…that I can’t seem to resist posting here:
I have a question for our materialist friends. Let’s imagine a group of chimpanzees. Say one of the male chimps approaches one of the female chimps and makes chimp signals that he wants to have sexual relations with her, but for whatever reason she’s not interested and refuses. Is it morally wrong for the male chimp to force the female chimp to have sex with him against her will?
If you answer “no it is not morally wrong,” imagine further a group of humans. On the materialist view, a human is just a jumped up hairless ape. Is it morally wrong for a human male to force a human female to have sex with him against her will? If you answer “yes, it is morally wrong,” I certainly agree with you. But please explain why on the materialist view it is not wrong for a hairy ape to force a female to have sex with him, but it is wrong for a hairless ape to force a female to have sex with him.
Link.
- Is it wrong for a man but not for a chimp? Yes, it is wrong for a man but not for a chimp.
- Why is it wrong for a man but not for a chimp?
- It is a meaningful question in regard to a man, whereas it is not for a chimp, because human beings are capable of moral choice, by virtue of many factors, including our theory of mind capacity, our complex social structures and our capacity for linguistic cultural transmission.
- The answer to the meaningful question for a man is “yes”, because prioritizing our own desires the wellbing of others lies at the definitional heart of human morality, and rape is a clear example of such an act.
Chimps are not moral actors. Human beings are. Is this really the level Barry operates at, or was it just a rather lame troll?
I have to wonder (with a deep sense of trepidation) how Barry would approach an argument about legal capacity.
And how do you know that chimps are not moral actors?
1) Is it wrong for one chimp to rape another?
I don’t know, you’d have to be a chimp to answer that question.
2) Is it wrong for one human to rape another?
Yes. But I cannot prove it – and neither can anyone else.
This is just another round of always the same tiresome nonsense argument: you can’t be moral unless you believe in God.
To answer the question: materialists in general, as do most people fortunately, consider human rape to be wrong. These days. There were times when it was ok to rape your prisoners of war and your slaves, and the excuses for that can easily be found in the Bible.
The reason human rape is considered wrong these days is that the right of a person to rule over their own body has been extended to all humans including women. Getting to that point has taken quite a while in the teeth of organised opposition from, largely, theists of many colours.
Next question: do Bible believers think human rape is wrong? Why?
fG
The main changes in ethics over the centuries seem to me to have been about expanding the notion of “who is my neighbour?” rather than questioning whether that lies at the root of morality.
“Treat others as you would be treated” seems universal in human culture; what is less than universal is who counts as “others”.
Manuel Vargosa Llano,
Because there is no reciprocity, moral equivalence, or potential for them in our relation to chimps. Of course chimps can demonstrate emotions and behaviour similar to humans’, but I can’t expect it of them because I have no basis for believing them capable of moral reasoning (let alone the ability to communicate it) such that they can believe in and rely on my moral behaviour, or I believe in and rely on theirs.
I can condemn as immoral a human who treats a chimp cruelly. But I have no reliable insight into what motivates a chimp’s decision to rape another, and no reason to believe that the chimp should be swayed by anything other than its instantaneous emotions or impulse.
Even if we allow that chimps have complex social structures and use that knowledge to infer “reasons” for violent or cruel behaviour in them, we cannot say that they ought to know better, or even that they are capable of knowing better.
Although I’m not sure that we can’t say that, either. As Woodbine suggests, we are not party to chimp moral imperatives, if they exist, which seems doubtful, although they do have limited ToM capacity.
But when we speak of “morality” as humans we are referring to the capacity to reify what we regard as social imperatives as systems of “right and wrong” that we then pass down culturally over generations, refining as we go. I don’t think we have any evidence that any other species has that capacity.
Japan is considered one of the most sophisticated cultures on earth. They are not religious, certainly have a theory of mind, are a complex culture, and utilize language. But, eh, rape aint so bad there. Stealing property in Japan is considered worse than rape (from cbsnews.com | Rape Debate in Japan):
“To some men, rape is still a fantasy, rather than a crime,” said Tamie Kaino, a professor at Tokyo’s Ochanomizu University and an expert on campus sex crimes.
