Morality

I have a problem with the claim that determining how god would judge an action is somehow different than judging the action yourself. To do this involves too many assumptions about god. Most likely, what one decides is not what god thinks, because we have no idea what god really thinks. It is one's interpretation of religious texts that causes one to believe that god would judge in a certain way. To keep one's personal views out of this would be a herculean task to say the least. In other words we are ALL judging morality based on our personal views, even if those views are not our own original compositions.

I am sorry the link didn't work (it still works for me). Here is another decent link... but it is a bit more textbookish and difficult to read, but still good

Text on Kohlbergs stages

Remember that this is about personal morality. The question is not if you think homosexuality is right or wrong... but why you think homosexuality is right or wrong (specifically what reasoning you use).

Of course, most of your morals are due to the accidents of what parents you have. Most people, even very religious people, take the religion of their parents.

The Dennis Prager link is pure stage 4 (law and order). This stage requires that you accept a specfic set of laws as the final word on morality. This doesn't necessarily mean the law of the land. In this case, Mr. Prager is using the ten Commandments (i.e. the Bible) as an absolute law. The mechanics are the same.



What is interesting in this article, and in this type of rhetoric, is that Mr. Prager is specifically attacking what Kohlberg says are more sophisticated forms of reasoning. There is no room or need to question "God-given moral laws and priniciples". By necessity someone who uses this logic must regard people who disagree as morally inferior "unbelievers".

In a way Prager is asking people to not think any more deeply about their morality. He suggests there is no need to ask questions or wrestle with these issues.

The problem, of course, is that Prager's mode of reasoning exists in nearly every culture. It is one of Kohlberg's stages that inidividuals pass through-- just some people take it to an extreme.

The fact that Prager happens to be a Christian seems irrelevant.

In ancient Egypt, you had the Pharoah as your God and a set of absulute laws. Had Prager been around back then he would be saying "the Word of the Pharoah represents objective god-based morality". There are Prager's in the Islamic world who way "The Holy Quaran represents objective i.e. God-based morality. There are even Pragers in North Korea who say, "Communism manifested in our Supreme leader represents objective "universal" morality".

There are societies where a stage four type of morality ("absolute law from God") works just fine. These societies must be isolated to avoid the types of questions we are raising here. In a secular society, many groups (like Prager) attempt to fashion a form of isolation by separating members of your group from others and defining others as "unbelievers".

However, I find this process problematic.

Maybe if you live in really liberal areas such as Mass. Vermont or Cali. but in most areas ie anywhere south of D.C. or west up to california it seems the majority is still against homosexuality. Why do you think President Bush got elected? For many his views on homosexuality and claiming to block gay marriage was the sole factor for voting for him

Heres an article that is worth registering to NY times to read.

This is why i am afraid of how societies views can be so different. And there is no way to argue it is right or wrong. I may find this article to be rediculous and wonder how a society can see things this way but its just my opinion they probably question my morals in the US just as much. So without a god or a sense of religious values IMO there does not seem to be any kind of absolute morals. It seems society will always be changing and social morals will always be changing except in the very conservate Religious Rite.

Heres the article if you don't want to register at NY times

Abduction, Often Violent, a Kyrgyz Wedding Rite
By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: April 30, 2005


ISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - When Ainur Tairova realized she was on her way to her wedding, she started choking the driver.

Her marriage was intended to be to a man she had met only the day before, and briefly at that. Several of his friends had duped her into getting into a car; they picked up the would-be groom and then headed for his home.

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Once there, she knew, her chances of leaving before nightfall would be slim, and by daybreak, according to local custom, she would have to submit to being his wife or leave as a tainted woman.

"I told him I didn't want to date anyone," said Ms. Tairova, 28. "So he decided to kidnap me the next day."

Such abductions are common here. More than half of Kyrgyzstan's married women were snatched from the street by their husbands in a custom known as "ala kachuu," which translates roughly as "grab and run." In its most benign form, it is a kind of elopement, in which a man whisks away a willing girlfriend. But often it is something more violent.

Recent surveys suggest that the rate of abductions has steadily grown in the last 50 years and that at least a third of Kyrgyzstan's brides are now taken against their will.

The custom predates the arrival of Islam in the 12th century and appears to have its roots in the region's once-marauding tribes, which periodically stole horses and women from rivals when supplies ran low. It is practiced in varying degrees across Central Asia but is most prevalent here in Kyrgyzstan, a poor, mountainous land that for decades was a backwater of the Soviet Union and has recently undergone political turmoil in which mass protests forced the president to resign.

Kyrgyz men say they snatch women because it is easier than courtship and cheaper than paying the standard "bride price," which can be as much as $800 plus a cow.

