Ensign Steve

In my Intro to Ethics class (so forgive my naiivete), we have loosely defined cultural relativism as the idea that morality depends on the cultural context, location or time period. I am a moral objectivist, and cultural relativism is a subjective theory, so I do not agree with it. However, I am having trouble letting go of the "time period" aspect of it.

I think it's pretty much agreed by now that owning human slaves is immoral. For a moral objectivist, that means it was immoral when the people in the bible did it, and it was immoral when the Founding Fathers did it. Can I say that "they didn't know any better back then, so it was okay"? No, as an objectivist, I can't. They should have known better (based upon what, I don't know ... I haven't decided where I think objective moral standards come from, but I still think they exist). So I am stuck saying that the Founding Fathers were immoral.

This applies to all sorts of issues throught history, the slavery thing is just an example.

Also, that leads me to the next stage. What will be the next step in our moral evolution? Suppose that in 100 years it is considered completely objectively immoral to eat meat. I know some people feel this way already, but that is not the majority opinion. But moral objectivism says that majority opinion is not what makes something moral or immoral. So suppose in 100 years we have become so enlightened to realize that we had it wrong all this time, and meat eating really is as horrible as, say, cannibalism. What does that say about my morality as a meat-eater in this time period, when we think it is okay?

I believe one of the weaknesses of cultural relativism is that it does not leave room for cultural growth. People like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, and Harriet Tubman would be considered no differently than common criminals, in the eyes of the cultural relativist. Their acts would have been considered immoral, because they went against the cultural standard. That helps me to understand why cultural relativism is wrong. BUT, it opens my brain up to the very disturbing idea that everybody who isn't Ghandi, MLK, etc. IS immoral. That makes my stomach hurt.

Jen

Amen-Moses

Interesting subject.

Personally I am a cultural relativist and in fact a subjectivist but those terms don't seem to mean the same thing to others as they mean to me.

For example we were watching a documentary the other day on chimps and it showed the, by now infamous, footage of chimps hunting and killing monkeys. The reaction amongst those watching wih me was far more interesting to me that the documentary itself as everyone else was shocked by what they were watching. I asked innocently why what they were watching was more shocking than say a visit to McDonalds would be to an alien visitor.

What came out of the ensuing discussion was that the watchers were identifying the monkeys with the chimps so what was so shocking to them was a feeling of "wrongness" due to a culturally ingrained distaste of cannibalism, yet in scientific terms there is almost as big a species gap between chimps and monkeys as there is between humans and cows yet eating a burger isn't shocking.

I think it is almost a certainty that future generations will look back at our present cultures and claim how immoral we were "back then" just as we do to the Greek or Roman cultures.

Amen-Moses

themistocles

Well, Ben Franklin in his later years was something of a radical abolitionist, as far as our founding fathers morals are concerned...

philechat

I am a subjectivist, and think both values and contexts are important for the idea of morality. To be short, I do not think the idea of human morality could be objectively determined as one determines science. Most morality are, indeed, consensual in a society, and people judge one another as moral or not based on societal agreement.

That does not make me a cultural relativist, however. I base my morality on assigning a "value factor" to a set of human qualities, say: courage, humour, creativity, benevolence toward others, power, etc., and another "value factor" to a set of communal qualities: say, cooperation, freedom of expression, diversity, etc. The qualities that I assign higher values in are qualities that I would admire in a given person or society (say creativity/independence of thought in a person, diversity in a society), and the qualities that I assign lower values are qualities that I would care less about or evaluate negatively (such as the religiosity in a given culture).

In this moral system, I may admire the rebels given that I value more the independence of thought in an individual than a status quo of a society. And I act to maximize the qualities I value in my own life.

Hope this makes sense.

Ensign Steve

Thanks for your responses! Isn't it great when you write (or type) something out, and then when you go back and re-read it you come up with some of the very answers you were looking for?! I've been wanting to come back on since I posted this yesterday, but I was crazy busy last night, so I finally just made it back.

