norms. It's virtually everything about you. It's the god you worship (or don't), it's the work you tend to do, the levels of schooling available, and it is most definitely the morals you hold.

Contrary to popular belief, terrorism, for example, is not simply the purview of the desperate. In fact, the National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded that simply making people better off will not, in and of itself, reduce acts that we consider fundamentally immoral. Source: http://www.nber.org/digest/sep02/w9074.html

People, then, are not simply motivated by empty heads or bellies.

If culture is virtually everything about us that we consider to be related to human behavior, then whether or not you view education as a good thing is, indeed, a cultural question. When fundamentalist American home-schoolers deprive their children of an education in the sciences and literature, because they are "worldly", that is a cultural phenomenon. When Uganda decides to pass laws which dictate death or life in prison for gays, that is a cultural phenomenon.

And those things are bad. Insofar as they render humans less happy, insofar as they increase the net suffering in the world, they are bad. And, insofar as they are, indeed, a part of the culture where they exist, that culture is bad. Bad how? Bad insofar as it renders the people it affects less happy and more miserable than they might otherwise be.

Go check out the thousands of NGOs in India to see it all run by ethnic Indians. Go see all those who protest against rape and acid throwing in the Middle East and South Asia; certainly isn't a group of foreign white crusaders.  The claiming of "We're so better" without knowing one first hand thing about another culture is shocking, and borderlines on a word I'd rather not accuse anyone of.

I'd like to see if the Far Right take control of Europe again, and see if we still want to praise our superiority as we lock up Muslims and immigrants.

I don't believe that anyone is claiming that those in other cultures are incapable of valuing, say, the rights of women. But whether one values the rights of women is a cultural artifact. Insofar as, say, Indians decide that they want to make rape and violence against women socially unacceptable, they are changing their culture. Does this mean that they are becoming more western in culture?

Well, yes. If a culture changes to become more like another culture, it is, by definition, becoming more like that culture. American culture has become, in some small ways, more Japanese, as sushi and various other products and customs have been imported. As well, if fascism was suddenly to make a reappearance in Europe, that would be a drastic change to western culture.

As it is now, western culture on the whole is identified very heavily, both internally and externally, with valuing women's rights, gays rights, etc, etc. It is, in fact, what some of the enemies of such a culture, such as Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, accuse us of being evil for valuing. Of course, we do not embody such values perfectly. Still, we value such values.

But if that is true, and it does seem to be, then when we demand that nations adhere to human rights, we are indeed demanding that they adopt our values, parts of our culture that we consider important. We are saying, for example, that we believe that our value of protecting gay men is better and more worthwhile than, say, Iran's policy of hanging them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/iran-gay-men-executed-hanging_n_1515207.html

But if you really do believe that cultures are equal, and acknowledging that ethics and morality are an intrinsic part of any culture, then you cannot say that the above is, in any way, a bad thing, or worse than how we might treat gays and lesbians. That's a statement I would wager you are not willing to make.

[Saede Riordan]

+1 Upvote for Vikarion's post, who made a point I was trying to make better then I was able to articulate.

[Nmaro Makari]

Key quotes from Parliament:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23884550

[Louella Dougans]

While Iranian authorities persecute gay men, the same authorities provide financial assistance to transsexual people, including altering official documents such as birth certificates - something that the UK does not do.


"Western" culture, is based upon Greek theatre, Roman politics, and Christian morals. These things define the view of the world that people have. The ideas of "rights" is a cultural thing, and is something that the United Nations runs into. The UN Declaration of Human Rights is a "Western" culture artifact.
Outside of "Western" cultures, some of the "rights" are not things that mesh with culture.

The declaration of human rights, relates to an Individual person, but many cultures just do not have the same idea of individuality.

So, using "human rights" to measure different cultures, has to take into account that the idea of "rights" is very, very heavily shaped by Greek-Roman-Christian traditions.

[Lyn Farel]

I think there is a lot of confusion between culture and dogmatism in this thread.

Edit : to rather expand on what could be taken as a snipe on my behalf (wasn't meant at all), I would hardly call cultures superior to one or another. It's a very dangerous slippery slope that has leaded to various idiocies in the past, even if I am not sure myself if that question can actually be answered - on which criteria ? Vikarions criteria ? Seri's criteria ? slippery slope.

It is easy to say that when you are part of the first world milieu. Very easy. Quite unfair, perhaps, too.

[Seriphyn]

The Barefoot College NGO in Rajasthan, India works to improve woman's rights through empowerment. Getting girls into evening classes since they don't attend during the day, teaching housewives technical skills to assist in their villages,  etc. And these guys are Hindu. So I don't know where it comes from that the West has a monopoly on these ideas.

