Moral and legal questions on belting

pestulens

Spork The west wasn't exactly successful at bringing women's rights to Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have been mostly staying out of this discussion since I concluded that it wouldn't go anywhere but I wanted to make a point on this specific argument. The wast never made a serious attempt to impose Western views of women's rights on Afghanistan. Women's rights were better under the Western-backed Afgan government than they are under the Taliban because the majority of Afghans have more liberal views of women's rights than the Taliban do and the Taliban's abominable view of women's rights was used in propaganda to keep the Western public on board with the war, but there was never a serious attempt to shift the view of women's rights of the majority of Afghans towards a western one.
I am not saying I think we would have succeeded if we had made a serious and sincere attempt to do so. What I am saying is that it is not a good example of the point you are making.to site the failure of a project that never existed.

Iraqu is more complicated, and I admit I don't know as much about the women's rights situation there but I have no reason to believe the Western occupation ever made a sincere effort to westernize the view of women's rights in that conflict either. Feel free to correct me if you can find one.

curious By giving yourself the right to apply your moral standards to e.g. Afghanistan, you must be ready to accept that they apply their moral standards to your country.

Leaving aside the part about Kant, what do you mean by "apply your moral standards"? All anyone has done here is say they are bad on an internet board and as much as I disagree with them, I am fine with those I condemn doing that to me.

Kaja

Spork I agree with it. War (violence) it is the last possibility.

curious

Spork
Of course different people wantvdifferent things done to them. That is why you have to apply it as broadly as possible.
You cannot argue: I want everyone to push for xyz, so it is fine to push xyz which just so happens to be my preference.
Instead I must ask very broadly: Do I want everyone to push their values upon other people?
And of course it works both ways.
Once I start pushing my values on other people that means - following Kant - now they should have the right to push their values on me.
Which makes exactly my argument why I say I do not want to interfere in how other people structure their society.

Kaja

curious They can disagree. But it is the different. I dont denny anybody do what they want (be circumcised, go to church, dont eat pork or cows, wear burka, have sex, ...).
But nobody has right to force others. And taliban force womens to wear burkas or not go to secondary school. For me they CAN wear what they want, they CAN or CAN not go to secondary schools, ... - like they want and how how their mans want. RIght?

Spork

Kaja But nobody has right to force others. And taliban force womens to wear burkas or not go to secondary school. For me they CAN wear what they want, they CAN or CAN not go to secondary schools, ... RIght?

I'm curious as to what you think about, e.g. France forcing girls to go to school and not to wear burkas.

curious

Kaja
The question is if you argue on the level of an individual person or a society.

You want to uphold a woman's right to go to school in Afghanistan (example). In order to do that, you are violating that society's right to establish rules that then go against the rights of an individual person. You see the problem?
It is exactly the problem you encounter with France enforcing a ban on burquas. What about those women who WANT to wear one because to them it is important for their religious views?
What about the U.S. where now reproductive rights are largely non-exiting anymore in many states? Do you simply ignore what now is the law because you dislike it?
That is exactly what I mean you are not considering how complex these issues actually are.
You constantly accuse me of having no moral. Well, ever considered that I do have moral standards and that I just set different priorities when we encounter a point where you are in the unfortunate position that you have different conflicting rights and principles?

curious

Kaja
Now see the conflicting rights.
Does a society have the right to enforce rules?
Can France enforce a rule that says 'no burqua'?
If France has the right to enforce that rule, why can Afghanistan not have a right to require burquas?
I believe in the Czech republic there is a law that you MUST go to school, right? It is not an option you can decide for yourself, it is a rule made by the society. So if Czech society is allowed to make such a rule, why has the society in Afghanistan not the right to make a decision that you MUST NOT go to school?

You see where this leads, do you? A huge problem how you balance individual rights to make decisions vs a society's rights to regulate norms and enforce these norms at the cost of limiting personal freedoms in the process.

Kaja

Spork Im not fann of it. But France has lot of problems with imigrants so I can understand why they have to be hard.

Kaja

Spork And lot of girls are forced by their comunities or famillyes to it. So the ban can help them be free.

But you have true it is hard queston and harder answer.

Kaja

curious World is not ideal. But we have to fight for it. It is what I say.

And personal freedom is much more important. Until you dont hurt others - there is not reason to prohibite it.

The biggest and the worst crimes and evils were made in name of nations, classes and masses. Who talk about people (=masses) dont se a human (person).

pestulens

curious Interesting, I have never heard of the idea of a society having rights independent of the rights of its members. I usually assume that when people talk about the rights of a nation, culture, religion, etc they are talking about the rights of the members of that group being expressed collectively but it sounds like you are talking about the group as an independent entity what has rights separate from the collective rights of its members. Am I correct about that?

