11 Oct 2015

“Where I Come From…”

Religious 42 Comments

People say this to mean, “The code of moral rules and social etiquette that I picked up from my peer group in puberty is superior to the code that you acquired during your period of puberty.”

First, I encourage you to acknowledge that on a subjective relative scale, we’re all probably hitting our own moral targets pretty well with the same rate of success. Then, I ask you to acknowedge that on any absolute scale we can construct that is remotely reasonable, we’re all failing miserably.

If you do those two things, all of your hostility toward your neighbors should melt away. In particular, don’t evaluate their actions in terms of your subjective code, but do it from their code. In worldly values, their code probably has some pros and cons relative to your code, for success in this world. There were probably exemplary people from that culture over the decades or centuries who modeled that code put to the test.

Look, when a French guy walks up to me and says, “Comment allez- vous?” I don’t answer, “Huh? Where I come from, we would say, ‘How ya doing?'”

Last thing: I’m not engaging in moral relativism in this post. Rather, I’m saying you have no business judging anybody else if you use a subjective code. And if you try to use an objective code to judge others, guess what? You just judged yourself too, you hypocrite.

42 Responses to ““Where I Come From…””

  1. Z says:

    Where I come from, it’s cornbread and chicken. Where I come from, a lotta front porch sittin’…

  2. khodge says:

    As they say, hindsight is 20/20. I do not accept that assessment, though. I live across country from many of my HS classmates. Once when I went back to see them, they pointed out that those who constantly relived high school were the ones who rarely hung out with each other. I, personally, do not like reliving my HS experience nor, for that matter, very much in the past. That’s just not how I’m wired.

    On the other hand, I consider it extremely important to remember the lessons (including formal training!) and continue to build on them. Morality of today different from morality of the last millennium? Maybe so, maybe not, but the question still must be asked, the reason must be ascertained, and a judgment must be made.

    As I see Islam, it is a tribal religion that never examines its priors.Christianity, too, often fails in the same way. The answer may change or it may stay the same but neither “that is how it has always been done” nor “everybody else is doing it” yields a valuable answer.

  3. Harold says:

    “I ask you to acknowedge that on any absolute scale we can construct that is remotely reasonable, we’re all failing miserably”
    I don’t agree there. Society gets along pretty well nearly all the time- the vast majority of interactions that take place do so within the moral bounds that people have. From every “please” and “thankyou” to every time you don’t get out and murder the person who cut you up, I think we do a pretty good job of succeeding, not failing, to comply with our moral targets. The occasional lapse does not equate to failing miserably. The only scale that we fail at ir requiring perfection, which is not the only scale that is remotely reasonable.

  4. RPLong says:

    “…on any absolute scale we can construct that is remotely reasonable, we’re all failing miserably.”

    A moral scale that results in a nearly 100% failure rate is not “reasonable” in any sense of the word.

    It’s easy to use reasonable and objective standards if you replace all instances of “good” and “bad” with “better” and “worse.” There’s no such thing as failure, only varying levels of success. Similarly, someone who only learns up to basic algebra has not “failed at math,” but at the same time isn’t “just as good at math as someone who learned all the way through to Real Analysis.”

    You don’t have to be a moral failure to recognize someone who is morally superior to yourself. It’s actually a great start to leading a more moral existence.

  5. Daniel Kuehn says:

    Why don’t we have business judging others by a subjective code exactly?

    I’ll grant it is often fraught with problems in practice, but that’s not the same claim.

    • Z says:

      That could work. Let’s flip a kuehn to decide.

  6. Andrew Keen says:

    Don’t worry, Bob. I understood what you meant by “any absolute scale we can construct that is remotely reasonable.” The key word here is absolute. And by reasonable, you meant a reasonable moral code and not a reasonable number of passes and failures.

    I want to thank you for your Sunday posts. I really enjoy them even though I don’t always post a comment and usually don’t get around to reading them until Monday or Tuesday. Know that it isn’t all brazen contrarians out here.

  7. Major.Freedom says:

    I consider individual private property rights as an intertwining “subjective-objective” ethic. It is not purely subjective and it is not purely objective. It is a morality at the intersection between subjectivity and objectivity.

