Multiculturalism

The question Straggler has asked makes no sense in light of my stated position.There's really nothing to avoid other than an irrelevant question that has nothing to do with my position. I do? Where? I insist on Straggler asking relevant questions. If that is 'pedantic obstinance', so be it.

You sneered at moral relativism, indicating an inclination towards absolutism. Straggler's question was to that. Message 504, if nothing else, that certainly seems to be an absolutist position to me. Moral absolutism holds that "actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions." Your words on this thread seem to agree with this principle.

My personal morality is based solely on my beliefs, empathy an experience. Laws on the other hand have and should have nothing to do with morality. 29MPH is not more moral than 30 or 31 MPH. A green light is not more moral than a red light.While laws are not and should not be based on morality, behavior is not a law.Perhaps you overlooked that fact? Of course it has occurred to me but as pointed out above, dismissed as laughable.

And yet there are laws against certain behaviors. Is morality relative to individual cultures and...if so...what type of morality do we want here in the melting pot culture?Perhaps I need to reread this topic so as to ask better questions....do you have any?

Of course morality is relative to individual cultures.

I don't think actions are "inherently moral or immoral". As I said in Message 505: "no morality at all exists outside of humanity as far as we can tell."When I talk about moral relativism, I am talking largely about cultural moral relativism.

Not stealing from your neighbor is no more moral than earning your own way? Not perjuring in court is no more moral than telling the truth? Raping or not raping are equally moral?Your examples are cherry picked. We have laws which are 'malum prohibitum' but other laws, like those against rape, are "mala in se" meaning that they are intended to prohibit behavior which is considered evil or bad on its face as defined in that culture. I've considered it. I don't find the statement convincing and you don't seem to have any support for it. Behavior is not a law, but behavior can easily violate laws, and it is easy to find examples of such. In fact, the proper target for laws is behavior. Can you cite a law that does not target human behavior?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

If the parents are forced to submit to unwanted examination of their children, it seems unlikely that the children will enjoy it either. There's a different relationship between the "perpetrator" and the victim, though. By taking a child's parents away, you're further victimizing her. When an answer is obvious, absolute, black-and-white, etc. it's often because the question was misunderstood.If the authorities are willing to imprison parents, why are there complaints in this thread that the law is not being enforced? And if imprisoning parents is an effective way to prevent FGM, why is FGM still a problem? How can you tell how many instances of FGM have been prevented by the law?

Where did I say that? If you can quote chapter and verse, maybe I can clarify. Ask a Jewish boy. The answer would be, "No." The role of a prosecutor is to make an argument that is "true" beyond a reasonable doubt. The role of a defense attorney is only to establish a reasonable doubt, to point out the possible flaws in the argument. He doesn't have to make a stand on what the "truth" actually is.

Yeah, he's wrong here too:

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I contend that the purpose of laws is to provide a framework to punish transgressors.
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I contend that any deterrent effects are purely incidental and not the intended purpose.

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People do pass laws with the intended purpose of deterring crime and not to punish transgressors.For example, Alaska recently passed a law where metal recycling companies have to get a bunch of personal information from the people who are selling them the metals. They explicitly stated that the purpose of the law was to deter theft.Given that the law doesn't actually have anything to do with punishing the thieves, and instead focuses on rules that the buyers must obey, it is apparent that the purpose was deterrence rather than punishment.But its not really worth arguing with jar. He'll just be vague and ambiguous and then tell you that you can't read.

Eight-day-old babies are seldom cool about anything. If you ask a Jewish or Muslim male who's old enough to answer, my guess is that the overwhelming majority are cool with it.So what about those Somali women? They had it done to them and they still want to have it done to their daughters. Apparently they don't consider it "abusive".What about those 1000 Maasia women? Why don't you respect their opinon?

You know where to find the evidence to support your contention, I've told you at least twice. So I await your presentation. OK - so if parents routinely beat their child with a rubber hose and inject them with heroin, you think the best interests of the child are to be with the parent so as to prevent them being further victimized? Because some people don't feel that the law is being enforced properly in cases where abuse has cultural roots. I was talking about abuse divorced from cultural considerations such as injecting addictive substances into 8 years old's bodies or beating them pipes or raping them every night.You didn't ask about 'complaints in this thread' as to why laws were not being adequately enforced, you asked

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Presumably the removal of custody rights is supposed to prevent further abuse. So why would there still be ongoing abuse if the process was working?

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If authorities were prepared to do that, there wouldn't be much child abuse

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so the 'misunderstanding' seems to be entirely your fault. Alternatively, you are just changing the comment after you realized it wasn't very good. So you are arguing in favour of the abolishment of prison? Again - the answer is 'there is more than one perp and more than one victim and punitive measures don't prevent all crime occurring'. What you can do is use the best measures you can for how the rate is affected over time. For instance, if 80% of the emmigrated from nation practices FGM but 30% of immigrants practice it - then it is likely that something that is being done in the host nation is deterring FGM.If you are really interested how sociologists measure this kind of thing, you could take a course, I suppose.

I already answered this question in Message 495. Am I doomed to keep reminding you of things that were said a short time ago? Why do you say that?

Side step. (And an inappropriate one at that - FGM is inflicted on girls a few days old through to puberty). You were telling us how feisty you were, proposing to fight any doctor who dared to conduct a pelvic exam on you. And yet you dismiss that right to refuse someone interfering with their genitals, to the girls who suffer FGM. Or at least are unconcerned about them being denied that right. Complete obfuscation. Having foreskin cut off is not in the slightest comparable to having the tip of the clitoris cut off. Having the tip of the clitoris removed is comparable in terms of its effect on sexual pleasure to having the head of the penis removed. Not just the foreskin - the top of your dick, leaving a stump. You up for that ? For the same reason I don't respect the opinion of a child abuser who thinks it's right to get their kicks raping children. For the same reason I don't respect the opinion of a violent man, who thinks that it's right to wield power through violence over the vulnerable. For the same reason that my opinion that I have the right to swing my arm, stops at everyone else's face. My rights, my opinions, those of everyone, are limited to the extent that they cause harm to others.

So you don't think that

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People can differ all they want. But there is only one right answer.

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After all? That's objective morality. Absolute morality holds that, say, FGM is wrong regardless of the social or cultural context. It does not necessarily hold that 'FGM is wrong' exists outside of humanity.

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Objective morality is the idea that a certain system of ethics or set of moral judgments is not just true according to a person's subjective opinion, but factually true. Proponents of this theory would argue that a statement like "Murder is wrong" can be as objectively true as "1 + 1 = 2." Most of the time, the alleged source is God

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From here. Then talk about cultural moral absolutism! Why are you still typing words to avoid answering a question?Look if you really want to resist 'absolutism' just replace it with whatever word you think isa) the opposite of relative or,
b) means there is only one correct answer to a moral question