Family or friends often press a reluctant groom, lubricated with vodka and beer, into carrying out an abduction.

A 2004 documentary by the Canadian filmmaker Petr Lom records a Kyrgyz family - men and women - discussing a planned abduction as if they were preparing to snatch an unruly mare. The film follows the men of the family as they wander through town hunting for the girl they had planned to kidnap. When they do not find her, they grab one they meet by chance.

Talant Bakchiev, 34, a graduate student at the university in Bishkek, the capital, said he helped kidnap a bride for his brother not long ago. "Men steal women to show that they are men," he said, revealing a row of gold-capped teeth with his smile.

Once a woman has been taken to a man's home, her future in-laws try to calm her down and get a white wedding shawl onto her head. The shawl, called a jooluk, is a symbol of her submission. Many women fight fiercely, but about 80 percent of those kidnapped eventually relent, often at the urging of their own parents.

The practice has technically been illegal for years, first under the Soviet Union and more recently under the 1994 Kyrgyz criminal code, but the law rarely has been enforced.

"Most people don't know it's illegal," said Russell Kleinbach, a sociology professor at American University in Bishkek whose studies of the practice have helped spur a national debate.

The few prosecutions that do occur are usually for assault or rape, not for the abductions themselves. There are no national statistics on how many kidnappings go awry, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that some end in tragedy.

Four days after the sister of one of Mr. Kleinbach's students was kidnapped a few years ago, her body was found in a river. The family that abducted her was never charged with murder.

In Mr. Lom's film, a family mourns a daughter who hanged herself after being kidnapped; they too were unsuccessful in bringing the abductors to trial.

Families use force to keep the women from leaving or threaten them with curses that still have a powerful impact in this deeply superstitious land. Once a girl has been kept in the home overnight, her fate is all but sealed: with her virginity suspect and her name disgraced, she will find it difficult to attract any other husband.

Brutal as the custom is, it is widely perceived as practical. "Every good marriage begins in tears," a Kyrgyz saying goes.

In Kyzyl-Tuu, a village not far from the capital, even the head man, Samar Bek, kidnapped his wife, Gypara, after she rejected his marriage proposals 16 years ago. She was a 20-year-old university student in Bishkek at the time and he, nine years older, was under family pressure to find a bride. Once at his family's home, she resisted for hours.

"I stayed because I was scared, not because I liked him," Gypara said as the couple's four children played around her. Her husband said he would not object if one of his daughters were kidnapped.

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"If the feelings of the man are stronger than the feelings of my daughter, I'll let him take her," he said. "Love comes and goes."

The threat of abduction begins to haunt women once they reach their teenage years. Some women attending universities wear wedding bands or head scarves to fool men into thinking they are already married.

For Ms. Tairova, the anxiety began on the eve of her high school graduation when a friend confided to her that a man named Elim, eight years her senior, planned to kidnap her at the ceremony the next day. She attended the graduation but was terrified, unsure of whom she could trust. The would-be abductor never materialized.

"I think this happens to all young women when they turn 16," Ms. Tairova said, sitting in an empty room of the American University, where she now works.

She enrolled in the university in the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad but soon learned that another family from her village was considering her as a bride for their son. Strangers began asking people at her school what she looked like.

Then one evening there was a knock at the door of the apartment she shared with her sister. Outside were 10 men, including the would-be husband. For six hours, Ms. Tairova refused to step outside her apartment. Finally the men gave up and went away.

Ms. Tairova went back to live with her parents and began working as a bookkeeper in a tobacco plant. One day a man came in and introduced himself. They spoke for about 20 minutes, but Ms. Tairova told him she was not interested in seeing him again.

The next day she was kidnapped. She was waiting with two friends for the company bus to take them home when a car pulled up. The two men inside offered all three women a ride. One of her friends knew the men, so they agreed. But when the driver took a detour, she became worried. When he stopped to pick up the man from the day before, she started to scream.

She grabbed the driver's neck and began to choke him, but the second man pulled her hands away. Desperate, knowing her only chance was to stop them before they reached her abductor's house, she blurted out in Russian that she "was not a girl anymore," a euphemism meaning she was no longer a virgin. It was a lie, but it worked.

The driver pulled over and the men got out to discuss what she had said. They climbed back in, silent, and the driver made a U-turn to return the women back to their village.

Ms. Tairova said her life in the village changed after that. Men showed no interest in her. People at the factory openly mocked her. Her father, angry that she had told such a damning lie but worried for her safety, escorted her to and from the bus stop each day.

