CULTURAL RELATIVISM
To many people, the idea that morality is relative to culture is obvious. It seems obvious primarily because modern sociology has left no doubt that people’s moral judgments differ from culture to cul- ture. The moral judgments of people in other cultures are often shockingly different from our own. In some societies, it is morally permissible to kill infants at birth, burn widows alive with the bodies of their husbands, steal and commit acts of treachery, surgically remove the clitorises of young girls for no medical reason, kill one’s elderly par- ents, have multiple husbands or wives, and make up for someone’s death by murdering others. Among some people, it has been considered morally acceptable to kill those of a different sexual orientation, lynch persons with a different skin
1Walter T. Stace, The Concept of Morals (1937; reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1965), 8–58.
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fact an empty dream, we should state the argument more precisely and examine it closely. We can lay out the argument like this:
1. People’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture.
2. If people’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture, then right and wrong are relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles.
3. Therefore, right and wrong are relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles.
A good argument gives us good reason to accept its conclusion, and an argument is good if its logic is solid (the conclusion follows logically from the premises) and the premises are true. So is the foregoing argument a good one? We can see
right away that the logic is in fact solid. That is, the argument is valid: the conclusion does indeed follow from the premises. The question then becomes whether the premises are true. As we have seen, Premise 1 is most certainly true. People’s judg- ments about right and wrong do vary from culture to culture. But what of Premise 2? Does the diver- sity of views about right and wrong among cultures show that right and wrong are determined by cul- ture, that there are no universal moral truths? There are good reasons to think this premise false.
Premise 2 says that because there are disagree- ments among cultures about right and wrong, there must not be any universal standards of right and wrong. But even if the moral judgments of people in various cultures do differ, such differ- ence in itself does not show that morality is rela- tive to culture. Just because people in different cultures have different views about morality, their
24 Á PART 1: FUNDAMENTALS
’ In recent years many conflicts have flared between those who espouse universal human rights and those who embrace cultural relativism. One issue that has been a flashpoint in the contentious debates is a practice called female genital cutting (FGC). Other names include female circumcision and female genital mutilation.
In FGC, all or part of the female genitals are removed. The procedure, used mostly in Africa and the Middle East, is usually performed on girls between the ages of four and eight, but sometimes on young women. A report in the Yale Journal of Public Health states that in Sudan 89 percent of girls receive FGC and that the cutting tools “include knives, scissors, razors, and broken glass. The opera- tion is typically performed by elderly women or traditional birth attendants, though increasing num- bers of doctors are taking over these roles.”* The practice occurs for various reasons, including reli- gious and sociological, and is defended by some
who say that it prepares girls for their role in society and marriage and discourages illicit sex.
Public health officials regard FGC as a serious health problem. It can cause reproductive tract infections, pain during intercourse, painful men- struation, complications during childbirth, greater risk of HIV infection, bleeding, and even death. International health agencies denounce FGC, but many say that no one outside a culture using FGC has a right to criticize the practice.