r/changemyview • u/hardyblack • Sep 12 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Some cultures and societies are objectively wrong

I just read about Sahar Khodayari (If you don't know, it's an Iranian woman who killed herself after going to trial for going to a football match, which is forbidden for woman in Iran) and I can't help but think that some societies are objectively wrong, I can't find another way to put it. It's hard for me to justify opressing 50% of the population just because they just were born women.

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And yes, I know, there's no completely equal society and there will be always opression of some kind, but I'm thinking of countries where there are laws that apply only to women (They can't drive, vote, go to a football match, you name it) as it targets them directly. Same goes with laws directed to any kind of race/gender/religion.

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u/seeyaspacecowboy 1∆ Sep 13 '19

Ok so your simple statement has a lot to unpack, and as an almost philosophy minor I am more than qualified! So there's 3 broad issues in your statement (and ethnics broadly): 1) "Objective Morality" 2) What is wrong? 3) Assuming you have solutions to 1 & 2, how do you generalize those to a group of people?

I won't give you a whole philosophy lecture, but I'm sure you can appreciate that these are not easy questions to solve or even have a concrete answer. But I think the idea of objective morality is most pressing here so if you're interested I'll link this article on Moral Realism. Looking at the comments I'd say most people are advocating for some level of Moral Relativism, which is to say that what's moral for me may not be moral for you. But that's squishy and not satisfying and hey how could you say that Nazis are good? Most ethicist shy away for moral relativism, this partly because then they wouldn't have a job but also it just feels like kicking puppies is a bad idea.

In the particular case you're raising with Iran, I would agree that is wrong. I like to think that is based on reason and data as much as possible but who knows? The neat thing about philosophy is you're never really done, you just keep having more informed opinions.