Is China less moral than the US?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...539_story.html
Quote:
Most of China’s 1.4 billion people have no religious affiliation, and fewer than 7 percent are monotheists. Is there any reason to believe that China is a less moral place than the United States, where 70.6 percent profess to be Christians?
I get the point Boot is trying to make here, but feel like he bungled it with that question. Unsurprisingly, people have been dunking on him all weekend over this. Ordinarily, this would give me great pleasure, but I think the question he asks merits some consideration.
A charitable reading of his argument would be that ordinary Chinese atheists are, on the balance, no less moral than ordinary religious Americans. Although the Chinese govt. continues to commit atrocities against minorities such as the Uighur, regular people do not.
In a totalitarian society ruled by a brutal regime, the govt. must be regarded as being more culpable for atrocious policies enacted by ordinary citizens than may be the case in freer societies (eg. the US, where govt. employees voluntarily enforce morally abhorrent policies & norms). But the Chinese govt. is itself composed of individuals who are morally culpable for govt. atrocities. Its enforcers, too, share some of the culpability; many no doubt take pleasure in their repugnant work.
Beyond policy matters, there are disturbing differences wrt social norms that sustain eg. the preferential abortion of female fetuses, and (perhaps as a consequence), an abhorrent trade in kidnapped women from other countries in the region. Animals are abused all over the world, but few observers would dispute that the US would come out ahead in a comparison with China wrt the treatment of animals. The worst treatment endured by animals in the US is almost certainly better than the worst they'd endure in China.
Some other differences (eg. wrt labour rights, pollution, corruption, racism) may be more debatable. And one can certainly discuss the culpability of ordinary American citizens in terrible crimes and misfortunes enabled by their support for various harmful policies & ideals.
Obviously religiosity is not a guarantor of morality, nor is atheism in and of itself a corruptr of morality. A moral Christian individual isn't much more or less moral than a moral Atheist individual; these labels don't help you determine whether or not a person is moral. But, when all is said and done, in a comparison between the US and China, I believe US society as a whole--as a system--is more moral, although I also believe religion has little to do with it these days.