Anyway, I really appreciate everybody's perspective. I want to clear up that when I say I'm an objectivist I mean that there are some morals that are objective, regardless of culture, time, etc., but not all. That doesn't change my question in my OP, but it helps me to clear up in my own head what exactly it is I am asking.

Like I said, I really appreciate the answers I've gotten, but I am specifically looking for the perspective from anybody who does think that there are at least some (or one?) objective morals, and how they might reconcile that with the problem I posed in the OP. Are there any moral objectivists besides me?! LOL!

Thanks!

Jen

dk

JenniferD: In my Intro to Ethics class (so forgive my naiivete), we have loosely defined cultural relativism as the idea that morality depends on the cultural context, location or time period. I am a moral objectivist, and cultural relativism is a subjective theory, so I do not agree with it. However, I am having trouble letting go of the "time period" aspect of it.
dk: I don’t have a problem with a subjective theory of culture, and would argue that a meaningful dialogue about a unified objective moral universe requires it. If today we can proclaim the abject evil inherent to the 15th Century Slave Trade, then progress has succeeded by moving morality from a subjective to a higher moral plane. On the other hand in a purely subjective reality, moral relativism chains ethics to progress as a function of time, absent discernment and judgment. To a moral relativist the Slave Trade of the 18th Century followed from a lack of progress, not culture per say, and whatever moral discernment we imagine to have attained in the 21st Century also follows from progress. This raises 3 questions,

1. How can we know the 17th Century Slave Trade was inherently evil?
2. How could Europeans in the 17th Century know the Slave Trade was inherently evil?
3. Can a truly moral person judge others? and what about non-judgmental rights?

o
JenniferD: I think it's pretty much agreed by now that owning human slaves is immoral. For a moral objectivist, that means it was immoral when the people in the bible did it, and it was immoral when the Founding Fathers did it. Can I say that "they didn't know any better back then, so it was okay"? No, as an objectivist, I can't. They should have known better (based upon what, I don't know ... I haven't decided where I think objective moral standards come from, but I still think they exist). So I am stuck saying that the Founding Fathers were immoral.
dk: I think its fair to say slavery made all the Founding Fathers in Virginia very uncomfortable and generated moral indignation in the Founding Fathers from Massachusetts. This isn’t wholly representative, the New England fleet after the Revolutionary War found few ports open in a world dominated by French and British Navies. In 1807 Britain abolished the Slave Trade. So the cash strapped US Trading Companies saw the Slave Trade as a life line, and ferried and brokered millions of slaves to South America and the Caribbean. Here’s a lengthy but good discussion on the Slave Trade, with a long historical view from Purdue University that relates national policy, economic realities, and consumer interests, Seeds of Change: Five Plants that Tranformed Mankind , I think you’ll find it very interesting and informative.
o
JenniferD: This applies to all sorts of issues throught history, the slavery thing is just an example.
dk: I think slavery is a great example. A more current and equally viscous fixture in today’s world is the drug trade. The US drug culture spreads corruption, misery, vice, and revolution around the world by financing drug cartels, dictators and petty warlords with immense fortunes.
o
JenniferD: Also, that leads me to the next stage. What will be the next step in our moral evolution? Suppose that in 100 years it is considered completely objectively immoral to eat meat. I know some people feel this way already, but that is not the majority opinion. But moral objectivism says that majority opinion is not what makes something moral or immoral. So suppose in 100 years we have become so enlightened to realize that we had it wrong all this time, and meat eating really is as horrible as, say, cannibalism. What does that say about my morality as a meat-eater in this time period, when we think it is okay?
dk: I recommend you check out some of the historical books by Toynbee, “Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor”. He turned me on to the idea that civilization is an expensive endeavor, with all kinds of overhead and dead weight. The rise of a civilization follows from solving problems that arise from time to time, until they encounter an insolvable problem. The insolvable problem grows in scope and magnitude despite their best efforts, until the entire resources of a civilization are brought to bare, to no avail. Whether it is quick or spry the civilizations collapses under the weight of its own ineptness, as a single insolvable problem sucks it’s resources and last drop of vitality down a black hole. Thus a civilization is reduced to ruins, rubble and myth.
o
JenniferD: I believe one of the weaknesses of cultural relativism is that it does not leave room for cultural growth. People like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, and Harriet Tubman would be considered no differently than common criminals, in the eyes of the cultural relativist. Their acts would have been considered immoral, because they went against the cultural standard. That helps me to understand why cultural relativism is wrong. BUT, it opens my brain up to the very disturbing idea that everybody who isn't Ghandi, MLK, etc. IS immoral. That makes my stomach hurt.
dk: Here’s my two cents. War is caused by the breakdown of Moral Law at some fundamental level of society. For example it wasn’t slavery that caused the Civil War, but the ability of people to rationalize slavery as good, necessary and just. To make slavery a just institution its proponents had to dehumanize blacks as suited to slavery, via a stereotyped, and therefore unsuited to liberty and freedom. Once dehumanized slaves could be blamed for their own plight. Dehumanization of any group excludes them from our moral universe, and once excluded we cease to have any moral obligation, conscience or guilt for the crimes we perpetrate against them, in effect the excluded group becomes the benefactor of the crime. The psychological payoff for dehumanizing Afro-American slaves is a clean conscience, even a feeling of grandeur for the good slavery afforded the poor helpless nigger. .Another example is a rapist that pleads, “I’m no rapist, she asked for it”. Moral relativism in it self, of it self and for it self perpetrates a great evil, because it teaches people that dehumanization is normal, and that every person on the planet has a right to walk around in their own personal moral universe guided by their own personal conscience. But I would distinguish between moral relativism, and cultural relativism. Cultural relativism can be very good because it allows people a critical view of themselves, and can show people how to live a better life.