I'm still baffled that users here like Saede are making objective statements about culture without having demonstrated any firsthand knowledge of non-US cultures. I'm not exactly an expert either; I was only there for three months, though one half of my family is South Asian, however. I don't take kindly to some of the borderline statements being made.

I could easily construct a negative picture of the West by linking the innumerable and near infinite news stories about sexual assaults against anyone from toddlers to teenagers, claiming that the nature of Western culture encourages such things. Why would that be any different from spamming Ugandan antiLGBT stories?

What I'm seeing is a bunch of armchair Westerners claiming their superiority through second and third hand anecdotes and likely emotive stories on tumblr. How about some first hand anecdotes, or better, some academic journal articles?

I wouldn't talk about quantum physics without sourcing; the same applies here. Both subjects are studied at the highest academic level, so there is no excuse.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

The Barefoot College NGO in Rajasthan, India works to improve woman's rights through empowerment. Getting girls into evening classes since they don't attend during the day, teaching housewives technical skills to assist in their villages,  etc. And these guys are Hindu. So I don't know where it comes from that the West has a monopoly on these ideas.

I'm still baffled that users here like Saede are making objective statements about culture without having demonstrated any firsthand knowledge of non-US cultures. I'm not exactly an expert either; I was only there for three months, though one half of my family is South Asian, however. I don't take kindly to some of the borderline statements being made.

I could easily construct a negative picture of the West by linking the innumerable and near infinite news stories about sexual assaults against anyone from toddlers to teenagers, claiming that the nature of Western culture encourages such things. Why would that be any different from spamming Ugandan antiLGBT stories?

What I'm seeing is a bunch of armchair Westerners claiming their superiority through second and third hand anecdotes and likely emotive stories on tumblr. How about some first hand anecdotes, or better, some academic journal articles?

I wouldn't talk about quantum physics without sourcing; the same applies here. Both subjects are studied at the highest academic level, so there is no excuse.

Man has a point.

Here's a thought for you - western society is essentially really shitty towards old people.  No matter how you spin it, the very existence of care homes is an indictment on our attitudes (and my work takes me to plenty of them, they're pretty bad places).  I remember a remark by a Jordanian who was asked about issues with the elderly, to the effect of 'we value our families here'.

Don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying this to devalue any of the arguments or try and mitigate some of the issues raised, just pointing out that in any given culture, we will naturally believe that ours is more enlightened than another when in reality, we all have problems.

[Vikarion]

Man has a point.

I disagree.

I do not think that anyone in this thread is arguing - or has argued - that western culture is superior in every aspect. That would be, one might say, more along the lines of imperialism and racism. No, what has been argued is that certain aspects of western culture are superior.

Culture, is, perhaps, a bad word. Not a dirty word, but not a very precise one, rather. When someone says "culture", they are referring to the entire behavior set of an entire group of people, a behavior set that is not entirely homogeneous in practice. For example, I could speak of "Californian culture", but the fact is that, in a 150-mile radius around where I live, there are Christian fundamentalist communities, college communities, conservative and liberal political communities, suburbanites, perhaps some urban African-American communities, and some rednecks (who would be proud to be called such, at that)...and that list is grossly unfair to the multitudes of others I omitted.

Good luck finding beliefs or practices they all agree on.

Yet, out of America, certain ideas and ideals, languages and practices, methods and religious observances, are dominant. This is, as it were, our culture.

Can we say that a culture is better, or worse? Not necessarily - to say that a culture, in totality, is better, is to claim that it is better overall for the majority of people living in it. Can this be determined?

Yes, if one can accept that there are objective ways in which humans can be better off. Can we say that there are such objective valuations?

Yes. Health, for example. If food is a part of culture, certain diets are better for you than others. If certain actions and mental states make you feel better than others, then cultures which promote more positive actions and mental states will reduce the likelihood of you being miserable. Should one value being not-miserable?

Well, when asked this, I tend to resort to Sam Harris's argument: imagine a world in which people are as miserable as possible, for as long as possible, before they die, as miserably as possible. This is the worst of all possible worlds. We can imagine situations close to such a world. We can also imagine things which are further away from such a world. And, by definition, there is no reason to move towards the worst possible world. Even if you wanted others to suffer, the worst possible world would involve that suffering without you getting any pleasure in it.

