Subjectivity & Morality

I was having a dinner conversation with one of my flatmates the other day. He's a very environmentally conscious, vegetarian, Engineer that holds some very deep seated liberal values. We were talking about culture and he made the claim that no moral codes of a culture could ever be 'really wrong'.

He went on to explain that a culture criticizing another culture is arrogant because it doesn't account for the fact that the person making the criticism has been indoctrinated with moral ideas by his/her own culture. So for example, you may dislike the gender division culture in Saudi Arabia, but this is only because you have likely been indoctrinated in a progressive western culture where equality is the norm. There's nothing objectively wrong about gender division, it's just a difference between cultures which you mistakenly think is wrong because you've been indoctrinated into thinking your culture is objectively right.

I think this subjective moral philosophy is quite popular at the moment. In fact, I bet if you're reading this right now, you probably believe this is true too even if you haven't gone to deep into the philosophy of it all.

Well, I guess it comes as no surprise then, that I believe this view is not only wrong, but very very dangerous.

Before I let the dog off the leash, let me clarify that I largely respect the ideal of tolerating different cultures. I accept that all humans have a very deep xenophobic core and I think it's good that western societies remain open and tolerant, for the most part, of cultures that operate very differently.

Ok, now for the fun stuff. Let's take the moral subjectivity argument and take it to it's extremes. According to my Colombian ex flatmate, there is a micro culture of splashing acid in the faces of women adulterers. Now, you, as a Sydney resident may not like this, but who are you to say that this culture is 'really wrong'? What about throwing homosexuals off of roof tops? What about extremely strict internet censorship? When I bought these example up to my flatmate, he doubled down, and still claimed that there was nothing really wrong about these acts.

Now it's wroth mentioning that at an extremely deep level of philosophy, I actually agree with him. I don't think think any of these acts are 'really wrong' because I don't think an objective morality 'really exists'. But this is not the level of morality we're talking about. Ok, back to my flatmate.

I then proceeded to ask him about why he is vegetarian or why he is puts plastic in the plastic recycling multiple times per week. To me there was a glaring inconsistency in the way he thought about morality. It seemed like in his day to day life, his entire purpose would be to maximize wellbeing for himself and people around him, and yet when it came to this one specific moral issue about culture, he would switch gear and view morality in an entirely different way. How can you believe that no culture should be criticized on the basis of moral subjectivity, and yet simultaneously hold absolute conviction that your flatmate should pay an equal amount for the olive oil despite never using it.

This talk with my flatmate and several other friends of mine makes me realize that the vast majority of us are woefully unprepared to tackle the moral problems we will inevitably be facing in the near future. It terrifies me that very smart Engineers can maintain bat shit crazy moral ideas with enlightened-monk-level persistence.

Every day at University, I see science and technology reaching towards the stars and making discoveries that build on top of previous discoveries. Meanwhile, I see moral philosophy as a collection of creative lunatics with an annoyingly large vocabulary that are still struggling to even define what morality is.

Feminism & the Christchurch shooting

On the 15th March 2019, an Australian white supremacist murdered 50 innocent Muslims in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Shortly before the massacre he sent a manifesto to the Government detailing his racist motivations. Perhaps the most sickening part of the whole event is that he proudly filmed the whole event with a go pro and streamed it live in the hope that it will inspire multiple other white supremacists on the fence.

There's no doubt this man was corrupted by a dangerous and contagious ideology. I'd love to write about how young people now are especially prone to this sort of indoctrination because of the internet and lack of purpose in Western societies - but that's worth a separate blog post. In this blog post, I just want to write about the New Zealand PM's (Jacinda) response to the attack by wearing a hijab out of respect to the victims.

Ok, first, some background. Anyone that has spent 5 or more minutes with me will know I'm an atheist, which means I don't believe a God exists. Inadvertently, I think this has made me pretty critical of many religions. One of the religions I am most critical of at this moment is Islam. I'm critical of Islam because I think it's a contagious, misogynistic and intolerant religion that is incompatible with several western values. Consequently, I think Islam is an ideology that should be challenged in the same way that any other bad ideology should be challenged: through healthy intellectual dialog.

Notice this is obviously extremely different from saying that I'm intolerant of Muslims. This is certainly not the case. It's a shame I even need to clarify this when I talk with my friends about this topic. Many of my friends (especially my New Zealand friends) tend to group the two together with an emotional lasso, which makes them think that a criticism of a misogynistic verse in the Quran is synonymous with hating individual Muslims. I find it painfully ironic that most of my friends who believe this also happen to consider themselves hardcore feminists. My flatmate in New Zealand was one of these people and she would have no hesitation in socially shaming a man for the slightest microaggression, and yet would remain perfectly indifferent about the views on women in the Quran at the risk of being labelled racist. Fun fact, Islam isn't a race, it's a religious ideology, and the people who follow the religion (Muslims), aren't a race either.

This is where Jacinda Ardern comes in. I've got mixed feelings about her wearing the hijab. On one side, I think wearing the hijab was a very important political move to diffuse tensions and console the Muslim community. Great! On the other hand, I think the hijab is a symbol of female oppression, and I think wearing the hijab has just created a more dense emotional cloud protecting valuable criticism of Islam. Let me explain.

Why do I think the hijab is a symbol of female oppression? Well, contrary to what right wing nut-jobs think, I don't believe Muslim women in western countries are forced to wear hijabs, in fact, I'm sure if you asked a Muslim girl why she wears the veil, she'd probably tell you that she chose to do it because she wanted to wear it out of modesty. However, from a psychological standpoint, I think our desires are decided for us based on our biology, culture and environment. Because of this I think wellbeing needs to be viewed in a broader context. For example, women in the 1950's may have been so brainwashed by societal norms that many wanted to become nothing more than housewives with no career ambitions, yet this doesn't undermine the importance of liberating these women to experience greater wellbeing. How do you free a prisoner that doesn't know she's in jail?

Once again, I applaud Jacinda for her compassionate speeches following the attack that are helping to reunite a community. I'm just angered that now it's going to be increasingly more difficult to have a candid talk about the true nature of Islam.