Transcript Is It All Relative?

Is It All Relative?
Vice and Virtue in Everyday
Life
Chapter 2
Morality as Custom,
Heroditus
► All
people think the moral perspective
of their culture is correct.
► The anecdote of Darius
A Defense of Moral
Relativism, Benedict
► The
“abnormals” of one society are the
norms of another society.
► Cultural attitudes towards trances,
catalepsy, and homosexuality
► Cultural diversity forces us to accept
moral relativism.
Benedict
► Morality
is simply a term used to
denote socially approved habits within
a culture.
A Defense of Cultural
Relativism, Sumner
► The
folkways are the customs and
mores of a culture, and we think of
them as objectively right.
► The folkways are coercive.
► Morals are historical, institutional, and
empirical.
Sumner
► All
mores of a particular time and
place are justified with respect to that
particular time and place.
► Mores appear to be factual.
► The mores cannot be objectively
proven by philosophical method.
Cultural Relativism
and Universal Rights,
Fluehr-Lobban
► Anthropologists
should protect the
rights of the people they study.
► Fleuhr-Lobban’s experiences in the
Sudan
Fluehr-Lobban
► We
should be sensitive to cultural
differences while refusing to
compromise on human rights.
Uganda’s Women:
Children, Drudgery, and
Pain, Perlez
► An
unjust social system:
 Unequal division of labor
 Lack of access to education
 AIDS
 Polygamy
An Alternative to
Moral Relativism,
Lengbeyer
► Students
often prefer ethical relativism
to ethical objectivism.
► Both relativism and objectivism are
defective.
Lengbeyer
► There
is an alternative, called ethical
pluralism.
► The core claim of ethical pluralism is
that there are multiple correct answers
to ethical questions.
► Is pluralism plausible?
Who’s to Judge?
Pojman
► Pojman
rejects relativism in its
individual and cultural forms.
► Cultural relativism, the Diversity
Thesis, and the Dependency Thesis
► Subjectivism leads to absurdities.
Pojman
► Relativists
treat tolerance as an
objective value, and this is
inconsistent with their view.
► Relativism has other disturbing
consequences.
Pojman
► Summary:
(i) cultural relativism does
not entail ethical relativism; (ii) the
Dependency thesis is false; and (iii)
universal moral truths exist, grounded
in “a common human nature and the
need to solve conflicts of interest and
flourish (p. 112).”
The Objective Basis
of Morality, Nagel
► Why
should we care about others?
► Religious answers
► “How would you like it if someone did
that to you? (p. 115)”
The Deep Beauty of
the Golden Rule,
MacIver
► The Golden Rule is a universal
procedural rule of ethics.
► We can test our values with the
Golden Rule.
► The Golden Rule, if followed, would
produce social harmony.
I Have a Dream,
Martin Luther King
► There
are many universal moral
principles appealed to in this famous
speech.
► King appeals to the rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
as well as justice.
The Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights
► The
Preamble
► Articles 1-20: negative rights
► Articles 21-28: positive rights
► The final 2 articles