Finally her friends introduced her to a suitor willing to overlook her questionable past. She told him right away that she did not want to be abducted; he promised that he would not. After several months of dating, he asked her to marry him. She demurred.

Then, one balmy September evening, she again found herself in a car filled with men, ostensibly on their way to a restaurant to meet other friends. But the car drove into the countryside and soon arrived at the farmhouse of her suitor's parents.

By then Ms. Tairova was hysterical. The men dragged her from the car and carried her kicking into the house. She swore at her future mother-in-law. She ducked and struggled when the women tried to put the jooluk on her head. Close to midnight, she broke free and ran outside into the darkness, but the men caught her.

Back in the house, Ms. Tairova refused to eat, drink or sleep as the night wore on. The next day her parents arrived and urged her to consent.

"I was angry and I felt betrayed," Ms. Tairova said, adding that she had cried the whole day.

But as with many Kyrgyz women, she eventually accepted her fate. She since has reconciled with her in-laws and says she is happy with her husband now.

"He says he had to kidnap me because he heard someone else was trying to kidnap me first," she said. "He's a good man."

This last sentence is the problem with your whole argument.

The people in the article who support the custom if kidnapping wives are the Religious Right. The article says that this custom has been around for ages. The people who practice it are following the law they received from God. It is the liberals and those who are forsaking religion who are trying to stop it.

The Relgious right in this country doesn't offer consistent, unchanging morals either.. Ironically (for this thread0 in earlier times in this country Christian conservatives strongly defended the right to beat one's wife. The religious right doesn't seem to do that any more.

In earlier times the Religious Right started the KKK, persecuted Jews and stoned women they suspected of being witches.

I am not going to argue that any of these things are wrong per se, I am just pointing out that the Christian Religious Right of today can't even claim to offer an unchaning set of absolute morals.

Their morals may be wrong but they usually don't change. Was my point. Where as liberals/agnostics can only use logic to backup or change old social morals conservative religious groups usually use scriptures or laws their god has given to them.

Today you don't have religious groups beating their wives as much but liberals have taking that slot and filled it with women dancing naked(as someone from 200 years ago would view it) on mtv. Women instead of being slaves to man have just become objects for men to fantasize about.

A woman can choose to sleep with another man and then come to the realization that oh having sex makes babies i want sex but no babies. So we have contraception and abortion. Homosexuality is viewed as a sin by most religious groups but now liberals are pushing for every man to be equal. But how far will they take it. Will murderers and rapists eventually become equal men?

I disagree...

Well first of all you completely ignored my most important point. In the article you posted the religious right are the ones kidnapping wives while the liberals are trying to stop them. Doesn't this give you pause?

Your other mistake is to equate changing morals with declining morals. Society must come to some consensus on what its moral standards and laws will be... but change does not mean immorality.

Look at the Taliban (the religious right in Afganistan). They are following Gods laws and are very upset that now that the liberals have taken over their country, naked women will be dancing on TV. Are you so sure that an absolute moral law from God is such a good thing?

Was overthrowing the religious right (Taliban) in Afganistan and installing a "less moral" government a good thing? (I honestly have no good answer, but this is a darn good question, no?)

I think you are smart enough to realize why your final argument is bogus (excuse my tone, but this your worst argument to date).

Morals in society change independently based on the beliefs and needs of society. This has always happened from the beginning of time. There is no link between one moral standard, for example homosexuality, and others like stoning witches, starting wars, wearing clothes, kidnaping wives or any other.

The Taliban in Afganistan doesn't accept homosexuality, the Nazi's didn't accept homosexuality... what is your point about the absolute morality of these societies.

Well i know in your opinion the religious rite is wrong. And most of the time i would agree with you. But just as much as we say they are wrong in their morals they say the same things back. It seems there is no way to be sure who is right

No, this is not my opinion..

I certainly never said this. I am arguing that there are different ways to reason about morality, this means that I am not arguing that the Religious Right are "wrong".



My point exactly, this is the problem with searching for, or holding to an "absolute morality". You would say the same thing about the Taliban, the Feminists the Civil rights movement the ancient Greeks or any group of people you could think of.

Moral absolutism is very common among members of most any group. I am just suggesting that a problem arises when a person who reasons about morality in an absolute way is confronted with other beliefs.



I guess this is true (I wouldn't word it this way but OK). But you don't need to stop there. This conclusion doesn't mean that you can't be a moral person-- or have a strong sense of morality. Quite the contrary.

I have already suggested two ways to resolve the dilemma that you are suggesting (i.e. how to have a worthwhile morality if you don't have an "absolute morality"). Read about "Social Contract" and "Principles". Kohlberg suggests that these are more advanced ways of thinking than either absoute morality, or moral relativity.