    Am I judging people unjustifiably, or am I being a hypocrite, or both?

    I want to know what Christianity wants me to feel guilty about these days.

    I already feel guilty about:

    1. Not praising parents murdering their “false prophet” children (Zechariah 13:3);

    2. Not viewing the victims of natural disasters as bad people (Nahum 1:2-8);

    3. Disagreeing with a priest who teaches Deuteronomy 17:12 (Deuteronomy 17:12)

    4. Finding it wrong to kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13)

    5. Finding it wrong to kill palm readers (Leviticus 20:27)

    6. Finding it wrong to kill adulterers (Leviticus 20:10)

    Or am I being too judgmental against those who hold these very non-judgmental beliefs?

    • guest says:

      “I already feel guilty about: …”

      In the biblical paradigm:

      1. False prophets get others condemned.

      2. That’s *when* he uses nature as an expression of his anger.

      3. God was physically present in the pillars of cloud and fire by day and night, respectively, so the Levitical priests had a direct hotline to god, and if the priest wasn’t to be stoned to death for false prophecy, his words were, in fact, God’s words.

      This arrangement doesn’t exist today. Whew.

      4. Same idea as #1. (Please don’t ban me.)

      5. Same idea as #1.

      6. Same idea as #1.

      “Or am I being too judgmental against those who hold these very non-judgmental beliefs?”

      Not at all:

      Not All Judgment Is Wrong
      http://www.str.org/articles/not-all-judgment-is-wrong

      “Jesus did not condemn all judgments, only hypocritical ones—arrogant condemnations characterized by disdain and condescension. Not all judgments are of this sort. In fact, even in this passage Jesus actually enjoins a different kind of judgment once the hypocrisy has been dealt with (“first take the log out of your own eye, then…).”

      • Major.Freedom says:

        1. The passage and the context indicate that merely being a false prophet and claiming to know the real mind of God, against the old testament, warrants capital punishment?

        2. Even worse.

        3. Still murder.

        4. That makes no sense.

        5. That makes no sense.

        6. That makes no sense.

        • guest says:

          RE: #1: God thought so.

          Remember the paradigm from which you must assess this claim, though, right?

          I realize you’re coming at this from a different perspective, but in the scenario described, no other perspective is meaningful.

          • Major.Freedom says:

            Re: 1, that’s still people killing people. They always say “God is ordering this”.

            • guest says:

              But in the biblical paradigm, God *is* ordering that. Audibly. With pillars of clouds and fire.

  8. guest says:

    Hi Bob,

    Do you think the flood in Genesis could have just been regional?

    • guest says:

      If the water was covering mountains, then in order for it to be regional, it would have to be piling up in that region.

  9. Dhlii says:

    Sorry, but the absence of an ascertainable absolute truth does not result in all possible truths being equal.
    It is not only possible but necescary to measure the relative probability of something being true. And from a few high probability truths we can construct consistent frameworks, and reject other values and frameworks because they are inconsistent with other things that are consistent and have a high probability of being true.

    Put in terms of physics, the heisenberg uncertanty principle tells us we can not know with certainty the absolute position and speed of a subatmic particle. It does not preclude our knowing the probable speed and location – and infact nuclear physics becomes probabilistic. It also does not preclude our knowing where the particle is not.

    The absence of the absolute truth is not the absence of the absolute false.

    We can construct moral frameworks where individual freedom is not a core value – but few of us would choose those. once we reject that frameworks that are inconsistent with freedom, there are not infinitie options left.

    We can reject some ideologies, philosophies, and values as wrong – or atleast wrong inside of any context that humans are prepared to live with.

    • Harold says:

      Dhlii, you move from true / false to right / wrong – I am not sure how you connect them. The existence of the biblical God might be false, but the morals tought in the bible could still be right.

      • RPLong says:

        The morals might be the correct ones (highly debatable), but if they are grounded in the wrong moral justifications then they will lead to wrong conclusions. Here’s an example:

        (a) Lying is wrong.

        (b) Correct conclusion, correct premise: Lying is wrong because a world in which cooperation is undermined by a fundamental inability to trust each other, we are all worse off from lack of productive cooperation.

