On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:21:31 +0100, andrel wrote:

> What prompted the culture remark is that I think it is debatable whether
> e.g. 'chew every mouthful at least 5 times' or even a rule that a man
> should leave the elevator as soon as there is only him and a female left
> is an ethical rule or just a cultural. 

Well, to me, that's an easy one - both are cultural (for some definition 
of cultural).  The former may be due to past restrictions on food 
availability - chewing it a certain amount stretches the meal out, and 
generally speaking, if you take longer to eat, you'll feel full sooner 
(so I'm told - the average American takes < 20 minutes to eat a full 
meal, and there has apparently been research done to show that that might 
lead to obesity; on the other side, the French apparently take a really 
long time to eat, but often will eat portions of similar size to 
Americans, yet are much thinner.  It's largely anecdotal from what I can 
see, there may be an aspect of *what's* eaten as well, but when your 
frame of reference is limited, then you do what you can within that frame 
of reference).

As for the latter, also I'd say cultural, but suggested at that level in 
order to avoid the appearance of an ethical conundrum.  But I also have 
to admit that this sort of cultural conditioning really doesn't send a 
positive message about the male's ability to control themselves, either - 
the assumption being that if a man is alone with a woman, the man is 
going to get up to no good is a very negative cultural message.

But within the framework of that culture, I can understand the idea of 
leaving no question about whether or not the man has acted ethically in 
that situation.  I even see that sort of thing here in the US often - I 
work on a team made up mostly of women, and most of them will not close 
the door in their office if we're having a private conversation about 
something work-related.  It's not because I'm not trustworthy or 
honourable, but just because that's the cultural conditioning for them.

> Most countries and families have
> strange rules that are incomprehensible for an outsider because there
> seems no moral ground for it other than that is the way they do it.
> Patrick's definition would include all those as well. I'd like to
> reserve the concept of ethics for more important and more general rules,
> but that may be me.

It's been my experience that most people have a very difficult time 
putting themselves in someone else's shoes.  It isn't an easy thing to 
do, I'll grant, but it is possible to do it.  I'll occasionally do it 
myself when I'm trying to understand a point of view - and I often find 
that if I do that, I understand a lot better where someone's coming 
from.  I don't have to agree with their point of view in order to do so 
(which also seems to be a difficult thing for many people to do - look at 
things from a view they don't agree with).

Often times, I'll see debates along the lines of:

"So imagine that you were in the situation of keeping guns in the house 
for skeet shooting; wouldn't you want to have your kids trained on gun 
safety?"
"No, because I wouldn't do that activity."
"Well, yes, but they are, so imagine you are them, wouldn't you want..."
"No, because I wouldn't keep guns in the house"

And so on.  The question in the above hypothetical situation isn't about 
whether the person would engage in skeet shooting, it's about whether or 
not they think gun safety education is an important thing for those who 
do.

Some people will take this sort of approach to derail the conversation, 
but it seems that a larger portion really truly are not able to put 
themselves in the shoes of someone that does something they're 
fundamentally opposed to doing, even as an exercise in understanding why 
they behave the way they do.

To borrow a quote from Douglas Adams "You cannot see what I see because 
you see what you see.  You cannot know what I know because you know what 
you know.  What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and 
what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it 
replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace 
you yourself."

Or there's the man in the shack (also from H2G2):  "I only decide about 
my Universe.  My Universe is is what happens to my eyes and ears.  
Anything else is surmise and hearsay."

Jim

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