In all honesty, I have kind of felt that we have gone overboard on the topic subjective vs. objective morality. I feel like to an extent we have been beating a dead horse, but at the same time this feeling is probably aggravated by having read Abolition of Man only last month. Therefore, when we read The Poison of Subjectivism I was really unsure of what new I was going to pull out of it. I'm happy to say that I have indeed found some thoughts that I felt were not too overdone and or too redundant to share. One of the defences that Lewis notes is often turned to, by the proponents of moral subjectivism, is that of the differences in morality from culture to culture. Lewis's response is that the majority of cultural moralities are in fact much more similar than they are different. "If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason of man." Lewis says does not deny there are differences saying, "There are, of course differences. There are even blindnesses in particular cultures..." His idea is rather that they all have an underpinning of ideas that point towards the same objective good. With this in mind I have decided to seek to test this logic using the culture farthest from this perceived objective moral good as I can think of. I do this realizing that in order to overthrow this standard the culture cannot simply be missing certain values or differ over how far to take the same concept. Instead they must consider entire concepts which most civilizations hold as right to be wrong and the opposite as well.
The culture that I propose to use in this test is the Sawi people of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. They are the people made famous in Don Richardson's book, The Peace Child. The most honored and highly held value in this society was that of treachery. The more elaborate the treachery the greater honor the traitor received. The closer the traitor was to those betrayed, again the greater the achievement. Richardson spoke of his bewilderment when he first told the gospel message to them, as they thought that Judas was the hero and Jesus the idiot. It was a cannibalistic society, with human not only eaten but desired as a delicacy, especially when the meat was from one who was betrayed. The ideals of the society seem to totally contradict the traditional morality.
However, even while this was the tribes ideal, there still remained certain customs that were observed and culture guidelines that were followed. Age was still honored as wise. Family was typically still treasured, in spite of the fact that it was considered acceptable to betray one family, they simply believed that most were not strong enough to do that. Above all however, there was the custom of the peace child, which reversed all there other practices. Deep down there was still this idea that treachery could be wrong and that peace was desirable. The idea was basically that in order to make peace the two warring tribes or groups would have one family from each side give up a child to a family from the other side. These children then became sacred, the peace children. Anyone who harmed a peace child, committed the gravest sin possible.
Even in this savage, primitive, seemingly alien culture, eventually we find the moral law. The moral law manages to pervade even the deepest jungles to the most isolated peoples. It would seem to me that Lewis statement has passed the test. There is indeed no such thing as moral subjectivity.
Thank you for providing that cultural example! I have never heard of the Sawi people before, but found your description very helpful and fascinating. Way to put Lewis's words to the test with this one. In some ways it does seem like they do not have moral law. But I think you bring up a very interesting point about them. Even though they are treacherous cannibals, they still DO have some morals, and thus "there is indeed no such thing as moral subjectivity." Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your first sentence. It does seem that we have fully exhausted the subject. The thing about that is that out of all the articles and chapters of books we have read I do think that this Lewis reading was the one that just came out and said look this is what is right and this is what is wrong. All the other readings seemed to imply it gently or nicely in a way. However, I got the feeling in this way that Lewis had had enough and ready to just come out and be perfectly honest with what he thought about subjectivism. It was like was had tried to be nice before and then finally said alright that is it. It was a good article and I enjoyed your post.
ReplyDeleteWow thank you for sharing about the Sawi tribe, its interesting how on the surface they seem to be a counter example to Lewis's argument however even they abide by moral law.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed our example of the Sawi people. I had been trying to think of an example like this and determine whether it would be a counterexample of Lewis' point. this seems to prove that it is not. I think that even though some cultures have drifted further than others from God's intended moral law, they still have a part of it in them. Its as if it is just more corrupted in some cultures.
ReplyDeleteInteresting example of the Sawi people. It is interesting how different cultures interpret the Moral Law. The Sawi people in particular seem to emphasize certain values more than we do, and vice versa. This comparison supports Lewis' idea that no one upholds the Moral Law: different groups get different parts right, but no one follows the whole law all the time.
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