On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> You and I agree, I'm certain, that my wife, if she
> chooses to divorce me, should not be killed. Where we
> differ is that I think women all over the world,
> regardless of the local cultural rules, should enjoy
> an identical assurance of physical safety. Not only
> that, I think that anyone who seeks to ensure this is
> so in a given culture is not devaluing that culture
> but seeking to change it to be safer for women.
>
> I have a feeling you would say in response that my
> concern for my wife's freedom of movement is fine for
> us but might conflict with the culture of others and,
> as outsiders, we should have little or nothing to say
> about the matter in other places.
>
>
> This is unacceptable to me.
I do appreciate the power of your argument, and in a pragmatic sense, there's no distance between us: I would fight wholeheartedly against the creation of these type of theocratic rule in our society. We are in fact political allies.
You're avoiding the hard political question here, though: since it is clearly true that people have wildly different moral beliefs, who gets moral authority to say "X is unacceptable under any circumstances"? How does it get enforced among people who disagree?
You know, I'd like to live in the world where correct moral beliefs are not contested, and any specific behavior (like FGM) is condemned by everyone. It would be an unambiguous, pristine world that appeals to moral philosophers and theologians.
However, that's not the world we live in.
Miles