Mary Midgley Trying out One’s New Sword

Mary Midgley is a British philosopher, professor at Oxford University.

Looking a the question of moral relativism and what she calls “moral isolationism.”

Midgley looking at the idea that we can’t judge the practices of another culture:

Cultural ethical relativism

Question: female circumcision in the Sudan?

Midgley asks,

Can we condemn a foreign cultures from practicing something we consider morally abhorrent?

Midgley says we see different cultures that have different practices

and it makes us think: “moral judgment is a kind of coinage valid only in its country of origin. 338 c2

Most call this Cultural Relativism; She calls it “moral isolationism” 338 c2

Question: what does she mean by moral isolationism?

Her thesis: ultimately moral isolationism doesn’t make any sense.

People take it up to be respectful to other cultures, but she doesn’t think moral isolationism is respectful

Midgley wants to take a “one world” view.

Her focus: She looks at a custom in Samurai warriors.

Japanese word: tsujigiri

Literally means “crossroads cut”

Means “to try out one’s new sword on a chance wayfarer”

Question Do we have anything like that in our culture?

If the samurai sword didn’t slice through its victim in a single stroke it would injure the warrior’s honor, offend his ancestors and even let down the emperor.

Her Question: How do we react to a custom like this?

Midgley says we might say, well we’re not members of that culture so let’s not pass judgment on it.

Since we’re only members of our own culture, a generalized extension of this principle leaves us with Moral Isolationism 

Question Do you agree with Midgley’s reasoning here?

Remember that Midgley is arguing against moral isolationism.

Key Question: Does this barrier work both ways?

Are people in other cultures unable to criticize our culture?

Could an Indian from the Brazilian rainforest deliver a “damning indictment” of our whole Western culture after being in a Brazilian town for two weeks?

Midgley thinks one could, but they’d have to live in our culture for a while.

Another Question: What about moral isolationism blocking praise as well as blame?

Could I praise another culture?

339 c2: Midgley thinks, if we can praise them, we ought to be able to criticize them also.

What’s involved in judging another culture?

Judging a matter of forming an opinion.

She says that crude simple-minded opinions are bad

          –Samurai culture is bad because it’s non-Christian

But we need to have examples of things to aim at or avoid.

This applies to other cultures as well as our own.

Midgley says we’re rightly angry with those who despise, oppress or steam roll other cultures.

340    Real moral scepticism, in fact, could lead only to inaction, to our losing all interest in moral questions, most of all in those which concern other societies.

Then:

When we discuss these things, it becomes instantly clear how far we are from doing this.

Talks about someone responding to someone defending the Samurai warrior.

That person might talk about the differences between ours and Samurai culture.

☞         But the standards he’d have to use to defend Samurai culture would have to be ones current in our own culture: Ideals like discipline and devotion.

Question: how many people enjoy martial arts movies?

Midgley says the isolating barriers won’t work

340 c1          If we accept something as a serious moral truth about one culture, we can’t refuse to apply it–in however different an outward form–to other cultures as well.

Question: what do you think about this point?

340 c2: Midgley contends that we ask questions from where we stand

          {standpoint theory v. relativism}

We have to understand the Samurai’s actions in our terms, not his.

It takes a lot of hard work to understand another culture.

By doing so, we may make their questions our own, or we may see that they are really forms of the questions which we are asking already.

The obstacles which often prevent it are simply those of ordinary ignorance, laziness and prejudice.

Final point is about our culture: British Culture, (by implication, American Culture as well):

341    really not an isolating culture but a culture forged from many different sources.

We don’t live in a mono-culture.

Unlike the isolated mono-cultures anthropologists study, our culture, like British culture is formed from many streams.

We may make judgements about other cultures, and they make judgments about us.

Question: how would that apply to American culture?

As we get to know each other, our judgments are less hasty.

It’s not impossible to know another culture

We might come to really understand the Samurai–it just might take a long time.

Concludes: 341

Morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it.

Question: what do you think this last remark means?

Do we live in one world, or many?