Crolyn Fluehr-Lobban
ANTHROPOLOGISTS, CULTURAL
RELATIVISM & UNIVERSAL RIGHTS
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
• No distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory
to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust,
non-self-governing or under any other limitation of
sovereignty.
What is ‘Cultural Relativism’?
T 1. People’s beliefs, attitudes, tastes, etc. are significantly
affected by their culture--and people in different cultures
have very different beliefs, attitudes, tastes, etc.
T 2. Methodological cultural relativism: cultures should be
studied on their own terms.
F 3. Actions are right or wrong to the extent and only to
the extent that they conform or don’t conform to
cultural norms.
Some Questions
• When do ‘cultural practices cross the line and become
violations of human rights?
• Self-regarding actions: actions that have no significant direct
effect on anyone but the agent. (Mill on the Harm Principle)
– e.g. suicide vs. murder
– Note: self-regarding actions may have significant fallout,
e.g. assisted suicide
• Cultural practices that are self-regarding don’t cross the line
– E.g. not wearing pants, eating bugs, worshipping idols…
The Hard Question
• Which non-self-regarding actions or practices are universally,
cross-culturally morally unacceptable?
– Plausible only if fairly abstract
– E.g. not specific practices like polygamy, which may have
different consequences in different circumstances.
• ‘What authority do we Westerners have to impose our own
concept of universal rights on the rest of humanity?’
• The hard question: what is the Good Life?
Wittgenstinian Bedrock
Is Ethics
a game without rules?
Moral Principles
• An individual action is right or wrong in virtue of
some general principle concerning kinds of actions:
• An action is <right, wrong> if it is an action of kind K
• NB: K may be a description of actions at a high level
of generality!
– E.g. ‘maximizing utility’, ‘treating people as endsin-themselves’ rather than, e.g. ‘lying’, ‘practicing
polygamy’, etc.
• An ethical relativist says that there is no way of filling
in that K—no universal moral principles.
Different Kinds of Rules
• Moral principles are
– Universalizable
– Categorical
• Rules of Etiquette: not universalizable
– E.g. don’t run around in public nekkid
• Councils of Prudence: not categorical
– E.g. take care of your health: exercise, don’t eat junk food
Ethical Relativism
• There are no true universal moral judgments.
• Moral judgments:
– __ is wrong
– __ is right
– __ is obligatory
– __ is good
– __ is bad
– Etc.
Ethical Universalism
• There is some kind of action that’s always right or always
wrong.
• NB! The relevant kind may be something very general, e.g.
‘doing something that brings about the greatest good for the
greatest number’!
Reflective Equilibrium
The method of reflective equilibrium consists in working back
and forth among our considered judgments (some say our
"intuitions") about particular instances or cases [and] the
principles or rules that we believe govern them…revising any of
these elements wherever necessary in order to achieve an
acceptable coherence among them. The method succeeds and
we achieve reflective equilibrium when we arrive at an
acceptable coherence among these beliefs. An acceptable
coherence requires that our beliefs not only be consistent with
each other…but that some of these beliefs provide support or
provide a best explanation for others. Moreover, in the process
we may not only modify prior beliefs but add new beliefs as well.
Reflective Equilibrium
The key idea underlying this view of justification is that we "test"
various parts of our system of beliefs against the other beliefs we
hold, looking for ways in which some of these beliefs support
others, seeking coherence among the widest set of beliefs, and
revising and refining them at all levels when challenges to some
arise from others.
For example, a moral principle or moral judgment about a
particular action…would be justified if it cohered with the rest of
our beliefs about right action…on due reflection and after
appropriate revisions throughout our system of beliefs.
Theory Construction in Ethics
• Reflective equilibrium: theory construction in ethics is
comparable to theory construction in science
• We get data--our “moral intuitions” about real and
imaginary cases
• We generalize
• We test our generalizations against further data
• We keep going back and forth until we achieve a
“reflective equilibrium”
A sample theory to test
The Wiccan Rede: Harm none
The Wiccan Rede prohibits
eating obliging strangers…
A Case of Easy Rescue
What is “harm”? Failing to help in some cases
when we don’t actually do harm can be wrong.
Setting a bad example
Even when an action doesn’t directly harm anyone it may
still make others worse off by setting a bad example,
establishing a bad precedent or undermining institutions
that are in the public interest.
Self-Regarding Actions…
…may have consequences for other members
of an identifiable group.
Contributing to harmful practices
Some kinds of actions that are harmless individually
are harmful when lots of people do them
Another sample theory: Utilitarianism
• PU: an act is right iff it maximizes utility
• Consider moral intuitions that support the theory
• Consider those that are go against the theory
(example: the promise to the dead man problem)
• What should we do if intuitions go against
the theory:
– reject the intuitions and keep the theory?
