Modern morals: at loggerheads over seal hunting
Joe Joseph
My Norwegian partner and I recently argued over the fact that he enjoys seal hunting, which I find abhorrent. Afterwards I realised that I may have been insensitive, as hunting is an integral part of Scandinavian culture. Am I wrong to ask him to stop something I can't agree with?
There are practices that are commonplace in other countries that we might find hard to stomach: some cuisines prize sheep's eyes; in some societies women are sheathed head-to-toe in black cloth; in Las Vegas they allow Céline Dion to sing in public. We might not endorse any of these, but these are the cultural ways of people who have a right to live as they wish.
Where it becomes trickier is when we come across behaviour we find morally offensive, but over which we have no jurisdiction. We might consider that capital punishment in America, or the stoning of gay people and adulterers in some strict Islamic societies, or the hunting of seals, clashes with our own moral yardstick, in which case we arrange to elect governments that will ensure that such things are outlawed in our own country. But can we intervene in the affairs of another society in such matters? We may certainly alert American states that still carry out the death penalty, and those countries that stone adulterers, to our abhorrence of such behaviour. Indeed, you might believe that it is your moral duty to persuade them to alter such (in your eyes) immoral actions. But, the law being what it is, you cannot actually demand that they do so.
When your husband is in Rome, may he not also do as the local Romans do? He has the right to hunt seals in Norway. And you have the right to explain why you find it repugnant. We change the world, as Sally Bowles almost sang in Cabaret, inch by inch, yard by yard, mile by mile, seal by seal.

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