From: wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: What is culture? (was: Brainwashied
Date: 8 Jan 93 14:41:38 GMT
Organization: U.S. Naval Academy

In article <7587@bigbird.hri.com.hri.com> blamb@hri.com (Bill Lambert) writes:
>=> Ah, now you raise an interesting point.  Imagine the most despicable
>=> crime that you can: perhaps torturing and multilating children over a
>=> period of several years for public amusement and suppose further that
>=> the frequent practice of this crime was a part of se existing culture.
>=> Suppose that all efforts at persuading members of this culture to stop the
>=> practice were fruitless for just the reasons you describe.  Would we or would
>=> we not be justified in using coercion to stop the practice?
>
>Beats me. Seems so... do you think so? If so why?
>(some parallels to Iraq and Somalia here)

I'll rephrase the question and then give you a partial answer.  Rather
than saying whether we are or are not `justified' in using coercion, let me
say that we should use force only if we are prepared to live with the
consequences afterwards.

Another hypothetical example here.  The people of a remote area have a custom
of sacrificing children to insure prosperity.  A well-armed traveler arrives
from afar and tells them they must stop this practice.  They refuse, believing
this would bring ruin on their society.  The traveler then tells them they
must henceforth carry out the sacrifices in some `symbolic' way, so that
the children are unharmed, and he enforces this command by force or threats
of force.  I expect the chances are excellent that the people will eventually
come to accept the symbolic sacrifice as no less effective than the real one.
One may have to wait until the children who are sacrificed grow up and start
making the decisions.

A real example:  The United States used force to make certain changes in
Japanese society.  The aftermath seems to involve very little resentment or
other negative consequences, so one could say that the use of force here
was justified.

Another example:  The Japanese used force during WWII to make several changes
in the city of Nanking.  It is difficult to see what lasting benefit this
brought to the Japanese, so one would say the use of force in this case was
unjustified.

>Seriously though... I never insisted that all moral judgements are
>simply matters of opinion, I just couldn't find any here that weren't
>(still haven't). And I am not arguing that the practice of judging
>cultures is wrong, but that the *method* of judging cultures is wrong,
>if it ultimatley relies solely on personal preference.

Aha! So please give an example of a moral judgment which you do not regard
as merely a matter of opinion and explain why.  I've resisted getting into
a discussion of what constitutes proper justification for moral judgments
because I think this would lead to a morass of thorny philosophical questions
and I don't have that much time for typing.  My own theory is that `valid'
moral principles are those which are fittest to survive.  A moral principle
may be unfit to survive by weakening a society which adheres thereto, or
even by strengthening a society which adheres thereto, but being found
unpleasant by the members of the society.  (I view extreme versions of the
work ethic as belonging to this second category.)  A fit-to-survive moral
principle is `true' in the sense that all societies eventually come to agree
on it.  
-- 
Els Withers                   email: wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.mil
          phone: (410)267-3192 / fax: (410)267-4883
When orbiting particle-beam weapons are outlawed, only outlaws will have
orbiting particle-beam weapons.