– reject the theory in favor on one that
explains our intuitions?
– modify the theory to accommodate our
intuitions?
The Promise to the Dead Man Case
Promise that
when I’m dead
you’ll give me
decent burial
Maximizing utility
The greatest good
for the greatest number!
A good Utilitarian cuts up the body and uses it as fish bait.
Conclusion of the Argument
• Even if end we agree to disagree, we can
reason about moral issues
• Ethics is not a game without rules
– It is not merely “subjective”
– It is not just a matter of personal feelings
– It is not something we have to take on faith
Cultural relativism or ethical universalism?
RECOGNIZING CULTURAL
DIFFERENCES
Cultural Relativism: reflections
• Practices that produce good results in one culture
may not produce good results in another, e.g.
polygamy.
• Actions that are wrong may be excusable and people
that do them may not be blameworthy.
• Even if an action is wrong, it doesn’t follow that it
would be right to stop people from doing it.
Countries where polygamy is legal
Different Questions
Is it wrong?
Can you blame them?
• excusing conditions
• mitigating conditions
Should you stop them?
• might violate commitments
• might be worse on net
Charles Napier on Sati
Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pyre.
But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang
them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect
gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let
us all act according to national customs.
Costs and Benefits of Intervention
• From the Utilitarian point of view, all practical decisions are
cost/benefit decisions, e.g.
• Example: ‘Trigger Warnings’ and other restrictions on speech
– Costs: hassle, undermines academic freedom, makes it
difficult to address questions of interest.
• Example: Intervening to stop FGM
– Potential violations of national sovereignty, social
disruption, anti-colonialist push-back, illegality makes
procedure more dangerous (compare prostitution)
James Rachels
THE CHALLENGE
OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Reflects Good Impulses
• Cultural Relativism warns us, quite rightly, about the danger of
assuming that all our preferences are based on some absolute
rational standard.
• Critically reflect, don’t confuse moral judgment with satisfaction of
standards imposed by custom, convention or niceness.
– E.g. is Vandana Shiva (or any public figure) owed ‘respect’ in
class discussion? Should Charlie Hebdo respect Mohammed?
• Ethical judgements are universalizable, unlike
– Custom
– Etiquette
More Good Impulses
• Keeping an open mind
• Feelings are not moral judgments: resisting the Yuck Factor
– We begin with intuitions but don’t end there
• Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt): an empirical theory
intended to explain the origin of and variation in moral
reasoning.
• Reflective equilibrium account critically reflects on origin and
variation in moral reasoning, aiming to arrive at principles
that back correct moral judgments.
Haidt: Bases of Moral Intuitions
• Care/harm: cherishing and protecting others.
• Fairness/cheating: rendering justice according to shared
rules. (Alternate name: Proportionality)
• Liberty/oppression: the loathing of tyranny.
• Loyalty/betrayal: standing with your group, family, nation.
(Alternate name: Ingroup)
• Authority/subversion: obeying tradition and legitimate
authority. (Alternate name: Respect.)
• Sanctity/degradation: abhorrence for disgusting things,
foods, actions. (Alternate name: Purity.)
Cultural Relativist Doctrines
1.
Different societies have different moral codes.
2.
There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal
code better than another.
3.
The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is merely one
among many.
4.
There is no "universal truth" in ethics— that is, there are no moral truths
that hold for all peoples at all times.
5.
The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society;
that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right,
then that action is right, at least within that society.
6.
It is mere arrogance for us to try to judge the conduct of other peoples.
We should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other
cultures.
‘The moral code of a society determines what is right’
When in Rome…do as the Romans do.
The Cultural Difference Argument
The Argument:
1. Different cultures have different moral codes.
2. Therefore, there is no ‘objective truth’ in morality: right and
wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from
culture to culture.
Problem: believing doesn’t make it (2) so.
Note: this doesn’t mean (2) is false.
Cultural Relativism Consequences
• We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are
morally inferior to our own.
• This doesn’t just mean we shouldn’t intervene, or blame: it means
there’s no basis for regarding customs as undesirable.
• Counterexamples?
– FGM?
– Slavery?
– Genocide?
– Apartheid?
Cultural Relativism: Consequences
We could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by
consulting the standards of our society.
• Can’t criticize other societies, e.g. Apartheid South Africa
• Can’t criticize our own society (are we perfect?)
Cultural Relativism: Consequences
• The idea of moral progress is called into doubt.
• Critique: vide, e.g. Stephen Pinker The Better Angels of Out
Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
• The (global) economic emergence of women.
How much disagreement is there?
• Why Pythagoreans refrain from beans…
• Eskimo infanticide (costs and benefits in circumstances)
Common Values?
• Evolutionary argument for nurturing children
• Truth-telling and promise-keeping