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Cultural Relativism
Cultural Relativism
Diversity of Moral
Beliefs: Relativism,
Absolutism and Pluralism
Chapter 2
Ethics, 3rd Ed., 2003
Lawrence M. Hinman
What is culture clash?
What happens when two cultures clash?
Principle of understanding
Principle of Tolerance
Principle of standing up against evil
Principle of fallibility
How different cultures have
different moral codes
Different cultures have different moral codes.
What is right within one group maybe abhorrent
to another
Treatment of the dead
Polygamy
Infanticide
Exercise:
Provide 5 examples of differing moral codes,
customs, or behaviors…
Divorce, Living together, Mixed race marriages, Allowing same sex marriages
Gambling, casinos, internet poker
Internet dating
Women in the workforce, women operating farm equipment, firewomen,
truck drivers
Spanking/punishment of children
Acceptance of cremation for the dead
Competition vs cooperation in farming, relying on neighbors help vs
outbidding the neighbor
Animal welfare, recognizing that animals have certain rights
Natural resource protection
Taming “mother nature” vs “living with nature”
Cultural Relativism
“Different cultures have different moral codes” often is
used as a key to understanding morality. Proponents
argue that there is not as universal truth in ethics; there
are only the various cultural codes and nothing more.
The customs of different societies is all that exist.
Proponents would argue that customs can not be
judged as correct or incorrect.
Our own code of ethics has no special status, it is
merely one among many
Cultural relativism
Challenges our ordinary belief in the objectivity
and universality of moral truths.
It says in effect that there is no such thing as a
universal truth in ethics, there are only cultural
codes and nothing more
Your own code of ethics offers nothing special,
it is merely one among many
Claims of Cultural Relativists
1. Different societies have different moral codes
2. The moral code of a society determines what is
right within that society
3. There is no objective standard that can be used
to judge one societies code as better than another
4. The moral code of our society offers nothing
special
5. There is no universal truth in ethics…
6. It is arrogant to judge the conduct of other
societies, we should adopt an attitude of
tolerance
The Cultural Differences Argument
Is a theory about the nature of morality
At the heart of the Cultural Relativism is the form
of their argument. They argue from facts
about differences between cultural outlooks to
making conclusions about the status of
morality
For example:
Premises:
1. Different cultures have different moral codes
2. Therefore, there are no objective truth in morality.
Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and
opinions vary from culture to culture.
This is cultural differences argument.
The Unsoundness of the Cultural
Differences Argument
The trouble is that the conclusion does not follow from the
premise—that is even if the premise is true, the
conclusion might be false.
WHY? The premise concerns what people believe; some
believe one way and others believe another but the
conclusion concerns what really is the case
An example;
The Greeks believed it was wrong to eat the dead. The
Callatians believed it was right. Does it follow, from the
mere fact that they disagreed, that there is no objective truth in the
matter?
No it does not follow—it could be objectively right or wrong that one
or the other was simply mistaken.
Another example:
Society “A” believes the world is flat and Society “B”
believes the world to be round.
Just because these two societies disagree, there is objective
truth about the shape of the earth.
We can verify that members of the flat earth society are
simply mistaken, uneducated or failed geography in
middle school.
The Fatal Flaw of the Cultural
Difference Argument
It attempts to derive a substantive conclusion about a
subject from the mere fact that people disagree about it.
“There are some moral rules that all societies must have in
common, because those rules are necessary for society to
exist.”
What other universal values or moral
rules can you think of ?
Prohibition against incest
Personal responsibility
The proper role of government is to take care
of its citizens
Everyone should serve their country
Everyone should obey the law
Judging a cultural practice to be undesirable