How Plausible is Cultural Relativism

        It is also possible to question Rachels’ assertation that different societies have different moral codes. All societies, for instance, prohibit murder, rape and steeling which are all actions that most humans consider morally wrong regardless of the society that they are from. On a more fundamental level, there appears to exist a basic moral drive that is similar within all humans regardless of their cultural background: “underlying our moral impulses, then, are natural sentiments of benevolence.” The desire to act positively that is evident in all cultural codes exists due to an underlying element of moral awareness that is part of the human psyche. All laws or cultural traditions are similar in that they seek ‘right’ in some way, so it becomes difficult to argue that cultural ‘habits’ are all that determine morality. It seems that there is a deeper level of moral awareness within humans. On the other hand though, Kant believed that “human beings are not capable of direct, unmediated knowledge of the world” and if this were the case, then any argument for an inbuilt moral awareness within humans is crushed.

        Rachels also implies that the moral code of any given society is infallible due to the absence of objective truths or standards. According to this view, if a culture allowed slavery again, people from different cultures would have no grounds to oppose it because they should respect cultural differences. However, whilst social tolerance is vital, it is also important to scrutinise moral codes of other cultures in order to improve morality among humans as a whole. Added to this though is the problem of ethnocentrism: a natural human bias which places “one’s own group… [at the]…centre of everything.” Therefore, to impartially scrutinise another culture is an almost impossible task, because we are unable to judge an act purely on its merits due to our subconscious, culturally influenced, moral ideas.

The absence of any form of objective moral standards means that moral inferiority cannot exist, thus implying that Nazi ideologies are as morally acceptable as Buddhist beliefs. It also eliminates the possibility of any form of moral progress (e.g. the suffragettes) because there is no eventual moral goal or aim: all states of morality are equal. This is a major criticism of cultural relativism, because to deny any sense of moral progression or comparison makes the role of humans as moral agents redundant. Human actions or beliefs become entirely irrelevant.

        Consequently, there have been a number of influential moral absolutists who totally reject the idea of relativism. Plato, for instance, believed in the existence of a ‘realm of forms:’ a place beyond this world where the perfect model of anything exists. This would include a perfect form of “goodness” which suggests an objective notion of morality. The Divine Command Theory is another example of an absolutist moral theory which claims that something can only be morally good if God commands it. Aquinas believed that “natural law is the same for all men…there is a single standard of truth and right for everyone” In a more modern context, the UN Declaration of Human Rights sets out a list of absolute and universal rules. Therefore, absolutism is a lot clearer and more practical when applied to everyday use, and also gives us a sense of worth and meaning. However, this is a typically arrogant human perspective that assumes our existence, and our moral actions, to have some great level of importance within the context of the universe. Another problem with absolutism is that it does not take into account circumstances of a situation and can be intolerant to cultural diversity. Therefore, to assess the plausibility of cultural relativism, one has to decide whether they personally believe in the existence of objective moral truths.

An alternative, and perhaps the most plausible, view of the derivation of our morality is presented by intuitionists. They believe that to try and define a word such as ‘good’ is like trying to define a word such as ‘yellow’: a naturalistic fallacy. Examples of ‘good’ or ‘yellow’ things can be given but they themselves are ultimately indefinable. G.E. Moore claimed that all moral judgements are therefore based on a fallible intuitive knowledge of good things. Prichard built on this and differentiated between two types of thinking: general reasoning and moral intuition. Essentially, reason collects the facts concerned and intuition determines the course to follow. However, as Vardy points out, all intuitionists naturally appeal to the idea that ‘good’ is objective by accepting that intuition is fallible. Prichard may respond by claiming that we have an objective duty to do good, but our intuition is subjective and circumstantial, and different motives drive different people: “[a moral action is the] conscious origination of something, an origination which on different occasions or in different people may be prompted by different motives.”

Another alternative view to cultural relativism would be the views of a psychological egoist who claim that each person will always sub-consciously pursue his/her own self-interest. The theory interprets any act to be ultimately motivated by a desire to do what we want in order to make us feel good. However, one could argue that the satisfaction that comes from doing a morally good act is merely a bi-product as opposed to being the reason for carrying out the act. Nevertheless, psychological egoism is irrefutable because it is based on speculation. This, though, does not make it any more plausible.

Overall, it is evident that the main question surrounding moral philosophy concerns what inspires us to do, or at least be aware of, ‘goodness.’ The argument of cultural relativism is strong because different cultures clearly do have different moral outlooks. However, it does seem to be a much too narrow and simplistic view to attribute all morality to cultural ‘habits’. Whilst I would disagree with the existence of objective universal truths, we appear to have an intuitive awareness of what is good which “engages us to pay [regard] to the interests of mankind and society”. Essentially therefore, cultural relativism is a plausible theory because the influences of society do have a role to play when we make moral decisions. However, the natural moral intuition within humans appears to be the most important factor in moral decisions.

Bibliography

• Richard Norman, The Moral Philosophers (2nd ed.), 1998, Oxford University Press
• James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 2003, McGraw-Hill Companies
• Robert A Bowie, Ethical Studies, 2001, Nelson Thornes
• Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: The Basics, 1995, Routledge
• John Cottingham, Western Philosophy: An Anthology, 1996, Blackwell
• Plato, The Republic, 1987, Penguin