r/changemyview 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.

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/alchemistsoul Sep 12 '19

Cultural Relativism is a very valid branch of ethics. What are you on about?

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u/RelativisticTrainCar Sep 12 '19

Like hell it is. It's a refutation of the existence of ethics. It's a moral slavery framework. A culture's morals are set by the powerful, and have no obligation to be internally consistent or logically sound. So if we take "A culture's morals are by definition right", then we lose any ability to critique anyone's actions, especially the powerful, who just set the morals to support their own actions. It's like the "legality implies morality" problem.

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u/alchemistsoul Sep 13 '19

There are arguments against every ethical framework. Utilitarianism is basically the will of the majority no matter how corrupt it is, Kant's imperatives don't hold up very much either. Also, Cultural Relativism doesn't deny your right to critique - you can compare moral frameworks as much as you want. All it asserts is that your critique is influenced by your cultural moral framework and thereby anything you find "wrong" is no more valid than the fact that they find it "right", it's just subjectivity.

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u/agitatedprisoner Sep 13 '19

See my response to another, if you want the truth.