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I apologize that personal circumstances don't allow me to get back to this promptly, or as extensively as I'd like.
So what then, a Kantian categorical imperative against 'atrocities?'
Oh, I doubt very much that they are. The person in question (if memory serves) posts fairly regular wholesome updates about their woodworking, book reading and other hobbies. If they didn't realize I was a Great Enemy we could likely share a few beers without issue.
1 - I'd likely agree that an objective 'truth' exists, I'm just pessimistic that it is knowable by you/I/anyone short of God. Some cases are egregious enough that it doesn't take much beyond a fifth grader, let alone God, to label something as wrong, but the vast majority of the issues we wrangle don't fall into this bucket. We've built such horribly complex social, economic and political structures that understanding them in a meaningful way to influence policy is virtually impossible. What is the objective truth of the CHIPS act? Even beyond that, should we compete with China at all or give them their sphere of influence? I could list a hundred other policy questions from the last decade that I lack the answer to, and I'd argue anyone trying to sell you an 'objective' answer is lying.
You might argue that I'm agreeing with you and simply think that most moral questions are hard, but my rejoinder would be that if we're making all our decisions based on vibes, values and feelings isn't that a lot of subjective bullshit that exists in relation to our cultural norms?
To be clear - this doesn't mean I think we should throw up our hands and abandon trying to base our decisions on evidence. I'm just mighty suspicious of the folks who claim to be doing so objectively, and doubly so of people who have strong convictions when it comes to complex issues.
2 - The moral relativists have strong arguments of their own without having to lean too much on criticisms of objectivism. A decade or so ago, some areas of Canada were debating banning burqas. I read an op-ed written by an immigrant from the middle east who'd worn a burqa her whole life and argued she felt naked and vulnerable without one even when given the choice. The public wasn't particularly swayed, and Quebec ended up banning public servants from wearing certain clothes.
On the flip side, I had a friend tell me about her experience in the Peace Corps. She was stationed in a country where women weren't allowed to wear shirts or bras and felt profoundly uncomfortable for the entirety of her stay. Not to mention her pale skin did really poorly with the tropical climate.
As an objectivist, what's your judgment here? Are Middle Easterners brutal oppressors, or are we? Is the objective truth that everyone should be free to choose their own garb without judgment from their peers? But how would you enforce the latter without some brutally oppressive state banning wrongthink/speech?
3 - I'm running very short on time, so this won't be particularly well fleshed out. Many, including our resident theocratic fascist, argue that people are happier with these social norms and restrictions on their behavior. And while I don't share his utopian vision where the gays get thrown in prison, it is clear that there is something to the idea that people require these social structures to be happy, and furthermore, that they are often built in such a way that not everyone can be happy. I also wonder how much of this is biologically hardwired.
What would your prescription be in that scenario?
I take your point about complexity, and I would actually say that yes our feelings are related to our cultural norms. Unlike you I don't believe it's all 'subjective bullshit,' I think our feelings are finely tuned systems that have been honed over countless millenia, and largely encoded in/propped up by religious and cultural traditions. That wisdom is unfortunately often looked over and scoffed at today, but if we want to have any hope of learning to live with each other in an increasingly complex world, we need to go back and look at how our ancestors managed to cohabitate the world without killing each other, and try to learn from their example.
My thoughts on this are complex, and to be clear as a moral objectivist I agree that it's extremely difficult to parse out good or evil from these complex scenarios. Part of the positive vision I see for humanity is that we are hopefully on the cusp of enough material wealth that we can afford to have large swathes of people work to start answering these questions in earnest.
As to my judgment in this scenario, I'll bite the bullet and say yes, Middle Easterners are generally morally worse than Westerners. I'd say that we should withdraw any real support from countries that won't accept at least the basics of our civil norms. (Although I'd also argue that we need to move back from the bleeding edge of progressive norms right now.)
I think I get what you're pointing at here, and I'll quote Jung:
I think that humans are very nuanced beings, and the major error we moderns have made is trying to have all people, in all stages of life, live by one moral code regardless of context or nuance. For people who are, say, less morally evolved and have spent less time pondering the nature of their own being perhaps, they may need these strict guidelines in order to be happy. We should generally try to limit the temptation these poor souls are exposed to, a la @Hoffmeister25's discussion about driving loveless young men into monastic societies.
Ultimately what we need is more adults who have truly cultivated wisdom via their religious or moral traditions, that's step one. The cultivation of true wisdom is sorely lacking, largely due to the Western response to Christianity and the idea that reason can be the only guide to a good life. I reject that entirely.
Luckily we have recently re-discovered at the societal level a whole crop of plants and drugs, namely psychedelics, that massively aid in the cultivation of wisdom, and facing our inner demons. I'm optimistic that if we take the blessing of these substances seriously and work to help people with them, we can instill wisdom in far more people than most suspect would be possible nowadays.
Once we have raised the water level of wisdom and nuance, ideally we put wise people in charge in local communities, and give them much more autonomy and decision making power on the local level. This not only leads to better outcomes, but also helps train people to make moral decisions at higher levels of government and leadership.
I know this is a bit of a convoluted answer to your question, but the moral progress of the human race has been and always will be a difficult and complicated task. I'm working to outline a vision that can help us move past the morass we seem to be stuck in today. I'm very open to feedback if you have it.
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