In speaking about college rape party that was busted:
“…the affair also shows how much hasn’t changed.
It has triggered a boys-will-be-boys backlash that activists say only spotlights
how ingrained sexist sentiment remains.”
“Media reports also have a blame-the-victim flavor. Many of the women attending the Super Free parties were depicted as rural bumpkins of about 20 or a bit younger looking for city boys at brand-name universities. Some commentators said they were simply out of their league and lost control during the drinking games.”
“During a Parliament debate, lawmaker Seiichi Ota, a 57-year-old former Cabinet minister, got a laugh when he quipped: “At least gang rapists are still vigorous. Isn’t that at least a little closer to normal?”
(*)Under a materialist worldview, when it comes to how we should judge rape (or anything else), there is absolutely no way one can argue that the men occupying the complex British culture are objectively right, but the men occupying the complex Japanese culture are objectively wrong. The Japanese men simply find themselves at the apex of one specific evolutionary pathway, and the gentlemen Brits another.
The lesser wrongness of rape was naturally selected in Japan. You see, in Japan, there is a “debate” about it. And guess who will prevail? The people with the guns. And the only reason that this twisted-misogynist-complex-culture didn’t spread worldwide, despite allying with another twisted-complex-culture (one that was seeking world domination and extermination of what they considered “lesser races”), was because a country full of bible thumpers dropped atomic bombs on them.
Yes, but the fact that we have observed our own morality to be a reified social construct does not allow us to limit morality to just that category. If an intelligent (whoops! there’s that word!) extraterrestrial species existed that was somehow ‘hard-wired’ for a moral code, it would be absurd to discount its moral capacity just for that reason. The question of moral capacity turns on reason, which in turn is visible only through communication – hence the ideas of reciprocity and potentiality in my answer.
The sad fact is that you will find the exact same story told of Frat House parties in US Universities or football clubs just about anywhere. There is nothing uniquely Japanese about this. What distinguishes it is paternalism and sexism. These are, of course, unknown in Christian countries.
So Japanese rapists are never convicted, but British ones always are?
So according to you as a Christian, morality is a question of who has the bigger guns?
Explains a lot, that does.
In a evolutionary world there wouldn’t be any reason for man to be “moral” and “rape” wouldn’t exist. In an evolutionary wold it would all be about reproduction, period.
That’s only true in your personal, weirdly simplistic, and extremely silly view of an evolved world, Joe.
That’s a bit like saying that in a gravitational world, it’s all about going downhill!
There are plenty of reasons for humans to be moral, the least noble one being the incentive not to be despised and punished as anti-social. But they get steadily nobler from there on up.
Well you guys should read what Dawkins has to say about it. Strange that he agrres with me- that a Darwinian world is not a world with morals.
“River out of Eden”-
Well, he doesn’t actually say that, and he’s quite a moralistic man. He does say that the universe is amoral, but that’s different. A rock can be amoral, and Is, but it doesn’t mean that we are.
In any case, Dawkins isn’t always right. Sometimes he’s quite wrong.
This depends entirely on the morality of the chimps. What is moral and immoral even amongst groups of humans varies wildly. For example I may say that two adult males who consent to sexual relations with one another is morally fine, whereas a Christian might well say it is immoral.
But that’s because Christian morals aren’t based on fundamental principles, despite Jesus being an advocate of the Golden Rule. Clearly sex between two consenting same-sex adults does not violate the Golden Rule.
It’s just an arbitrary taboo, not an ethical principle.
This is actually quite false and completely ignores reproduction strategy. A line of amoral males who raped women would not necessarily increase in prevalence in the human population since they would be suppressed by the rest of the human population in other ways. This is elementary game theory (hawks vs doves and tit for tat strategies)
As I pointed out in another thread, this is nothing more than definitional fiat. There is no such claim or implication at the “heart” of the definition of morality. Tossing out convenient definitions (MN definition of science, compatibalist definition of free will), is just a means of avoiding the rationally irreconcilable nature of one’s beliefs.
as are all other morals.
