Comic Strips

Any evaluation of another culture is necessarily done through the lens of the evaluator's opinions and preferences, which are (by default) a product of their home culture.

If moral evaluation of a culture is necessarily done through the lens of that person’s culture, then how can anyone ever critique their own culture? How can a moral progress be possible? If my culture raised me to believe that killing animals is a-okay then how did I ever come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, not a-okay to kill animals? Because, by your view, my critique of this culture would necessarily stem from my culture. But this doesn’t make any sense because this critique directly contradicts what my culture has taught me. How could I critique what a culture teaches people if I myself have been taught those same things? Do you see the problem here?

Cleary it is possible (albeit, often difficult) to evaluate your and other cultures through an independent standpoint, such as through a process of moral reasoning. That is the only way we can explain how cultures can critique themselves and gradually improve.

I certainly am not arguing that those societies were not abominable places to live, led by awful people.

You are though. You are arguing that your evaluation that these people are awful is something that is only true from your particular cultural standpoint. Someone, from an other culture could say “hey, actually, Hitler was a saint, truly the best of the best” and he would be right from his cultural standpoint. And neither of you would be right or wrong. It would all literally all just be a matter of opinion. I don’t know about you but I think Hitler was a bad guy. And that’s not just a matter of opinion; it’s a fact.

You cannot agree with me on this and also think that morality is just a product of culture. That’s a contradiction.

I feel like these two statements are in contradiction? You state that some traditional cultures are better because they align with your beliefs, which was my argument.

I was trying to show that the way I evaluate the morality of a culture is not itself a product of my culture. If it was, then I would of course always say my culture is the best. But I don’t. So I must be using some other, culturally independent metrics to make these evaluations (i.e. I must be actually engaged in a process of moral reasoning).

So, I do think some traditional cultures are better, and they do better align with my beliefs. But I came to my beliefs not because my culture told me to but rather through a process of moral reasoning.

Again, I'm not saying that those cultures are NOT an improvement over my own in this particular regard, based on my own view of morality, just that my opinion on the subject is my own and not "The Correct Opinion".

It’s easy to think that there is no objective morality when you are not being oppressed or harmed. Sure we, here, in the first world (I assume) can sit in our Ivory Towers and contemplate these issues. But what about the victims of the holocaust? Do you think the would find comfort in the idea that there is no objective right or wrong? I don’t think it would help much. Because the Nazis were not compassionate people, even if they were the good guys according to their own cultural narratives.

Similarly, I don’t think these issues about subjective/objective morality really matter much to the animals in our factory farms; they just want their suffering to stop.

So we might be able to convince ourselves that morality is subjective, because morality is an abstract concept. But pain and suffering, these are not subjective notions. When you are suffering, the suffering is real, it is acute, and it is concrete, and you want it to stop. Suffering is not culturally dependant.

When a being is suffering, the compassionate thing to do is to help alleviate its suffering or better yet to prevent it in the first place. And to cause a being unnecessary suffering is cruel. This is something that is true in any culture, in any time, and in any place.