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________was practiced in ancient Greece.
Infanticide
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_______allowed their elderly to die by starvation
Eskimos
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___________and___________ believe that stealing is morally right.
- The Spartans of ancient Greece
- The Dobu of New Guinea
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In __________, the father (under the rule of patria familia) was permitted to slay his children without being punished.
Ancient Rome
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A tribe in _______ once threw deformed infants to the___________
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A tribe in_________ views cooperation and kindness as vices.
Melanesia
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The anthropologist____________ has documented that the Ik in Northern Uganda have no sense of duty toward their children or
parents.
Colin Turnbull
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In_____,the culture holds that girls who are raped are so shamed that their brothers may kill them.
Iraq
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In many parts of northern Africa and southern Arabia, millions of girls undergo____________,but our culture condemns all of these practices.
genital mutilation(clitoridectomies)
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________ stated that We learn the [morals] as unconsciously as we learn to walk and hear and breathe,and [we] never know any reason why the [morals] are what they are.The justification of them is that when we wake to consciousness of life we find them facts,which already hold us in the bonds of tradition, custom,and habit.
William Graham Sumners
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Cultural differences regarding moral norms exist both from nation to nation and in the same nation overtime.
Cultural relativsm
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is a descriptive thesis, announcing observational facts, that there is moral diversity in the world.
Cultural relativism
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isa normative or philosophical thesis,stating a theory about morality-namely,there are no universal objective moral principles binding on all people every where and at all times.
Ethical relativism
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holds that there are no universally valid
moral principles, but rather that all moral principles are valid relative to culture or individual choice.
Ethical relativism
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Argument for Ethical Relativism
- 1. What is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society so that there are no universal moral standards held by all societies.
- 2. Whether it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on or is relative to the society to which he or she belongs.
- 3. Therefore, there are no absolute, or objective, moral standards that apply to all people everywhere and at all times.
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Melville Herskovitz and Intercultural Tolerance
- 1. If morality is relative to its culture, then there is no independent basis for criticizing the morality of any other culture but one's own.
- 2. If there is no independent way of criticizing any other culture, then we ought to be tolerant of the moralities of other cultures.
- 3. Morality is relative to its culture.
- 4. Therefore, we ought to be tolerant of the moralities of other cultures.
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Morality is in the eye of the beholder.
It depends on perception.
Subjective Ethical Relativism (Subjectivism)
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So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after and judged by these moral standards, which I do not defend, the bullfight is very moral to me because I feel very fine while it is going on and have a feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality, and after it is over I feel very sad but very fine.
Ernest Hemingway
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Ethical Objectivism
- 1. Human nature is relatively similar in essential respects, having a common set of basic needs and interests.
- 2. Moral principles are functions of human needs and interests, instituted by reason in order to meet the needs and promote the most significant interests of human (or rational) beings.
- 4. Principles that will meet essential human needs and promote the most significant interests in optimal ways are objectively valid moral principles.
- 5. Therefore, since there is a common human nature, there is an objectively valid set of moral principles, applicable to all humanity (or rational beings).
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Natural Law Tradition
- 1. Human beings have an essential rational nature established by God, who designed us to live and flourish in prescribed ways (from Aristotle and the Stoics).
- 2. Even without knowledge of God, reason, as the essence of our nature, can discover the laws necessary for human flourishing (from Aristotle; developed by Aquinas).
- 3. The natural laws are universal and unchangeable, and one should use them to judge individual societies and their positive laws. Positive (or actual) laws of societies that are not in line with the natural law are not trulv laws but counterfeits (from the Stoics).
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