Well, you asserted it, but I don’t consider you “pointed it out” 🙂 I think it “lies at the heart” of morality because it is intrinsic to our usage of the auxiliary verb “ought”.
So I disagree with both you and Jet Black 🙂
You do realize that, under the ToE, we could live in a society in which rape and murder are moral
And (to reiterate Lizzie above) under the Theory of Gravity we could live in a society in which throwing people off cliffs is moral.
So what is your point?
My point is under the ToE “moral” is whatever we want it to be.
BTW you misapplied what Lizzie said- not that you care…
The ToE makes no difference to what is moral and what isn’t. Morality seems to be a system of behavioral imperatives that cut across our own immediate desires and benefits for the good of the social group.
Can you think of any moral system that isn’t that?
Forced sex is obviously not an optimal breeding strategy in all cases, given that vast swathes of the animal kingdom from fruit fly to gorillas operate other breeding strategies. This is the case for both solitary animals and pack animals. Since morals are, for the purpose of this area of discussion, a derivation of human breeding strategy therefore it does not immediately follow that rape would be moral if rape is not an optimal breeding strategy. Remember what might work occasionally for an individual does not mean that the genes responsible for that behavior will prosper in the gene pool. Again, simple game theory.
Does anyone here who tends to agree with evolutionary theory who propose that it forms the basis for what should be considered right or wrong?
You’re arguing against your own straw man. In a fair fight, I’d fancy its chances, too.
oh I notice your choice of the use of the word “could” here. I regard state sponsored killing of its captives as murder, and yet it is moral to carry out such crimes in the Bible – for example, the stoning of adulterers. Similarly forced “marriage” and subsequent sex is no different from rape in my opinion as the woman has not consented. Again this is fine in the Bible and they do this to each other all the time, so it is not as if the Bible is any special moral arbiter. Even under the biblical rules, rape and murder are moral.
nope.
I don’t see why you disagree. There are moralities out there that disagree with one another in so many different ways its hard to see how they could be anything other than arbitrary. Take theft for example. From what I understand, for gypsies, it is perfectly ok to take others stuff as they regard belongings as belonging to everyone, so taking stuff from someone else’s caravan is a perfectly morally acceptable thing to do.
It doesn’t-> that is the whole point.
Correct and that means “morality” is whatever we want it to be.
Well, I’m distinguishing between morality and ethics – morality being the fact of the behavioural imperative, and ethics being what it impers.
But I’d say that all morality is based rebalancing the interests of the individual with the interests of the society. The ethical differences come in when there are arguments about the boundaries of the society. Often it is simply round the tribe.
You do realize,that, under the theory of ID, we could live in a society in which rape and murder are moral.
That’s right and I say they should be.
So there…
Your disagreement doesn’t change the fact that you’re using definitional fiat to steal a concept that cannot be acquired otherwise, but I’ll leave that for readers to evaluate. Suffice it to say, most people around the world do not (IMO) consider morality to be any such thing, but rather to be “what best serves the interests of God” – considering that most people consider morality to be an edict of the interests of God. My view of morality doesn’t define it whatsoever as having anything to do with the “well-being” of others. Again, you refuse to say why I or anyone else should submit to your definition of what morality is, and not submit, say, to the inquisitors or Eguenicists definition of “what morality is”.
All your definition does, Elizabeth, is shield you from having to account for these things.
For this debate, however, there’s another way to demonstrate the irrationality of your position: if I consider it to be in the overall “well-being of others” that I spread my particular genetic seed to as many offsspring as possible, then raping can be moral. Indeed, “well-being of others” lies at the heart of virtually all historical atrociities; the Inquisitors (the honest ones) felt it was in the well-being (immortal soul) of the person they were torturing to torture them; the Nazis and Eugenicists considered it to be in the best intersts of the well-being of humanity to weed out undesirables or sterilize them; Darwin himself said that it would be in the best interests of the well-being of humanity (to paraphrase) if the more evolved races wiped out the less evolved ones (as did many other evolutionary moralists).
