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| We use words like honor, code, piss. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! |
To all of you that are ‘outraged’ or consider this barbaric I say this: Put your boots on and climb into the sand box. When you have been in combat for a few weeks, and you smell of urine, sweat, and the blood from you or a fellow soldier then talk about the humanity of war. When you see children and corpses used as road blocks for IEDs, then talk about the humanity of war. When the stench of death permeates the air around you day in and day out, then talk about the humanity of war. Urinating on a deceased enemy that a few minutes earlier was trying to kill you is somehow minute in the scheme of things. Lopping off heads and slitting throats is somehow not barbaric?In the past, I took some heat for sympathizing with moral relativism and nihilism. Interlocutors offered different moral scenarios and asked me if moral relativism would allow me to call certain scenario actions "wrong."
Well, now I want to hear from you moral realists and those who talk about objective morality. If the individual Marines did what they are accused of doing, did they violate an objective moral law? Which law(s) specifically?
And what flaws do you see in the defense of the Marines's alleged behavior? Why do the defenders get it wrong?
The marines did it wrong. The taliban corpses should have been stuffed with pork and then pissed on.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course it would be perfectly fine, by your logic, if the very same were done to corpses of killed US Marines.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how this establishes what you say. It seems pretty clear to me that they are wrong, and the defense looks a hell of a lot like moral relativism. What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteYou're not missing anything. I just want to know more specifically, beyond "seems pretty clear to me," what objective moral law has been violated and why the defenders of these soldiers are ignoring it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about any moral law being objective (not much of a philosopher), but perhaps universal? By that token, it seems to me the moral law of inverse reciprocity was violated (Do not do unto another what you would not want done to yourself), which you allude to in your response to SJ.
ReplyDeleteBoth sides have it wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe simple fact of the matter is...
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
;)
I'm not a moral realist and thus wasn't specifically invited to speak! But allow me to advocate their side. Couldn't a moral realist simply claim that there is a law against desecrating human bodies? Does it have to be more complicated than that?
ReplyDeleteAllow me to continue to play devil's advocate and rebut your rebuttal of SJ. A moral realist would say that there is an actual, objective moral law that the U.S. soldiers are really right and the Taliban is really wrong. Suppose that particular individual does not, furthermore, believe there is any moral law against desecrating human bodies, or perhaps even supports the idea of desecrating the bodies of vanquished enemies who were in the wrong. That person might therefore support the U.S. desecrating Taliban bodies, but not vice versa, because that person believes the U.S. is in the (objective) right. (Of course, the person might have practical objections against desecrating bodies, such as not enraging the enemy. However, it is still possible for them to have an internally consistent moral position in which such desecration remains allowable.)
Another way of putting this is that moral realists don't necessarily believe that every law is universally applicable in an identical way. An objective law might apply differently depending on who you are, who you're interacting with, who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Those circumstantial details could be written into the objective law. Sounds like a lot of work to put into making stuff up, which is part of the reason I'm not a moral realist.
Stone Dead,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the response. To your comments:
"Couldn't a moral realist simply claim that there is a law against desecrating human bodies?"
Yes, I suppose so. But what would be the basis for such a claim?
"A moral realist would say that there is an actual, objective moral law that the U.S. soldiers are really right and the Taliban is really wrong."
Again, what would the basis be for saying this? How would we establish whether it's true or whether it's an assertion only of opinion?
"moral realists don't necessarily believe that every law is universally applicable in an identical way. An objective law might apply differently depending on who you are, who you're interacting with, who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Those circumstantial details could be written into the objective law."
OK, but if the practical application is contingent on circumstances, how is this really any different from relativism? Isn't the relativist position that morality is contingent, and that the same behavior may be considered sufficiently moral and normal in one context yet obviously immoral and abhorrent in another?
To illustrate: if pissing on the bodies of dead combatants was considered a sign of respect, would that make it OK?
"Sounds like a lot of work to put into making stuff up, which is part of the reason I'm not a moral realist."
Indeed. My issue is that everyone carps about relativism being incoherent and nihilistic, yet most every appeal to objective moral facts ends up with a relativistic dilemma.
I agree with you: there's no solid basis for assigning moral declarations the status of fact rather than opinion, intuition, pragmatic necessity for social life, cog-without-which-your-argumentative-wheel-falls-apart, etc.
ReplyDeleteI also mostly agree with you when you say "if the practical application is contingent on circumstances, how is this really any different from relativism?" Any adequately sensitive moral analysis will become so infinitely elaborate as to become indistinguishable from "taking it as it comes"--which, contrasted with predefining generic responses ahead of time, may be understood as a thoughtful relativism. I do think it's worth noting, however, that for both realists and relativists it can be very useful to assert clear values and intentions while acknowledging that one might choose later to deviate from the original plan when given sufficient reason to do so. This is the premise of much political negotiation: the opponent has clearly stated goals but is open to being swayed or they wouldn't be negotiating.
If one culture considered pissing on dead bodies a sign of respect and another did not, this would certainly complicate the matter. Does one go out of one's way to make another person morally (un)comfortable when it has the opposite effect on oneself? The question reminds me of Herodotus's story that the Persians who cremated bodies were horrified to learn that the Callatians ate their parents' bodies--and the horror was mutual. The problem of respecting someone else's seemingly strange funeral wishes has always been a common dilemma, because a funeral is perhaps the one custom that one can never perform for oneself. Anyway, yes, this situation does often highlight a relativist method of thinking, because it causes one to realize that there are different ways of justifying one's actions ("she would have wanted it this way" against "funerals are for the living, not for the dead") and there is no truth-meter to pick one justification over another. (Actually where families are concerned it is often determined by who has the legal authority or who complains the loudest!)
Clarification: The last sentence of my previous comment could have been stated better. Ethics is a lot of work for everyone, including relativists, and the work is worthwhile. It's not laziness that prompts me to shy away from the effort of moral realism; it's that I don't think the effort is best spent on something I think amounts to spinning fictions. The first misguided and wasted effort is the unsubstantiated claim that morality has a special metaphysical basis apart from the realm of ordinary facts and opinions. This inevitably leads to the even larger effort of inventing elaborate lists of what these supposed truths are; attempting to make them coherent with each other which would be philosophically worthwhile except that the realist is operating on the assumption that they "actually exist" when they do not; promoting these supposed moral facts apropos of no relevant question or threat in real life but rather to aggrandize whatever power system stands to benefit from their promotion (e.g. calling a religious meeting to moralize against a nonexistent homosexual menace or a political meeting to warn against a nonexistent Jewish threat, where the real point is to coalesce power rather than to solve a moral problem); etc. It is this kind of effort that I do not wish to expend.