If morality has anything to do with anything concrete, then it consists of this: avoiding and moving away from the worst possible world for everyone.  If that is true, and it is, then it is possible to make value judgments about what things move people further away from the worst possible world. It is possible to scientifically evaluate whether things like homophobia, murder, trustworthiness, theft, diligence, blackmail, and honesty contribute or detract from moving away from the worst possible world. Just as we can evaluate whether eating fatty foods leads to heart attacks, we can evaluate whether such things as placing women in cloth bags or the Westboro Baptist Church are good for human societies.

I trust no one will disagree with my assertion that the ideals of the Westboro Baptist church are not likely to be a good influence on the happiness of human societies.

More abstractly, suppose I construct a society, its elements derived entirely from real world cultures at different times and locations. This culture is known as ABC, and its favored dishes contain massive amounts of cholesterol, trans-fats, and sodium. Drug use, especially alcohol, is considered socially acceptable and even encouraged. Women are considered sub-human, and are not allowed to testify in court or to act without the permission of a man. Gays and lesbians are executed by stoning. Child sacrifice is an essential part of the religion, along with self-flagellation and both female and male circumcision. Weaker children are left to die in the elements, and medical care consists of hoping you get better.

Contrast this with, say, modern Denmark (I do not live in Denmark, by the way). Would anyone here seriously advocate the view that ABC is either morally or practically a better society to live in? Would anyone care to argue that ABC is a place likely to contain happier and healthier citizens? Yet, both are cultures.

Would a person who advocated the replacement of many of the values of ABC with the values of modern Denmark be racist? Well, they might be, or they might not, but in either case, the citizens of culture ABC would be objectively better off over time if they were to abandon many of their cultural practices.

Let us return to the real world, now. Is it true, therefore, that some cultures should be replaced wholesale with others? No! There are portions of any culture which have no great bearing on human well-being, and portions which are positive. For example, I might say that Americans should eat more like Japanese, or adopt a more Mediterranean diet, because those are healthier. That's not a claim that Americans should completely abandon everything American, it is merely pointing out that American food is some of the least healthy on the planet.

Similarly, a demand that Iran stop hanging homosexuals is not a demand that Iran adopt, wholesale, all the values, practices, or ideals of the west. It's a demand that they adopt this particular ideal, because it is better for everyone. Is it better for everyone? Yes, if one examines history, sociology, and other sciences, one comes to the conclusion that gays and lesbians do not have negative effects on society, and that killing off your Alan Turings and Marlene Dietrichs is a bad idea. For everyone. Even if you can convince everyone that killing gays is a good thing, the fact remains that you would be better off convincing everyone that it is a bad thing.

You don't need to have such concepts as "human rights", or "individual rights". All you need is a preference that people not suffer any more than is strictly necessary. That such a preference results in many western liberal values is simply a brute fact. And some non-western values, such as care for the elderly, certainly align with a preference for reduced suffering. It's not that westerners are special. It's just that someone had to get them first - that the cultures which advanced fastest towards these preferences also had greater access to water transport, relatively high agricultural productivity, and contact with many other cultures from which they could get ideas, is almost certainly no accident.

People are not that different around the globe. Virtually none of us like being sick, getting killed, or watching loved ones die. Insofar as these conditions obtain, and insofar as cultural attitudes, ideas, and actions have bearing on them, there will better and worse approaches to these problems. Just as a culture which values using sledges to carry items will be less efficient at the transportation of goods than a culture which prefers wheels, so will certain cultures be better at ensuring greater happiness and less suffering for the biological machines called humans which make up these cultures.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Two things.

First, by definition, a moral obligation is a demand to put aside other priorities to effect some action. It isn't a requirement to refrain from action, or to possibly take action, it is imperative, i.e., obligatory. If it isn't obligatory, than it isn't a moral obligation, is it?

It is certainly possible to uphold varieties of moral values or goals, but these things are, by necessity, somewhat looser than obligations. For example, I could hold the moral goal of seeing people not starve to death, but that does not obligate me to a particular action. It merely means that, of the several goals I have, I will not act in such a way as to make starvation more likely. It may mean that I act positively to end starvation. But because it is a goal, rather than an obligation, I am not forced to devote all ends towards ending starvation.

Well, first, you can put conditions on those 'moral obligations'. It's no probalem at all to say that one has a 'moral obligation' to feed the starving if one is better off than 50% of the entire population of the country one lives in. Also, a moral obligation can't be the demand to put aside all other priorities, unconditionally, because then all moral systems based on obligations would be disfunctional as soon as soon as they had at least two such obligations.
So, no, just because you have an obligation to "do x, if y", it doesn't follow that you have to stop doing everything else.

