Here’s a quick one. I’ve posted before about how when laws stemming from religious insanity are implemented, it’s not just their insanity that’s offensive but the fact that they are often imposed only on a certain segment of a population.
Well today another horror: in Sudan, women are flogged for wearing pants. There was a raid on one of the most popular restaurants in Khartoum, “a group of about 20 or 30 police officers entered the popular Khartoum restaurant and arrested all the women wearing trousers”. (BBC Source, hat tip UN Dispatch.)
Now, here are the two money quotes (I’ve reversed their order from the article):
Under Sharia law in Khartoum, the normal punishment for “indecent” dressing is 40 lashes.
(…)
Several of those punished were from the mainly Christian and animist south, Ms Hussein said.
Non-Muslims are not supposed to be subject to Islamic law, even in Khartoum and other parts of the mainly Muslim north.
So the Sudanese authorities broke even their own boundaries for Sharia law. Big surprise. But the report seems to imply that if only the government left the non-Muslims alone (and only lashed Muslim women) it would be better. No it wouldn’t. The above quotes just underscore how offensive it is to have two laws in the same country depending on what family you’re born into.
A reporter from Australia’s ABC was recently spat on by a Chareidi Jewish mob rioting over a planned parking lot in Jerusalem. She was surprised that they objected to her using a tape recorder on Shabbat even though she’s a non Jew (and isn’t bound to keep Shabbat by any branch of Judaism). The mob’s rage seems to have been at the fact that someone was “insensitive” enough to violate Shabbat in front of them, or in Jerusamem, or some such thing. This might be the same reason non-Muslims were targeted in the Sudan. But at least both parties here are being consistent.
The idea of the raging Jerusalem mob pelting a Jewish policeman with stones and utterly bypassing a non-Jew standing right beside him is ridiculous. Because we know that the idea of two laws to rule them all is just that — ridiculous and obscene.
8 comments ↓
While I agree in principle with what you say I think we all agree that there is no such thing as an objective set of laws that are correct.
While saying a country with one set of laws for certain sections and another for others is offensive and obtuse we think nothing of changing legal systems when we cross some man-made, imaginary line on a map.
We also tend to accept the laws of the country we visit, or at least obey them, so surely it is better for a non-Jew (or Muslim, or woman etc) to be left alone as that is what the law says and if the authorities follow the law then at least we know where we stand – while opposing it. Anything else is technically terrorism.
keddaw:
While there may not be a universal set of laws applying to everyone under all circumstances, there certainly is a common code of civility which stems from applying very rational principles: Do not do anything to anyone that you wouldn’t want to happen to yourself. Right?
As such, the ultra-orthodox religious jewish freaks should know better and not start spitting en mass on that woman. Would they want that to happen to them? Certainly not. So, Sabbath or not, they should know how to behave. They don’t because they are uncouth mobs.
Haven’t thought about it in terms of objective laws — I’ve been meaning to post on objective morality but haven’t fleshed out my thoughts on it completely yet (maybe because it’s such a thorny topic).
I think that given a set of values there definitely can be an objectively better law for achieving them — but I think the point is something else. Yes there is a degree of arbitrariness of having a different law imposed on you by the arbitrary accident of birth (ie. different countries). But at least there we don’t have the case of 1 government making 2 laws for 2 ethnic groups — with all the problems of defining membership etc.
I don’t think it’s obvious — given an unjust law — that it’s better if the government enforce it selectively.
Takis — as for the Chareidim, they don’t know any better because within their community it’s an acceptable standard of behaviour (as is beating women up for not wanting to sit at the back of segregated buses — check the news). Everyone applies the golden rule to a selective in-group (even the most liberal people usually stop at humans). For the Chareidim, anyone not in their group is almost continuously sinning against God, so they’re not in the ingroup.
The golden rule is terrible, I can think of any number of circumstances where it fails miserably.
There are also no laws/rules that are ‘better’ than others, they are simply better (or worse) for creating or enforcing a particular type of society that we want. And that type of society caries from person to person.
That may sound slightly pedantic given that, from your posts, I think we both want a very similar type of society but other people don’t – either through indoctrination or stupidity or economic naivety or economic greed.
