Oh, dear. Am I begging the question? I think begging the question means taking a conclusion for granted before it can be proved. Let's see. I said that the argument in favor of ethical behavior is that it works. Which is a conclusion, of course.
And you rightly point out that from time to time and place to place, societies have functioned for a long time without being what we would call ethical.
I don't accept your example of Carthage because I don't think you can possibly know what Carthagenian society was really like, to the best of my knowledge the only people who wrote about Carthage were Romans. Am I wrong?
You then point to what has been occuring very briefly, on the human time scale, in Kosovo.
You don't need to go as far as Kosovo, I have no problem at all conceding that throughout history, mankind has murdered, enslaved, tortured, and otherwise been awful to, members of other social groups. I don't know of a society that prospered while one social group murdered, enslaved, tortured, and was awful, to its own members, unless you mean the way that men treat women in some societies, say, bride-burning in Bangladesh. I suspect that the men in such cases must think the women belong to another social group.
Yes, as we both know, a lot of stable, functional societies practiced ritual murders for such things as fertility rites, but I can't say that's unethical. Sorry. |
