Do you think societal acceptance can make either of those morally right?
I can't conceive of a scenario where either of those is morally right. Same goes for your earlier examples of genital mutilation, slavery, and the holocaust. No way, no how. But just because I can't conceive of it doesn't mean it can't be. I am a product of my time, my place, and my wiring.
Here's something I posted earlier to Tim on the subject of slavery.
<<The problem is that I don't know what I would have done at the time of slavery. I was quite involved in the civil rights movement in the '60s so I clearly have an inherent concern about freedom for all. But in the '60s I also had the benefit of a retrospective on slavery and the civil war. Had I lived way back then, I don't know what I would have thought or done. It's hard to factor hindsight out of the equation.
For example, in those days, women didn't have full citizenship. So would I have been deeply troubled that a black man didn't have citizenship? Probably not. In the present, I have a deep concern for animal welfare. I just can't stand to see a creature hurt. From that I suppose that I would have opposed cruelty to slaves. I have a wide streak of independence and I follow my own drummer. If I apply those characteristics to the slavery situation, it's likely that I would have participated in the underground railway and sheltered runaway slaves. I haven't agreed with any of the wars the US has entered during my lifetime, so I doubt I would have wanted to go to war to free the slaves. In those days, as a woman, I wouldn't have been so well educated or so accomplished as I am now and I wouldn't have cut my teeth on The Feminine Mystique, so I probably wouldn't have been able to think about slavery in the abstract way we're discussing abortion now. I'm sure I wouldn't have been so self-actualized that I could comprehend a discussion about the difference between personal truths and public policy.
That's why I have sidestepped a discussion of a slavery parallel. I just don't think it applies because I can't know what I would have done contemporaneously.>>
One thing about changing morality is that it takes time. There is an enlightened advanced guard that plants the idea of a higher morality and it takes the rest of the good people a while to catch up. Some never catch up and eventually they are regarded as degenerates or criminals.
Having said I couldn't imagine a scenario in which those behaviors were moral, let me give it a rough try. Say there were a nuclear holocaust of a comet strike or something that wiped out civilization. There were only a few people left. Some of the survivors sat around and whined about what they lost and were on the verge of starving to death. Others had the presence of mind to think ahead about the survival of the species. They were unable to convince the laggards to get with the program. So they authorized the rape of the unenlightened women and enslaved the unenlightened able-bodied for the production of food and shelter. I think that would be moral.
Karen |
