"Ethics and Religion" Response

It is very difficult for me to disagree with the stance the author of this piece takes. I am largely in favor of education and experience as a means to understanding ethical situations.  Binding ethics to law or a particular religion is not to examine one’s own feelings. The author notes that adopting an ethnocentric view of morality is dangerous.  Morality is definitely more complicated than abiding by a set of rules.  I agree with the author’s argument that laws are “necessary…but they not sufficient.” People can be moral without laws and people can be moral without religion.  Though both can work towards establishing a better understanding of how morality is considered by others, blindly trusting any system can be dangerous for many reasons. 

I would like to focus on the example made about clitorectomy to further support a point I believe is implied in this author’s piece, and make one of my own.  Though the piece says nothing directly about education, I believe it is an important point, especially when it comes to cultural relativism.  This was an important example to bring up because it highlights this tension when culture tests the definition of morality.  Clitorectomy is a topic for which it is difficult to make a determination about what is morally sound.  It allows one to ask whether women would whole heartedly agree to the practice if they were to be fully educated about other the lack of this practice in other cultures.  When people are denied education and experience, they are not able to experience their own opinions of morality.  I do not believe the piece argues in favor of this point in its entirety, but the piece definitely points to the importance of education and experience as important in establishing one’s own moral code.  I am arguing that this education could have an influence on people’s opinions of the moral codes they have been taught.  To clarify, I am not disagreeing with the idea that cultures may establish moral codes, traditions, and practices that are moral.  I am saying that by being educated about different cultures, people may, or may not choose to reject ways of looking at ethics through an education. 

Since this former point begs the question, I hope that this story serves as an example that demonstrates the complexity of women’s education, and women speaking out against government: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/international/middleeast/09FPRO.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A16%22%7D.  This woman arrived from Somalia, and was able to educate herself about the way people were treated in which Muslim women were treated in the Netherlands.  Because she had experienced and educated herself, she took an unpopular stance, and was treated quite poorly because of it.  This example relates to the former one because without the context, it would have been more difficult to see the treatment she fought against.  I am not saying that the former example is in any way synonymous with this one, but instead shows the importance education played in allowing this woman to make informed reactions against the government.

I understand and agree that there are many ways to interpret values and determine courses of action based on morals in place.  I agree that though there are many ways in which morality is subjective, especially because we discover morals through experience.  I wish that the author spent more time on universal morality, because I found that both compelling and confusing.  It seems that the author believes that morality is not completely objective and not completely objective either, but somehow a combination of the two.