We want an equal, just and fair society where all groups are treated equally. But do we? Not really; we want exceptions for children, mentally challenged people, infirm people, etc. So where is our equality now? It has been watered down with lots of well meaning exemptions.
Takis: there certainly is a common code of civility which stems from applying very rational principles
Just to clarify why we disagree here – not all rationality leads to the same place. There are choices we make that are personal and our rationality tends towards there, beit universal healthcare or the morality of the death sentence (or even sentencing in general). Two perfectly rational people can disagree on these items, healthcare anyway, with very good logical arguments but their morality will mean they will never agree.
Was the golden rule comment addressed to me or Takis? Because I wasn’t advocating it as some kind of ultimate arbiter. At some level all moral rules tend to be very inadequate — but I am interested to hear your examples because I think in most cases it’s not too bad.
As for objective laws, that’s what I meant — once we agree on values there are certainly objectively better and worse laws for those values (ie. the implementation of values is objective). However agreeing on values is probably where most moral arguments lie.
As an aside, your example on equality shows how rules aren’t adequate since a formal definition of “equality of all” needs to be modified in light of your counterexamples to something like “equality of all people in the areas in which they’re equal”. But this quickly becomes vacuous which just means there is no magic formula for law or morality (or science or rationality)
The Golden Rule basically means all punishment is non-existent and can also lead to people making laws that impinge upon my freedom because they think it’s for the best.
The negative assertion of the rule is more acceptable to me, but still insufficient.
Golden rule inadequecy 1:
I have just killed my wife for marital infidelity or some such (I don’t believe in marriage, but never mind…) Now, what should the law do to me under the Golden rule? The ideal GR solution is to ban me from marriage but most people would suggest a harsher punishment.
Or… I have killed my parents for the inheritance, it’s not like I can do it again so there should be no punishment.
2. A country is committing genocide against a section of its own people, should we attack it to stop them? GR says no.
3. You/people/the government think that homosexuality/polygamy/free press/drinking/anything is bad for people and so, under the golden rule, ban it. I happen to think my freedom is much more important but it is being impinged by people for my own good. The GR being ‘if you were harming yourself would you want others to stop you? Yes.’
4. You see someone abusing a dog, should you stop them? I would say the GR says no. I would say most people would think you should stop them.
5. You see someone committing a robbery, should you intervene? GR says no. Kind of applies to most crimes with the exception of physically damaging ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity#Criticisms
GR means knowing what another person wants, at least the positive assertion does. If someone is suicidal they may want help, should we assist them? Depends on the reason they want to die, but the GR takes no account of this.
Could keep going, but you get the point.
I see. In that case I think utilitarianism is the consistent application of the golden rule to an entire population. For instance in the case of a person committing a robbery, I weigh my Golden Rule against the person robbing, the business owner, potential passers-by etc — and then I act. Usually the weight is in favour of the business owner so I do to THEM what I would like done if I were in this place because I consider their desire to be more important. I guess this shows that the GR itself isn’t sufficient but it can form the basis of more successful systems (see esp. desire utilitiarianism).
Interestingly this application of the GR is in line with our intuitions that
(1) someone robbing a store is ok during a time of emergency (eg. hurricane Katrina) since then the desire of the person robbing for food outweighs the desire of the business owner
(2) victimless crimes are not crimes (since then there is only 1 desire in the equation intervening will break the GR)
But I agree this is a far far cry from what Kant had in mind.
There is another aspect of the golden rule that is not mentioned – it automatically places humans as more imortant than other living things with no justification.
We tend to value life in order of (assumed) intelligence on the basis that the greater the intelligence the greater the loss and the greater the capacity for suffering – yet we steadfastly refuse to adopt this WITHIN the human race!
If this is applied to the GR then surely we should all be vegetarians at a minimum.
However, what is our justification for this? I know what mine is, but how does the GR give us even the slightest insight into how to solve that moral issue?
As you say the GR is nothing more than a basic premise that we can build u[pon and modify to fit in with our society/beliefs as we see fit. But how is it then golden, other than the fact gold is a very malleable metal?
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