        (c) Correct conclusion, incorrect premise: Lying is wrong because your mom said so.

        (d) Scenario: One day, you happen to catch your mom in a lie.

        (e) Outcome under (b) – You recognize that lying is still wrong and unproductive; you work with your mother to resolve the problem cooperatively.

        (f) Outcome under (c) – You decide that lying is wrong when you mom would not lie, but not wrong when your mother would lie.

        Note how common it is for people to justify (f). We all know that lying is wrong, but without a firm understanding of exactly why it’s wrong, too many of us are lead into mistaken ideas about how it’s “sometimes okay” to tell a lie for the sake of a perceived greater good.

        Also notice how (f) completely undermines any notion of objective morality.

        Last point: If the only justification you have for your morals is that “god said so,” then the minute you doubt god, you are forced to doubt your entire moral system. That’s not a very stable moral framework, and in extremely difficult circumstances it could well produce terrible personal outcomes and lead to a lot of regret.

        • guest says:

          “Last point: If the only justification you have for your morals is that “god said so,” then the minute you doubt god, you are forced to doubt your entire moral system.”

          True, but I believe this is appropriate.

          Morality implies an obligation. Obligations are to people, not ideas or things.

          A morality that is not based in a moral law giver is not morality, it’s just someone’s opinion.

          “That’s not a very stable moral framework, and in extremely difficult circumstances it could well produce terrible personal outcomes and lead to a lot of regret.”

          This as another way of expressing (b); But why would a comparatively lower productive cooperation be “wrong”?

          Undesirable, yes.

          • guest says:

            Also, (b) implies that people are entitled to others’ productivity.

            This is the argument upon which the Drug War is based: If we allow people to do drugs, they won’t be “productive members of society”.

            As if we’re entitled to druggies’ labor.

            • RPLong says:

              No, it doesn’t. It implies that reducing other people’s productivity on purpose is morally wrong.

          • RPLong says:

            We are probably too different here to reach a common ground, but assuming you don’t mind discussing it in any case…

            Regarding your first point, if you believe blind obedience to a supreme being is a good thing, then okay. Such a concept is foreign to me, and I can only see it as a negative.

            “Morality implies an obligation. Obligations are to people, not ideas or things.”

            First of all, no, morality does not imply an obligation. Second of all, obligations can be to anything, not just people. Theists, for example, feel an obligation to something the existence of which they aren’t even sure of.

            “A morality that is not based in a moral law giver is not morality, it’s just someone’s opinion.”

            Why would you say it’s “just” an opinion? Yes, morality is an opinion of how best to conduct oneself in the circumstances. Why do you denigrate this concept by saying it’s “just” an opinion? What else would it be? A reason to go to heaven or hell, I guess, but how does a threat help act morally?

            “But why would a comparatively lower productive cooperation be “wrong”?”

            Because it makes life better, and morality is about making life better, not worse. If it’s in your power to make life better, but you choose not to, then yes you have violated my moral code. Maybe yours dictates some other desired outcome, but for my mileage no morality that results in inferior outcomes is one worth defending.

            • guest says:

              “Yes, morality is an opinion of how best to conduct oneself in the circumstances. Why do you denigrate this concept by saying it’s “just” an opinion?”

              Because what one person thinks is “how best” can be different from anothers’, depending on their goals.

              “Because it makes life better, and morality is about making life better, not worse.”

              A “better” life is subjective to individual preferences.

              Also, morality can make you economically worse off, and can alienate you from others.

              • RPLong says:

                Because what one person thinks is “how best” can be different from anothers’, depending on their goals.

                Yeah, so what? I bet if the two of them sat down and talked about it for a long while with a cool head, they’d find that even if they still disagree on the details, their core moral values hardly differ at all.

                A “better” life is subjective to individual preferences.

                Right, but my statement was in response to your suggestion that lower levels of social cooperation might be preferred by some. I think that claim is silly, and suggest that it’s up to you to establish the credibility of that kind of moral code.

                Also, morality can make you economically worse off, and can alienate you from others.

                Then you’re doing it wrong.

              • guest says:

                “I think that claim is silly, and suggest that it’s up to you to establish the credibility of that kind of moral code.”