Spork

pestulens I usually assume that when people talk about the rights of a nation, culture, religion, etc they are talking about the rights of the members of that group being expressed collectively but it sounds like you are talking about the group as an independent entity what has rights separate from the collective rights of its members. Am I correct about that?

This is a common attitude in Eastern philosophies, and was also quite fashionable in parts of the West in the days of Divine Right before individualism took over during the enlightenment. It's also had a bit of a resurgence with postmodernism, where concepts like Marginalised Groups and the Patriarchy are viewed as being real things rather than a conglomeration.

Kaja

curious But your "I will do nothing" is much worse. It helps evil and crimes.

Milord

curious Can France enforce a rule that says 'no burqua'?
If France has the right to enforce that rule, why can Afghanistan not have a right to require burquas

If Italy has the right to prohibit rape, why can’t Afghanistan not have the right to promote rape?

It works like a charm. Nothing to add.

curious

Kaja
No. There are two conflicting principal here.

1) The right of a society to set it's own rules, even if these rules impose limitations on the rights of individual people.
2) The right of an individual to make a free decision and not have anyrhing enforced.

The question now is: what do you do if 1 and 2 are in conflict with each other?

Correct me if I am wrong, but from the way you argue, it appears you set the right of the individual person over that of the society.
I see it the other way round, because if our society has no right to impose rules and set limitations on individual freedom, everything goes towards anarchy.
That does not make me less moral, it is just different priorities.
Just like you I would prefer for Afghan women to have equal rights and a chance to get good education. But even higher than that I want Afghanistan society to be able to function in whatever way they internally decide they want to create their rules.
And the 'do nothing' is exactly based on that Priority. If I want a society to be able to estsblish and enforce rules, I cannot at the same time help individual people to bypass these rules just because the actual rule is not to my likimg.

Ines

Spork Western-centric

And? Absolutely better than another ones. It is as to eat with a fork or with sticks, absolutely superior the fork. Obviously I will not say to Japanese that they have to eat with fork, but, obviously, it is better invention.

Tjc

-deleted-

Ines

Tjc

I guess that I hurted you, sorry, I truly did not want to offend you.
Fork vs chopsticks was a easy sample that came to my brain trying to avoid clash with other samples more "problematic ".
The same way we could to say that diet is, usually, much better in Asia than in most of the West.

Tjc

Ines I am sorry. You did not hurt or offend me at all. I replied to a post from about a day ago and then decided that my answer no longer fit in discussion. I did not know how to delete my whole reply so I erased what I wrote and marked it --deleted--. I am sure there is a better way to delete a post.
You are an awesome lady and have good ideas here. I do not think you would be hurtful.

curious

Milord
That is the typical way how you always try to argue:
You use terminology that is already creating an emotional bias.
Of course rape is a crime and as far as I am aware, that goes for every society.

But that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about rules a society sets, which are - unlike what you suggest by the choice of words and examples - not necessarily a crime.
Is it a crime if there is a rule that all women must never wear trousers? Or that men must wear a kilt?
No, it is not a crime, it is just a rule that a society has decided to give itself and that it can then enforce. You might not like that rule and you might even feel it is against your freedom to make your own decision about your wardrobe, but that does not make it a crime or immoral.

As much as one society can ban certain clothing (e. g. burqua ban in French schools), another society can implement rules that certain clothing has to we worn. In most schools in the UK and Australia for example there is a requirement to wear school uniforms.

Joh

curious But that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about rules a society sets, which are - unlike what you suggest by the choice of words and examples - not necessarily a crime.
Is it a crime if there is a rule that all women must never wear trousers? Or that men must wear a kilt?
No, it is not a crime, it is just a rule that a society has decided to give itself and that it can then enforce. You might not like that rule and you might even feel it is against your freedom to make your own decision about your wardrobe, but that does not make it a crime or immoral.

So if the Taliban decides that women are no longer allowed to learn, that is a legitimate decision that you accept, even though the Taliban were not appointed by the people but have put themselves in that position by force of arms.

Apart from that, marital rape is common in many countries and is not prosecuted by the state.

Milord

curious most countries require that the face must be seen in public spaces. The face is a way to make it recognizable.
Of course, it's not a crime. The universally wrong things are very few.
In particular, the ones that create discrimination are wrong. Like for example, the obligation to wear a David star. This is for sure wrong, not having people dress in a certain way. Since I never inferred this, why do you attribute this to me?
A burqa, something only women are obliged to use, is discrimination if its a way to humiliate and dehumanize women. And the fact that I think it is wrong doesn't mean that my armies are about to invade countries where it is enforced. This means that I think it's wrong and I will argue against it. I will also prevent it if it's in my boundary. I'm not starting a holy crusade.

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