Moral Isolationism

4 Pages 1057 Words

In Mary Midgley’s Trying Out One’s New Sword, she explains that moral isolationism “Consists in simply denying that we can never understand any culture except our own well enough to make judgements about it”(Midgley, 78). She goes on to state that, “those who recommend this hold that the world is sharply divided into separate societies, sealed units, each with its own system of thought”(Midgley, 78). Midgley also explains that the people who take up this idea of moral isolationism think that it is being respectful to other cultures and societies. Midgey does not agree with this idea. “Nobody can respect what is entirely unintelligible to them. To respect someone, we have to know enough about him to make a favorable judgement, however general and tentative. And we do not understand people in other cultures to this extent. Otherwise a great mass of our most valuable thinking would be paralyzed” (Midgley, 78).
Midgley provides numerous examples to show the importance of analyzing other culture’s morals in order to form educated judgments about them. She gives an example of ancient Chinese samurai warriors whom before going off to battle would test the sharpness of their swords on innocent strangers in order to ensure that one swing of their sword that could decapitate a man. If a samurai went off to battle and could not decapitate his enemy’s head he would be a disgrace to his community. Midgley gives a few examples of how to go about judging this practice, which is seemingly condoned by ancient Chinese cultures. First, she claims that the “judge” must have knowledge of the event. When referring to an Indian who denounced western civilization after a two week visit to Brazil she states, “my own impression is that we believe that outsiders can, in principle, deliver perfectly good indictments-only, it usually takes more than two weeks to make them damming. Understanding has degrees”(Midgley, 78).
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