A Morally Relative New-Year's

Well, it's been a while since I've posted on here. Being busy with holidays and summer school, southern hemisphere remember. I hope you enjoy my philosophical take on new-year's. And do remember to VOTE FOR ME!

Writing a Philosophy entry that has a new-year’s theme really got me thinking. I was really quite stumped as to how this time of year, or the concept of this time of year, had much to do with philosophy at all. What I have chosen to write about I stumbled across while reading my course material for a subject I’m currently undertaking at University. This has little to do with the ‘stuff’ of new-year’s but much to do with the concept, I suppose. What I am going to be discussing is meta-ethical moral relativism. I don’t particularly agree with all of the premises of moral relativism but I will use it, here, to illustrate the new-year’s concept.

It may be put, and validly so, that morality, or more specifically moral relativism, has little to do with the concept of new-year’s. I’m sure there will be little debate that moral theory could be applied to the happenings of new-year’s though. I am sticking with moral relativism, though, because it effectively illustrates the limited aspects of new-year’s and the ethical/moral concepts that govern it. Moral relativism, generally, sees no universal moral principles that govern all people.

New-year’s, to a Western audience, is temporally situated at the moment when December 31 becomes January 1. This does reflect on many of the cultural and ethical principles and practices of our society. New-year’s in China, and again India, for example, are different too and reflect the same principles and practices of those societies. I will use the Western new-year’s and the traditional Indian new-year’s as an example to suit my thesis of moral relativism. A Western new-year’s is only accepted if one accepts the Gregorian calendar; and likewise an Indian new-year’s is only accepted if one accepts the Indian lunar calendar, and probably religious concepts too.

So, what are the moral consequences of this? Well probably nothing if we take new-year’s explicitly as a date change. However the date change, while of explicit importance, has many implicit characteristics that are morally relevant. Let me provide some basic illustrations.

With a Western new-year’s, the concept is explicitly secular. As a matter of course there are numerous religious characteristics too but these, in a post-modern Western world, are secondary. The change of date that is a Western new-year’s supposes no new creation, no new life, no divine intervention, and no anniversary of religious (or even secular) events. These characterise the beliefs of those societies that adhere to this Western concept of new-year’s. These societies, generally, follow on from a post-Nietzsche philosophy beginning with the death of God. Moral characteristics of these societies are, generally again, based on reason, and not just ordinary reason but largely empirical reason. When Foucault ‘cut of the King’s head’ it was replaced by reason alone in these societies. So we get morality and ethical theory in these societies from reason and they (moral/ethical claims) are all, usually, reducible to reason.

Looking at the example from India we are confronted with an entirely different paradigm altogether. New-year’s in India, this year, will fall on the 3rd or 4th of March. New-year’s in Indian philosophy is governed by the moon. An Indian concept of new-year’s may be equally valid as either secular or religious; it is an empirical fact that after the set number of moons it will become a new year but the reasons behind this, the concepts, are more explicitly religious. In Indian philosophy new-year’s does suppose new creation, new life, divine intervention, and religious anniversaries; as opposed to the Western new-year’s mentioned above. We can see how morality in a country that believes in divine interaction with the world and it’s inhabitants would be different from a secular model such as the Western paradigm mentioned above. While reason has pre-eminence in Western contexts, revelation may be seen as equally important in Indian contexts.

Now as I’m trying to keep this short for an online context I’ll briefly discuss the fundamental aspect of this piece; moral relativism. From the two above mentioned examples we can, I hope, see that there are two different moral/ethical codes of interaction with the world/self. Which moral or ethical claims, therefore, should we view as true? What makes a moral/ethical claim true? Now I mentioned I would look at this from a moral relativist’s perspective and I’d first like to point out that I will not be mentioning vulgar relativism.

How I would like to peruse this issue is with, crude, reductionist theory. You see, many, if not all, of the moral and ethical claims of the two societies, while not agreeing on origin, have the same, or very similar motivations, even if other contradictory beliefs are, too, present. Treatment of dead bodies for example. Dead bodies are regarded as a form of pollution in India so are avoided. This pollution may be both material and spiritual but what we are here observing is that they (dead bodies) are viewed as polluted. Similarly, In the West dead bodies are avoided because of the bacteria present in decomposition, they are viewed then, too, as polluted. This is a crude example but an example at least.

What many modern moral relativists take from this is that there are some universal moral principles that, while not explicitly, are followed by many different societies. Many modern philosophical theories, such as utilitarianism, follow such reasoning. The job, then, of the philosopher is to ‘discover’ these primary universal moral principles and base a moral theory on those.

I do have some objections and noted limitations on moral relativism but I’ll leave those for discussion for who ever so chooses to discuss them here with me.