Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

Cultural Relativism: Each Culture Determines what is Morally Right Cultural relativism is the view that cultural norms determine what is ethically right and wrong and is ethical subjectivism on a societal level. Cultural relativism makes a similar argument to ethical subjectivism but it includes the entire culture, not each individual that determines what is morally right and wrong. Both ethical theories are driven by the diversity of moral viewpoints that we find in the human species. Cultural relativism contends that because every culture has its own unique set of morals, it does not make sense to try to identify universal moral standards that transcend all cultures. In Ruth Benedict’s book, Patterns of Cultures , the term ‘morality’ should be defined as socially approved customs—nothing more and nothing less. There are no universal values that we can use to evaluate the moral values of any culture; there are only the moral values that each culture creates. For Benedict, the values of any one culture are neither superior nor inferior to those of another meaning; they are all on the same moral plane. In Benedict’s essay titled Anthropology and the Abnormal , it is her perspective that every culture uses its own unique cultural recipe to create its social structure and maintain its community. Moral beliefs are an essential ingredient in the recipe, as are customs, rituals, political structures, religious views, and other core beliefs. It is not possible to say that one recipe is better than another; they simply represent different ways people use to organize themselves into social groups. Benedict’s point is that we may assume to be a universal part of our divine or human natures are actually merely the consequence of the social adaptation of particular cultures. Benedict concludes that because one’s moral and religious beliefs are contingent on one’s specific cultural experience, there can be no universal moral values that apply to all cultures. What we think of as moral values are simply the customs, the approved ways of thinking and behaving that each culture has determined to be right. Cultural relativism holds that each culture has its own inherent moral and ethical beliefs and that people who do not belong to that culture have no right to judge or evaluate those beliefs. Although some cultural relativists, including Benedict, worked from the perspective of post-colonialist critics seeking to undo the civilizing damage brought on non-Western colonized societies, as cultural relativism can be damaging if it simplistically overlooks injustice. Ethical Absolutism: Some Moral Values are Universal Ethical absolutism is the view that at least some moral values are universal and apply to all individuals and cultures. W.T. Stace was a philosopher who sought to reconcile naturalism with religious experience and his theories acknowledged the necessity of incorporating mystical and spiritual interpretations. In Stace’s writing, The Concept of Morals, he states that ethical absolutists believe that at least some moral values are independent of human belief and practice. Stace believes that the motivation behind ethical relativism is a reaction against ethical absolutism and he emphasizes a crucial dimension to ethical relativism—that it is not simply providing a descriptive account of the diverse moral values of various cultures, but also provides a normative endorsement of these values. In essence, ethical relativism is stating that each culture’s moral values, whatever they may be, are morally right.

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