                It’s not a moral code. That’s the point.

                It’s a preference held by some that they don’t want to cooperate with some people, or under some circumstances, or at some times.

                Cooperation is only economically beneficial when it satisfies the particular individuals’ preferences who are cooperating.

                As long as individual property rights aren’t being violated, then cooperation will be economically beneficial.

                And if an individual just absolutely will not cooperate with someone else, that will be economically beneficial, too.

                Because economics is, first and foremost, about the individual, since it’s only and always for the benefit of individual preferences that people economize, and only individuals can economize.

                This is true whether your individual preference is egalitarian in nature (e.g. Socialism) or not. All profit is at least psychic profit, individual egalitarian preferences are no problem for Austrian theory.

              • guest says:

                Run-on sentence at the end there. Sorry.

              • RPLong says:

                Guest, I don’t think I understand your point. We were talking about ethics. I stated that lying was wrong in part because a world in which we cannot trust each other is a world with reduced levels of cooperation, therefore one in which we are all worse off.

                It sounds like you don’t dispute this, but your earlier comments gave me the impression that you were minimizing the value of my conclusion since, after all, some people don’t want to cooperate.

                My response is: Fine, but it’s up to those people to justify their actions, because my moral code, along with that of most other people, indicates that they’re doing the wrong thing.

                Maybe you can clarify your point in light of what I’ve just written.

              • guest says:

                “My response is: Fine, but it’s up to those people to justify their actions, because my moral code, along with that of most other people, indicates that they’re doing the wrong thing.

                “Maybe you can clarify your point in light of what I’ve just written.”

                Ok, yeah. I guess we were talking past each other the whole time.

                So, since no one has a natural right to make me a slave, I’m not naturally obligated to provide for someone else.

                No one is entitled to my property.

                In the case of some religions, God owns everything, and so he has the requisite authority to make you a slave for his purposes, since he owns everything, anyway.

                Maybe this will help too:

                Since all economic activity begins with any given individual employing some means that he believes will alieviate some felt unease of his, all attempts at production are only economical if they serve that end – the subjective end of the consumer.

                Any attempt to prosper while ignoring the subjective values placed on resources by consumers, then, is necessarily a malinvestment. The consumer demand doesn’t exist to justify investments in, and employment of, those particular production processes – including the labor that would be hired to work that process.

                You’re worried about people getting “enough to live on” (my interpretation, not your words), but it’s helpful to point out that malinvestments that lead to economic ruin are caused by the egalitarian policies that you think would help people.

                The reason is because scarcity of goods is always a function of consumer demand, and there’s nothing that anyone can do to prevent someone from at least desiring something.

                So, egalitarian policies are fighting reality, not greed; And the results are shortages and gluts.

                And when policies do result in people buying what the central planners want, it’s because all they’ve done is just made it difficult for individuals to satisfy otherwise higher-ranked preferences.

                And that’s wealth desctruction, since “wealth” is a concept that is subjective to the individual.

                If I still don’t get from where you’re coming, let me know.

              • RPLong says:

                Oops, yes, guest it looks like we’re talking past each other. Insofar as you’ve laid out your view of economics above, we are in total agreement. My previous comments should be interpreted solely from a moral, not economic, perspective.

              • guest says:

                “My previous comments should be interpreted solely from a moral, not economic, perspective.”

                I agree with you that those are two different things.

                Which, if you think about it, is why it wouldn’t be inconsistent to believe that some moral codes could result in a lower standard of living.

        • Harold says:

          “1) lying is wrong.”
          To say “lying is wrong” is not the same as to say “the world would be better in the absence of lying”. Rather like a carbon tax may not be justified in a world with existing taxes, lying may be justified in a world with existing lying, or with other immorality.

          In the well known “Nazi at the door” scenario, I believe it is right to lie. Sure, it would be even better if some people did not want to arbitrarily kill other people, but since they do, the lie is better than the truth.

          • RPLong says:

            Not under my my moral code, sorry. Lying is wrong. It might be the better of two bad options, but it’s still wrong. Yes, I’d lie to a Nazi to save a Jew, but I wouldn’t delude myself into thinking that lying is a good thing under certain conditions. That kind of thinking is really odd to me.