Second, the fact that some people can act in such a way as to fulfill an obligation does not mean that said obligation is a reasonable creation. It is true that a person can act to devote themselves entirely to the welfare of others. The difficulty with this arises when we examine the results of everyone living up to this moral obligation. If most people were to be devoted to the welfare of others, vast inefficiencies would form (you don't know what is good for me as much as I do), free riding would become the optimal survival strategy, and trade, capitalism, and technological progress would grind to a very rapid stop. If mankind continued to follow this "moral obligation", the only people left would be those who refused to go along with it. The obligation would self-annihilate. Actually, when we have tried to implement obligations like this, the societies tended to grind to a halt a long time before that.

Honestly, we have a lot of rules in place that are self defeating if adverse behaviour isn't penalized. That is a question of legislation though, not morals. Your argument here hinges solely on the fact that moral obligations can't be conditional, an assumption that is by the way not true as I pointed out above.

Now, one can make the argument that morality has nothing to do with practicality. Perhaps so. But if it is so, then so much the worse for morality. If behaving practically, rather than morally, makes us all better off, wealthier, healthier, and etc, then there is no reason to be moral. Or, to put it otherwise, morality is only as useful insofar as it makes our lives better. To wit, perhaps it is immoral to tell any lie, as in the categorical imperative, but if I am hiding Jews in the basement, and Nazis are knocking on the door, then the categorical imperative can take a long fucking hike.

The categorical imperative doesn't really work that way, Kantian ethics has answers to this 'dilemma'. Also, it's not the only alternative in the field of moral theory. It can be argued that hiding the Jew in the basement and lieing to the Nazi is the morally good alternative. If one takes the view that practicality takes precedence over morality, actually one is in a worse situation in regard to the Jew, because the biggest number of people involved will be better off if you don't lie. Too bad fro the Jew. Behaving morally good is something that makes our lives better in itself, it is a good - to think it's something that is only useful in so far as it contributes to material welfare is a mistake.

I am not very empathetic. Actually, I may not be, at all, since I'm not sure what empathy should be. Perhaps then, I am missing some key component of moral decision making. But it seems to me that, if one wants to consider matters of morality, one should not start with moral rules and work up to what we should do, but, rather, discard our impulses, consider what works best to create a better world with less suffering, and then construct moral rules from that. In the same way that we understand medical science, originating our theories on the basis of what is best for the patients (i.e., all of us) and then creating goals and rules for general behavior from there. That is understandable, objective, rational, and, hopefully, more workable.

The idea that 'a world with less suffering' is something worthwhile to pursue is an intrinsically moral goal. It 'one should consider what works best to create a better world with less suffering' is a moral rule. Without the first you couldn't get to start considering what is or would be good to do to get towards this goal. Medicine, likewise, starts with stating a goal: Health of the patient. It then gets on to state a general rule of good medical practice: Do whatever is conducive to the production of health for the patient. Intermediate goals are stated from that basis only. If you have a patient that is bleeding to death there is no sense in stating the goal of 'stopping the bleeding' if you don't have the aim of keeping him alive and get him back to health beforehand.

If you don't know where you want to go, you can't form theories and you can't create the intermediate goals that you need to take if you want to make the entire way.

[Vikarion]

Mithra, I have to admit, I am a little curious. From my perspective, morality has to have some practical value before it is valuable, otherwise, it is useless.

For example, I hold to the belief that morality consists of moving away from the worst possible world because moving away from the worst possible world means that I am less likely to experience bad things. I am more likely to enjoy life.

If one does not get a benefit from acting in a certain way (according to a specific morality), why on earth should one act in such a way? I treat people around me well because that means that they will treat me well. What other reason for acting "nicely" could there be?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Treat people around you nicely, because it's the right thing to do? The benefit of doing the right action lies in the right action itself, making you a better human than you'd otherwise be.

And of course morality has practical value: It's orienting you life towards goal like 'a better world with less suffering'. That is quite practical in my book. Of course going after it because it (supposedly) increases your chance of experiencing bad things is a certain form of moral egotism. I don't think though, that 'enlightened egotism' is the best moral theory out there.

[Vikarion]

Treat people around you nicely, because it's the right thing to do? The benefit of doing the right action lies in the right action itself, making you a better human than you'd otherwise be.

And of course morality has practical value: It's orienting you life towards goal like 'a better world with less suffering'. That is quite practical in my book.

What does "the right thing to do" mean, aside from practicality? I do "the right thing to do" because it is the most practical means for effecting my own well-being: I am happier not in jail, I am happier when people are not trying to harm me, I am happier when no one is bothering me about my actions.