Farren

I think different people do reinterpret cultural relativism to suit different agendas. One useful approach is seeing morality and culture from the point of what is. A less useful and often adopted approach is to view them as what should be .

To put this in perspective. My car's engine is idle. This is right and good as long as it exists in this state. When I choose to put my foot on the accelarator, it changes its state, and its a good thing it moves forward. Neither the former nor the latter are qualitatively "better", just suiting the purpose of the person driving it.

Similarly, for culture, we each have to accept that our aims, intentions, and fundamental axioms about the "good" differ, even if they overlap. If you don't want something in culture, you apply force to change it, and hope that the aggregate of everyones actions add up to your aims.

This perspective doesn't deny the right to hold an opinion about another culture, it simply provides the caveat that you aren't automatically "right". A culturally relativist approach is useful here because it encourages you to understand the relationship between your (desired or actual) culture, and the culture you take issue with, before engaging it.

Two obvious outcomes of this are that

a) By trying to understand a culture in its own terms and at a fine level of granularity with respect to its relationship to your own, you may discover that you have misunderstood it and revise some of your views, encouraging fairness.

b) If you engage in such honest and careful discourse, and still dislike the outcome, you are better equipped to convince others to move away from it. I've seen quite a few arguments on this forum where athiests (like myself) are horrified at the outright misunderstanding of the arguments put to them by fundies with no intention of engaging in actual "debate", and in some cases, vice versa. Here obviously only conflict results, without meaningful change either way.

Wiploc

There's descriptive morality and prescriptive morality. Cultural relativists are generally descriptive. That is, they aren't really saying, "People in this culture should behave this way." They are saying, "People in this culture believe they should behave this way."

Unfortunately, they often, I suspect purposely, use exactly the same language as if they were saying the former thing. But the fact that they are trying to confuse you doesn't mean you have to be confused.
crc

Ensign Steve

Thank you, wiploc. I hadn't considered that differentation. That does help.

LostGirl

Yes, I agree that the distinction's important. In my intro to ethics class my prof made that point very clear. He said that there's a wide gap between understanding
- what cultures believe is right and wrong varies with that culture
and asserting
- what is right and wrong varies with culture

You can agree totally with the first premise (as I do) without being obligated to support the second (as I don't).