Quote:
Originally posted by Colin
Actually, I'm hoping Punkworld or Labret has a good answer.
Labret, How would one view war through the glasses of "cultural relativism"?
Punkworld, anything interesting on the topic in that philosophy-filled big brain of yours?
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I feel honored
"Why is the suffering and killing of people for personal gain necessarily wrong?"
I think there are several answers possible to this question.
One could be empathy. One of the main characteristics of humans is empathy, the suffering of others is most often not seen as just an empirical fact, but rather something that includes a lot of emotion on the part of the observer. People also make a link of the kind of "it could be me" when they observe suffering, and obviously, most people wouldn't exactly like it if they themselves were subjected to suffering for the personal gain of others. One can derive the concept of reciprocity from this: only do to others what you would want them to do to you.
Another point is the selfish one, which in this case is very similar (I am mixing a few different ethical theories together here, but what the heck). For a society in which you yourself can live in freedom, happiness and prosperity it is necessary for all members of that society to cooperate and not kill eachother off for personal gains. You can see society as a "contract" between it's different members, which is mutually beneficial. Now, if you would break that contract, there would be no reason for the other parties involved to not do the same. That would lead to a situation in which you would most likely lose your freedom, happiness and prosperity. So, it benefits everyone to follow the rules and thusly create a relatively peaceful society. Ofcourse, it also brings along the enforcement of rules by society: the few people that do not follow the rules are exterminated or imprisoned by society as a whole in order to keep society intact. So, breaking the contract also has more direct consequences.
Besides these answers, there are ofcourse also a great deal of people who believe in an intrinsic worth of human lives. From this point of view it is self-explanatory that people shouldn't just be killed.
There are many other answers one can think of, almost as much as there are ethical theories. I myself - being a cultural intuitionist - tend toward the idea that not killing others for personal benefits is essential to succesful societies, and that because of that it is one of the basic "moral" values passed along to society's members.
Societies that feel differently about this would quickly fall apart, and wouldn't be able to pass on their cultural values, so those ideas (or rather, feelings) would die out eventually as dominant cultural values.
Ofcourse, cultures that reject war completely die out at least as quickly, so a certain balance between the two exists, where dominance sometimes lies on the side of war and sometimes on the side of peace, depending on the circumstances.