I might have a personal philosophy that whatever I am programmed by nature to enjoy is how best I can contribute to the “well being” of humanity (the greatest number of “others) in general, and so justify doing whatever I please to be in the best interests (eventual and overall well-being) of humanity.
Perhaps, however, to avoid this particular sticky wicket, you’ll offer another convenient definition of “well-being” that will exclude my examples definitionally.
Personally, I would like to know what Barry’s answer to his own question is. How about it Barry, is it right for a male chimp to force a female chimp to have sex? For males dolphins to gang rape female dolphins? For a female praying mantis to kill and eat her lover? How far does your idea of morality extend into the non-human world, and why does it stop where it does?
Here’s another question for you, Barry – a woman suffers a spontaneous miscarriage, should she be charged with involuntary manslaughter? Why or why not?
There are at least three distinct questions at work here. (At least!).
(1) does a materialistic metaphysics contain the resources for justifying ordinary ethical claims?
(2) does modern evolutionary theory contain the resources for justifying ordinary ethical claims?
(3) does modern evolutionary theory contain the resources for explaining our motivations to be ethical?
So, three extremely important distinctions to be bear in mind: (a) the distinction between a scientific theory and a metaphysical system; (b) the distinction between justification and motivation; (c) the distinction between justification and explanation.
I can have reasons for action which are justified (or not), and I can have motives for action which are not the sorts of things which can be justified, because justification is a social practice that is ‘at home’ in “the space of reasons” (including argument, analysis, discussion, dialogue, and actions that are evaluated on the basis of reasons, etc.). I can have very good reasons for doing something but still be motivated to not do it, or the other way around. I can be aware of some of my motives, but I needn’t be; I can have all sorts of motives that are unconscious, repressed, etc.
Likewise, explanations are different from justifications. An explanation tells us how something works or how it has come to be. A justification is whether something should be, or should not be, as it is.
With those provisional distinctions in mind, I take the answers to those questions to be, roughly “no,” “no,” and “probably yes”. Is that a problem for me, given that I do accept modern evolutionary theory? No. It would be a problem if I endorsed the implication:
(A) If modern evolutionary theory is true, then materialism is true.
But (A) is clearly false — modern evolutionary theory does not entail materialistic metaphysics — and so I don’t need to worry about adopting a metaphysics that renders unintelligible to me my capacity to form and assess moral judgments.
Best,
Carl
Hi David vun Kannon,
Look if you really want to rape a chimp I will not hold it against you…
Sorry, Joe, you’re not my type.
As long as “we” means “members of the community” that’s fine. What it doesn’t means is that morality is whatever I want it to be.
Can’t rape the willing anyway
Yes “morality” is whatever society wants it to be.
You can’t have it both ways; morality is either “whatever members of the community say”, or it is “putting aside self-interest for the well being of others”.
Either way, it is apparently okay to rape as long as one justifies it as being in the best interests of others, or as long as the community says it’s okay.
Well, that means that “morality” is what the society wants, right? What benefits the society? As opposed to the individual?
And who knows- rape and murder could benefit the society- and it wouldn’t be rape and murder- it would just be mating and dying.
No, I didn’t say “whatever members of the community say”; I said “whatever the community says”. They are different, because the latter by definition involves “putting aside self-interest for the well being of the community”. The former is anarchy.
How would you justify rape as “being in the best interest of others?”
This also means that you have no basis to disagree with majority morality, which means that here in the USA you are probably engaging in an immoral act by advocating that morality doesn’t come from god. Also, when the Nazis were rounding up the Jews, then if the community felt is was a good thing to do, you had no basis for arguing against it or trying to hide Jews because morality isn’t what you want it to be, but rather what the community says it is. Right?
How would rape andmurder benefit benefit the society?