            Refer to my original comment in which I suggest replacing “good” and “bad” with “better” and “worse.”

            • Harold says:

              That doesn’t really work if we want a guide to behaviour. If we replace “right [wrong[” with “right [wrong] thing to do”, then we both agree that lying to the Nazi is the right thing to do. Yet you claim that lying is wrong. It is odd that something that is wrong is the right thing to do. It makes me wonder what “wrong” really means in this context, and if the concept has much use.

              • RPLong says:

                I’m not sure how my previous comment didn’t clear that up for you. Lying is better than turning someone over to the SS; that doesn’t make lying “sometimes good,” it just makes it something that is “sometimes better than the alternative.”

                The real problem is with the hypothetical situation’s being too restrictive. In the real world, you might just not answer the door. Or you might fight back. Or you might flee the country when you realize it’s been taken over by nazis.

                Or – and this is the important one – you might recognize that it’s unethical to put someone in a position in which they have to lie for you, when that lie may very well end their life instead of yours.

                Reality is not nearly as clear-cut as you’re trying to make it. That might be why you can’t make sense of my answer.

              • Harold says:

                Good / bad is not the right thing. It is right / wrong.

                “that doesn’t make lying “sometimes good,” it just makes it something that is “sometimes better than the alternative.” ”

                See – good / bad does not help us to know if something should be done. We need to know if it is right or wrong to lie.

                Lying always has some bad component to it. From your earlier comments it seems that you think that this bad component is that it reduces trust and hence cooperation, and makes everybody worse off. But we have seen that it may have a good component as well – perhaps saving a life. So the good and bad do not help in deciding whether it is right to lie.

                Unless we can use our morals to decide on our actions they are of no use.

              • RPLong says:

                Harold, I don’t get it. I keep saying “replace good with better and bad with worse” and yet you keep bringing the issue back to “good/bad doesn’t tell us what we need to know.” I agree, hence I suggested a better/worse framework all along.

  10. Bill says:

    A thought-provoking post, and I generally agree with it. As it may not be the case that in all cultures men open doors for women, or that “please” and “thank you” are used frequently, for example, it might be wrong to conclude that folks who don’t follow those practices are rude or ill-mannered. We should avoid being judgmental on the basis of cultural imperialism.

    But I’ve been thinking of this lately in light of allegations that U.S. military personnel were told to ignore child sex abuse by their Afghan counterparts, on the ground that it was acceptable in their culture. And I recently read some histories of the British rule in India, during which they would not interfere to prevent the immolation of Hindu widows, on the grounds that it was acceptable in their culture.

    Navigating that fine line between cultural imperialism and just plain old doing the right thing can obviously be tricky sometimes. But to my way of thinking, sometimes we have it right “where I come from,” regardless of the prevailing norm elsewhere.

    • guest says:

      “… or that “please” and “thank you” are used frequently …”

      My view is that “please” and “thank you” have particular applications, and that, most of the time, they are used wrong.

      “Please” is a request, and implies that you are not entitled to the thing for which you’re asking.

      “Thank you” is an acknowledgement that you weren’t entitled to something that was given to, or done for, you.

      So, it would be incorrect to thank someone for a job; You’re trading someone your skill for money. According to the agreement, if one of you delivers, the other is, in fact, entitled to be compensated, otherwise theft has occurred.

      In a perfect world, we’d use “please” and “thank you” far less often.

      • Harold says:

        “In a perfect world, we’d use “please” and “thank you” far less often.”

        I believe this is the case in Spain. Don’t know if it the same accross the Spanish speaking world.

  11. Scott says:

    I think a better way to ‘divide this up’ is between the particular & the general. Morality itself is taken to be general (and universal, absolute, etc) but gives rise to particular moral codes and customs in particular times and places (‘where I come from’) which attempt to capture this absolute as best they can, given circumstances and human limitations.

    So, some can probably be said to be objectively better than others *under certain circumstances* or *in general.* But probably none is perfect or can be said to be objectively superior to all others under all cases. This is the problem Gene is always getting at — the abstract vs. The particular & actual.

  12. guest says:

    Why do you choose to not be a catholic anymore?

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