American Consumerism and it's....Morality?

A cultural practice that seems morally problematic to me is overconsumption in the United States of America. By overconsumption, I mean buying too much stuff and using too much energy (electic, oil, natural gas). I shall defend why people in the United States of America do not see why their overconsumption is a problem, refering to Mary Midgley's Trying out one's New Sword, as well as Shafer-Landau's Ethical Subjectivism. I shall also refer to the general implications of subjectivism as well as my own philisophical thought process. The practice of overconsumption is normative to most United States Americans. However, the practice is immoral according to myself and my fellow social justice activists. It is immoral to us because we are knowledgable of the implications that overconsumption has on our environment, as well as on other people and species throughout the entire world.
This relates to cultural realativism in numerous ways. In defense of equal footing, we need to make moral progress. Once people learn about the implications of their abuse of the planet, they tend to realize that they are morally wrong and need to change their ways. People make moral progress, but it must be learned, since morals are instilled upon a person over time (according to the cultural realativism handout). This also can relate to arbitrary claims. Just because someone believes in something unconditionally does not mean that they are correct. Sincere belief, in my opinion, is not sufficient. Evidence must be presented. “Because I said so!” and “The stars are aligned that way” is not sufficient evidence. We have evidence that human consumption has negative implications on our planet as a whole. I am not accepting that fact based on nothing. I have sufficient reason.
In terms of infallibility, nobody, especially United States Americans, wants to admit that they are wrong or what they are doing is wrong. Everyone wants to be infallible; but in reality, nobody is. Therefor, people choose to be ignorant about the issue at hand (that their overconsumption is leading to the demeise of the world as we know it). The key part of the word ignorance is “ignore”. People ignore what is going on. It seems impossible to me to ignore the implications, but people still do. It's like people ignoring that there is no proof that God exists, but they still believe. Contradiction also applies here. Two people can disagree as to whether or not overconsumption leads to the demise of our planet. According to cultural realativism, that means that the claim is both true and false. This makes sense; the claim is true to me, but false to people who want to ignore the evidence and don't want to change their ways.
At first, I disagreed that there is no moral disagreement possible regarding this subject. However, I know that I feel this way because I sincerely believe my claim. While it is true that people are just reporthing their beliefs rather than disagreeing as to whether or not it is wrong to overconsume, there is research that supports the fact. Therefor, one person must be wrong. The question at hand is not a hypothesis; it's a non falsifiable fact. I can accept that people may think that it is not wrong to engage in an activity that exploits child labor or environmental degregation, but it is a proven fact that these things will lead to the demise of our society. And some people may think that the demise of our society is a good thing, thus nullifying my argument that there is no moral disagreement possible.
Normative subjectivism attempts to specify conditions under which an action is morally right or wrong. In this case, it would attempt to explore variables as to why overconsumption is moral or immoral. The following views regarding arguments regarding normative subjectivism are those of Shafer-Landau.
From the point of view of democracy, if everyone has an equal right to have and voice moral opinions, then everyone’s moral opinions are equally plausible. Basically, if everyone is able to speak their minds, everyone’s opinion is worth something to the argument. The democracy point of view also argues that everyone does have an equal right to voice moral opinions, which backs up the aforementioned statement. The result of this is that there are no objective ethical truths. We do not know what the ethical truth is regarding overconsumption; there is no right or wrong, from the point of view of democracy.
Disagreement argues that if there is persistent disagreement among informed, good-willed, open minded people about a subject matter, than there is no truth to the subject. I disagree with this because I feel that informed, good willed, open minded people would not be over consumers. Then again, there must be a disagreement in order for there to be no truth to the subject. If everyone agreed, there would be a truth; at least among those who agree. Therefore, there are no objective ethical truths. If everyone agreed, there would be no objection.
According to tolerance, if normative subjectivism is true, then no one’s deepest opinions are more plausible than anyone else’s. I agree with normative subjectivism; the conditions are observed to judge whether or not consumption is right or wrong. Therefore, I agree that tolerance is plausible. In the realm of tolerance, we can tolerate and respect everyone’s opinion as to whether or not overconsumption negatively affects the planet and its inhabitants. We must keep in mind, however, that the argument of tolerance risks being self-defeating. Tolerance is just a theory; a philosophical opinion. It is a falsifiable hypothesis. We also must take human nature into account; are people really going to respect and tolerate everyone else’s opinion? I sure don’t think so.
In addition to the argument that we may be unable to respect and tolerate everyone else’s opinion, Midgley wonders why we respect and tolerate other cultures; for instance, China and India are becoming very consumptive, and the United States of America is respecting and tolerating them as a developing nation. She argues that this may be because of moral isolationism. Moral isolationism argues that it makes no sense for us to critique what we don’t understand. I strongly disagree with this; I personally criticize China and India because I feel very passionate about overconsumption and have done quantitative research and data collection regarding the data; therefore I feel like I do understand, and I do have a right to critique.
While we are not members of the culture of India and China, we need to understand why they want to be like us. Why do they want to be westernized and consume so much and have so many cars? Is it because of our easy, glamorous lifestyle? Is it appealing? Do they realize that climate change and global crisis on account of consumption is not appealing? Do they realize that we are not acting in a moral fashion? (I ask these questions because when one judges, they must ask questions that rise from where we stand, we are comparing our culture to theirs, as you can tell by the kinds of questions I beg. It makes sense to ask these questions.) Because they do not fully understand our culture, maybe they are unable to judge! They do not judge us because they don’t have a right (according to Midgely). They don’t understand. We are strangers to them, and they think that we are strangers worth learning from. Rather than criticizing our actions, they learn from them.
Judgment involved forming an opinion and expressing it when called for. Moral isolationism does not allow for judgment, which once again is why I disagree with the theory. I think that if we can’t judge other cultures, we will be unable to judge our own (whether or not our practices are moral or immoral). If we do not judge, we have nothing to compare our own practices against; we lose a measurement tool. We have nothing to take as an example to aim for or avoid.
If we do succeed in understanding other cultures the way I feel that I have, we will be able to understand thier morals. We will know why they do what they do, the way I think that I know why China and India does what they do. Once we understand and have a moral truth to apply the overconsumption to, we will be able to judge them. Midgely argues that this would allow us to judge them favorably, but I disagree, because I feel that I understand, and I am not judging them favorably.
Real moral skepticism can only lead to inaction. We will loose interest in moral questions, most of which concern other societies. By this I mean that we will think that our issues don’t matter, because there is no moral truth as to whether or not we should be fighting to stop overconsumption. We will begin to think that the fight is not worth it, because what we are fighting may not be immoral.
One thing that Midgely did say that I agreed with immensely was her closing statement to Trying Out One’s New Sword. She says that “there is only one world and we all have to live in it”. A cultural practice that impedes the rights of others to live in our one world, our home that we all share, is morally problematic. We do it, other countries do not, and it negatively effects other countries. It gives them problems that they did not cause. The arguments presented by Midgely and Shafer-Landau opened my eyes as to why people over consume; they do not think that it is immoral at all; they rarely if ever think about the effects of swiping their credit card or not turning off the lights when they leave a room. The arguments also made me seriously ponder why I am an environmental activist. Am I wasting my time? I have no idea as to whether or not my activism is moral or immoral.