Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: "Justifying" beliefs based on "western moral tradition"
Message-ID: <3104@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Aug-84 09:13:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.3104
Posted: Wed Aug 15 09:13:01 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Aug-84 01:25:21 EDT
References: pyuxn.971 <3107@decwrl.UUCP>
Lines: 43

< ... Quoting ... >

>From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP Mon Aug 13 10:00:39 1984
>Frankly, I'd be ashamed to have to use "western moral tradition" as the basis
>for any of my beliefs.  This is the same morality that gave us the Spanish
>Inquisition, the witch trials, the pogroms, virulent anti-Semitism and anti-
>ANYTHINGism where that ANYTHING didn't fit in to its mold, and two bloody
>world wars.  If *I* was asked to defend *my* beliefs based on western moral
>tradition, I'd simply laugh and win the argument by forfeit.

I just wanted to interject a quick comment on this "western moral tradition,"
a phrase which has been of such comfort to the political right as a banner to
carry and to the left as a convenient target to lob catchphrases at.
There is, in fact, no single "western moral tradition."  There is
a collection of (often violently) competing traditions.  We have the
"Christian" system descended from the antisexual authoritarian teachings
of St. Paul (the person; no flames from Minnesota, please), some weak
fragments of pre-Paul Christian beliefs (Quakers probably come fairly
close, here), the Judaic tradition (incredibly influential in this
civilization despite the small number of Jews and the incredible
persecution they have faced), the Hellenic tradition (which John Stuart
Mill says is alone responsible for the notion that the government has an
obligation to promote the public wellbeing, for instance), and so on.

In fact, the very existence of inquisitions, world wars, persecutions, and
the like makes it obvious that strongly held and widely differing viewpoints
have often coexisted in this "western tradition."  The current crusade of
the Christian right against secular humanism is a direct descendant of
the traditional disagreement between near-Eastern mysticism and Greek
rationalist thought.

Finally, while I have no great desire to hold forth European civilisation
as a beacon of perfection, it is worth noting that ours is the only major
(note that qualification) civilization to treat women on a much higher
level than draft animals, to support the notion of democracy and human rights,
to provide a signficant amount of food and other aid to other cultures, and
so on.  This does not make up for colonialism, racism, or FORTRAN, but it
suggests our antecedents have not uniformly been monsters.

D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-4146
USENET:  {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary