![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decisions vs. survival strategies
Feb. 6th, 2006 03:51 pmA concern that i've been pointing towards with my last set of posts which i think has somewhat missed is the way that oppression warps free will.
Here's an easy example. Suppose you are hoping to get a promotion at work. Your boss hints that he would like some help with something outside of work. Are you more likely to offer this kind of personal favor to your boss, than you might otherwise be?
Here's another example. You are being beaten from time to time by your husband. He's never explicitly threatened your life, but you honestly don't know what he's capable of doing to you or to the child you share. Do you leave and risk enflaming his wrath?
An even more subtle example was raised last week by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_babalon:
Going even farther into territory most people consider ethically murky, a while back i talked about expanding options and empowerment for sexworkers and drug users, among others.
An ethical system has to take this into account. The remedy i proposed last week was one element of an oppression-conscious ethics. But here's another: examining the idea of judging people as 'immoral.'
I'm not talking about torts; intentional harm to another person is not any more excusable if someone is disadvantaged. What i'm talking about are breaches of the social or cultural code of conduct that do not involve causing deliberate harm to someone else.
People who are disadvantaged are unevenly likely to be judged to be immoral or unethical, and here's why.
Our society holds the idea that everyone's will is equally free, and that we are therefore morally culpable to an equal degree for decisions we make, good or bad. People are then judged on how they perform against a list of moral absolutes -- a moral laundry list which naturally reflects the ideological value judgments of the kyriarchy. (This points to an assertion, which i am planning to develop at some time, that deontological ethics are apologetic of privilege.)
Our society looks down on things like brownnosing or staying with an abusive spouse, yet these are decisions -- or better yet, survival strategies -- that make sense to people living under oppression. It's easy for people to call prostitutes or drug users 'immoral' because they broke a rule on someone else's list, but it's not so easy for others to understand why those courses of action would make more sense to someone than sticking to 'the rules.'
Here's an easy example. Suppose you are hoping to get a promotion at work. Your boss hints that he would like some help with something outside of work. Are you more likely to offer this kind of personal favor to your boss, than you might otherwise be?
Here's another example. You are being beaten from time to time by your husband. He's never explicitly threatened your life, but you honestly don't know what he's capable of doing to you or to the child you share. Do you leave and risk enflaming his wrath?
An even more subtle example was raised last week by
lady_babalon:A long time ago I read about something runaway/throwaway children frequently have happen that is not quite prostitution and not quite rape - survival sex: sex that is not coerced nor explicitly paid for, which a disadvantaged person engages in with another so that person will be less violent towards them, give them affection, let them stay in their house, etc. While in a sense this sex is voluntary on the part of the person who has less power, I do not believe it is ethical for a person to have sex with them under those circumstances, EVEN IF THE DISADVANTAGED PERSON OFFERS IT.
Going even farther into territory most people consider ethically murky, a while back i talked about expanding options and empowerment for sexworkers and drug users, among others.
An ethical system has to take this into account. The remedy i proposed last week was one element of an oppression-conscious ethics. But here's another: examining the idea of judging people as 'immoral.'
I'm not talking about torts; intentional harm to another person is not any more excusable if someone is disadvantaged. What i'm talking about are breaches of the social or cultural code of conduct that do not involve causing deliberate harm to someone else.
People who are disadvantaged are unevenly likely to be judged to be immoral or unethical, and here's why.
Our society holds the idea that everyone's will is equally free, and that we are therefore morally culpable to an equal degree for decisions we make, good or bad. People are then judged on how they perform against a list of moral absolutes -- a moral laundry list which naturally reflects the ideological value judgments of the kyriarchy. (This points to an assertion, which i am planning to develop at some time, that deontological ethics are apologetic of privilege.)
Our society looks down on things like brownnosing or staying with an abusive spouse, yet these are decisions -- or better yet, survival strategies -- that make sense to people living under oppression. It's easy for people to call prostitutes or drug users 'immoral' because they broke a rule on someone else's list, but it's not so easy for others to understand why those courses of action would make more sense to someone than sticking to 'the rules.'
