Zachary Amaranth said:
Unless morality is objective, and I would have trouble arguing it was, then it's hard to argue it wasn't immoral without bringing ethnocentrism back into the mix. I mean, it does look like you're going the objectivity route, but if you acknowledge that slave owners have leeway because they were told it was correct you're getting into iffy territory.
Morality is largely a social construct we agree upon. That's why it was considered moral to own slaves, to treat women like property, and why it's still considered moral to kill gays in parts of the world.
I admit I still have some research and thinking to do on the matter but If we agree on certain ideals like freedom, equality, justice, the increase of happiness and decrease of pain, etc. there's a number of possible realities for any situation or issue were some of them would be the moral pinnacle. Granted, those ideals can come into conlfict. So there would still be some debate on how highly to regard each of them but in the end I think that there's a level of objectivity in morality that can be archieved.
I'm not saying that this morality would be encompassing everything or that we'd even have access to such an objective morality (which for religious people would be a god they also have no access to) but I think we can come (depending on the issue) close to it with logic and scientific methods, insights of psychology, anthropology etc. There are good reasons and bad reason to do something. You gave nice examples in response to another post where I think we can say with objectivity that they are wrong. Genital mutilation of women to please some deity is imo bad reasoning and I think this can be said with objectivity.
And in this specific case I'd say that Nintendo is contributing to a societal problem by reiterating and thereby reinforcing heteronormativity. Why and how could be the topic of a cultural studies paper. With the implied premise that heteronormativity is bad of course. But I think you already agree on that so I don't need to explain. That was my brief attempt to explain it. I didn't want to write too much. And sorry for the messy structure
Leaving aside objective morality, why do you think that it is "hard to argue it wasn't immoral without bringing ethnocentrism back into the mix"? I think we're starting to misuse the term here a bit. Otherwise how can anyone make a moral judgement of another group without somebody making the accusation of being ethnocentric?
Dragonbums said:
But for it to be immoral it would have to of been done with intended malice. In this case it is a lot more than an oversight. I would call it stupidity first than claim that Nintendo acted morally wrong.
So you're saying that the people at Nintendo have the mind of a child or simply didn't think about this at all and therefore aren't immoral? You know what? Fine. People at Nintendo are stupid. So what they did was just wrong in they way that it has a negative impact on society.
Of course it doesn't. When slavery began to happen not a single country that participated in it were under any illusions what so ever that it was a shitty thing to do. Not one. Britain started it, and even they knew it was morally bankrupt. The same however can not be said for homosexuality. Many people genuinely believe it's immoral and deviant behavior.
Maybe you wanted to say "was not a shitty thing to do"? I don't believe that premise but do you want me to dig out some heinous example where peopel genuinely believe some stupid shit that maybe you can agree on? No country? You talk about it like it's a fucking unit that has it's own mind. Many people genuinely believed that black people were subhuman and felt justyfied by their law, religion and community.
Doesn't fucking matter how many people or what authority believes something is moral or immoral though.
I'm fairly certain those ideas have come into play in all of the countries that disallow it. However they have absolutely no groundwork to work on. To assume such isn't fair. Considering that was also the same mindset we had not even 60 years ago. It took a lot of killing and murder on their part before they finally got a leg to stand on and people actually listened to what they had to say. In the case of Japan it's basically a universally adopted don't show don't tell policy. They don't necessarily care that your gay or in a gay relationship. They just don't want you to publicize it. And gay marriage is as public as it gets. Hence it's illegal there.
I'm not sure what your argument here is supposed to be or what you want to express. Because Japan's culture isn't as open minded towards homosexuality as ours it is not fair to judge them or hold them to our standards?
My main issue just comes from the fact that people are calling Nintendo bigots and anti homosexuality. I can understand why you disagree with their decision. I do. What I DON'T agree with is saying they are against homosexuality because they didn't include them in a game that was only released in a country where gay marriage is illegal. That's my biggest beef with the whole argument.
I wouldn't call them bigots and they're unlikely anti-homosexuality in the way that they actively seek to harm.
Yet they are contributing to a societal problem by reiterating and thereby reinforcing heteronormativity. (Yeah, I just used that again. I'm too lazy to paraphrase.)
Also Ophenix's answer to your comment is pretty good at explaining why in this instance it is bad