I presume this is true for most people. The "right thing to do" is generally that which will not lead to negative consequences for oneself. If one could be assured that one's self would always benefit from any action, for example, one would have no compelling reason to act in any way which is not personally aggrandizing.

For example, suppose that I could eat all the pie (silly example, but funny), everywhere, without anyone giving me problems for doing so, and without suffering health problems. Why, then, should I not eat all the pie? Even if others don't get it, provided I suffer no ill effects, I will get to enjoy all of the pie, which is better than enjoying some of the pie.

What does the "right thing to do" even mean, if it doesn't benefit you? I mean, no one requires me to voluntarily jump on a hand grenade. That would not be better for me. We may honor those who do, for some reason, but I doubt that one has to sacrifice oneself to be "moral".

The reason to be "nice", it seems to me, is because it tends to result in others being nice to you. Self-interest. If being mean to others made life better for you/me, then that would be the thing to do...right?

EDIT: I mean, we live in a universe in which limited cooperation seems to work best. That said, why is it a good thing, in your post, what does it mean to be a "better" human, aside from being a happier human?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

The question there is "What is happiness" or "What is better?", the latter also known as "What is (the) good?". And in what way is the good linked to happiness? I think there are good reasons not to equate 'happiness'  with 'pleasure'. Pleasure always depends on external circumstances which aren't in our hand.
If your happiness depends on not being in jail, no one trying to harm you and no one bothering you about your actions, and on how much pie you can eat, your happiness depends on others or things outside you, not you and will be - for this reason alone - be imperfect and lacking.
Worse even, in the case of the pie you would always be happier if you had one more piece of pie to eat. Thus it would be impossible to complete your happiness. You thus set a goal which you never would be able to achieve and this will lead to frustration.

You also presuppose that jumping on the grenade to safe others wouldn't benefit you. But that is only true if you con't your own pleasure as happiness, but not the honors you get if you do so. Of course, the pleasure of recieving honors is as flawed as the one depending on pie to be happy.

Rather the action that is praiseworthy is something that is in our own hand and doing it because it is such an action, rather because we desire the praise and honor, is what makes it desirable to act in such a way and makes the one who acts like it happier in a more complete way than the pleasures which depend on things outside of us.

[Vikarion]

Rather the action that is praiseworthy is something that is in our own hand and doing it because it is such an action, rather because we desire the praise and honor, is what makes it desirable to act in such a way and makes the one who acts like it happier in a more complete way than the pleasures which depend on things outside of us.

I must confess that this makes absolutely no sense to me. For lack of a better way of putting it, you seem to be arguing that we should do good because it is good to do good. This seems to me like a tautology.

You have to have "good" coming from somewhere before you can assert that it should be done, I think. For example, suppose you say that feeding the hungry is "good", and that I should do it. Ok, my response is to ask why that is "good". Saying that doing so is a "good action" is simply to give me an opportunity to repeat my question. Why is it a good action to feed the hungry? What is good about it?

I can give you a rational moral answer to this question: feeding the hungry means that the hungry are less likely to take from you by force, and non-hungry people tend to be more productive, making society, including me, much better off. Therefore, let there be food stamps.

But, if we remove all positive benefits from the equation, how could it possibly be a "good" thing to feed the hungry? Supposing that feeding the hungry made me objectively worse off, why on earth would I be morally obligated to do so?

[Nicoletta Mithra]

I can give you a rational moral answer to this question: feeding the hungry means that the hungry are less likely to take from you by force, and non-hungry people tend to be more productive, making society, including me, much better off. Therefore, let there be food stamps.

That answer isn't any more rational at all. Why should people be more productive? Why should they be less likely to take things from you by force? Why should you be better off? How does being more productive make you 'better' off?

Also, you can't remove all positive things from the action of feeding the hungry if it is, in itself, a good thing. That would mean to remove the action from itself. There is a good or benefit that is intrinsic to the action itself, that consists in doing it rather than not doing it.

P.S.: Also, you again make your happiness dependant on others. While it might be generally true that foodstamps reduce the risk to get gutted over food, who is to say that some junky won't rip your guts out for a few bucks, leaving you as someone not able to work, to produce anything, bound to the bed and the machine that keeps you breathing or something like that. In one stroke all your 'happiness' and 'benefits' are for nothing. Just because of bad luck. Not a very comforting thought. Such happiness is a very fickle thing. A happiness that is not dependant on luck and circumstance is surely better than one that is.