Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9804399:


JustinY

30
Like in the olden days 24 12, 1:14am

@Seithoris You can have personal preferences for certain cultural practices, but you can't make a moral judgement on the entire culture. Some of the examples you listed I do dislike personally, but I'll never call them amoral unless I specify which ethics principle I base that statement on, and I always keep in mind that the principle ultimately has no ground other than "I feel like it." As a vegan, I strongly wish that cultures that consume large quantity of meat will change as quickly as possible, but I do not consider those who eat meat amoral nor the rural American culture a bad culture. The strongest statement I would make is that, generally, people who care about animal welfare and/or sustainability should adopt a plant-based diet, or else it would be hypocritical.

I'm fine with cousin marriage and some forms of child marriage, by the way. There is limited scientific evidence that cousin marriage increases the rate of genetic problem. In studies that do find an effect, the effect is on par with getting pregnant after 30 years old. As for child marriage, defining adulthood as 18 years old is arbitrary. There are many cultures in which people become independent much earlier, like 13 years old or so. Biologically, most people reach sexual maturity between 15-17.