Originally Posted by
trish
One can of course have pragmatist, utilitarian etc. foundations for morality. But I would claim that given a foundation of his choice, mildcigar commits what logicians call a category mistake. He asserts quite explicitly a few pages back in this that both Obama and a large number of individual Indonesians are morally inferior for eating dog. For Indonesians dog is an occasional source of protein. For Obama, he was a six year visitor sampling the cuisine. So the inferiority stems not from their motivations but from the consumption itself. When asked to explain how it can be the eating dog makes one morally inferior midlcigar is at a loss. So he changes the discussion to one of culture, claiming one culture can be inferior to another. Cultures and individuals are distinct categories. Even if (and that's a big "if") one culture could be inferior to another, it doesn't follow an individual from the lesser culture is morally inferior to an individual of the the greater culture. Even if (another big "if") the culture of Indonesia were inferior to the culture of redneck Alabama, it doesn't follow that rednecks are morally superior to Indonesian medical doctors. Moreover, none of this talk about morally comparative cultures has anything to do with Obama who was raised with Western values, largely in the U.S. and who epitomizes western values. He's obviously in no way Indonesian. Of course to mildcigar and other conservative, Obama is The Other, and it is in their interests to paint him as The Other at every opportunity.
Next question, does driving long distances on a family vacation with the family dog strapped to the roof, sick and vomiting, make you a) morally inferior; b) an unfeeling idiot or c) out of touch with dogs?