On the other hand (was Re: Disliked Uncle Vernon)

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 93114

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Doriane" <delwynmarch at y...> 
wrote:
> Del answers :
> 
> Which civilization ? Every society has its own moral standards, 
upon 
> which every member of this society doesn't even necessarily agree. 
> Your society and my society have different standards (I'm French, 
> you must be American or British, right ? So there's at least one 
BIG 
> recent example when our national moral codes clashed...), and maybe 
> we don't even agree with all of them.
> So WHICH standards should we enforce on others, and based on what ? 
> Usually, it's simply the stronger that enforces its morals on the 
> weaker. Like the Dursleys did on Harry. Or like Harry's wizard 
> friends did on the Dursleys at the end of OoP. But because we like 
> Harry and not the Dursleys, we approve only of one of those 
> occasions, how fair is that ?
> 

Fair? Hmmm.. 

You say, it is unfair to approve the enforcing of one moral standard 
but disapprove the enforcing of a different moral standard. But that 
is a moral stance in itself. It is part of *your* moral code, is it 
not? Only, if it is unfair to enforce one moral standard over 
another, then it must also be unfair to enforce *your* moral standard 
over a moral standard that states that it *is* fair to enforce it's 
standards. In other words, if "good" and "bad" for you have meaning 
only within the local perimeter of a certain system of morality, then 
you can't apply those terms to systems of morality as a whole. Once 
you hold to a relativist moral stance, you lose the ability to make 
any moral judgments without immediately falling into self 
contradiction. 



Naama