Respect for Persons : Du'a Aswad

A long time ago I took a course called "Contemporary Ethical Issues". This was a philosophy course, but it didn't have the dryness that I conceive of when I think about philosophy courses.

One of the ideas we covered years ago was "Respect for Persons". The central idea is "Do onto others as you would have them do to you."

How does this relate to Du'a Aswad and her being killed in an honor killing?

Well, in respect for persons it sets up moral values in terms that if you wouldn't want it done to you - you shouldn't do it to someone else. I don't think there is much question that all the men in the audience and the performance of her killing would not be comfortable with such a horrid death being performed against them. Indeed, it is unlikely these men believe such an act would ever be performed against them.

Respect for persons is only a partial philosophical answer as to why Du'a Aswad's death was immoral. After all people are so very different around the world. In India women have performed suttee, when the husbands die, ritualistically killing themselves in a burning mound. This practice has been abolished, but the question remains.

These women thought that it was perfectly ok for them (or others) to toss them in to a fire in the case of their husband dieing. It is clear; however, that the reciprocal is not true. If a wife dies, the husband does not sacrifice himself.

Clearly, if someone attempted to kill you or demanded that you kill yourself if your spouse dies, you would have a problem with it (unless you were temporarily suicidal at losing someone who had been close to you for a large part of your life).

Clearly, many people have different tolerances to what can be done to them. This results in a morality that would be so variable, so relativistic to be completely unclear as to the morality or immorality of any specific action.

So, all the people that I have read out there claiming that 'Do onto others as you would have them do to you' as being the greatest symbol of morality, you folks have problems. In order for this idea to work, everyone would need to have the same idea of what is acceptable or moral to be done to themselves and this is clearly not true.

A final NOTE: the very idea that Du'a Aswad's death was done to respect women is doublethink (as many middle eastern traditions involving women are doublethink). It is the exact opposite of what actually happened. Claims that middle eastern customs protect and respect the women all pretty much end and are exposed for the control factors they are when public distribution of knowledge that honor killings occur, and that honor killings are not uncommon.

One can only imagine the fear that women in the middle east live with every day that something they might do might accidentally result in their death.