So I found this video on youtube.

[AshleyO]

http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSo.../1/T7xt5LtgsxQ

And I felt it was interesting to point out that this guy doesn't seem to completely agree with cultural relativism.

As a general rule, I kinda think cultural relativism is a good approach to understanding our world but also being able to admit that we don't always have all the answers.

However, how does cultural relativism coincide with trying to make positive moral claims in regards to I think mostly Society 3. If I remember correctly, he actually attacks the notion of using cultural relativism as an excuse for abiding morally ambiguous acts.

[Spooky Spencer]

Oooh! Is this the part where we compare and contrast the ethnocentrism of our membership on this forum?

[Saya]

Oooh, I just did a course on religious ethics, but most of the course was just talking about different theories of ethics and then sometimes mentioning its impact on religion (it was a philosophy course in disguise).

Not all ethical theories say that morality is judged by the potential harm. Ethical egoism is still pretty common in all kinds of circles, and what exactly is harm isn't consistent either. Like, we all pretty much agree murder is wrong (although some of us make exceptions, i.e. capital punishment), but economic aggression is often legal and hey, its just how capitalism rolls. In some societies not sharing is considered an act of violence and they probably think we're awful horrible morally backwards people. What level of harm is acceptable and not acceptable is something we argue about every day, isn't it?

I think cultural relativism is very useful, but can't be the only ethical theory to use, some things I think are inherently moral or immoral, and I usually look at harm involved too, but I don't like the idea that some cultures are more morally developed than others. We are kinda American centric here but we can find terrible things wrong with almost all of the countries we talk about or come from, and in this era of globalization where we fund the dictators and oppressors because we benefit from it (by "we" I mean collectively the "developed" nations), we are often complicit in the systems of oppression in countries most citizens might not even have heard of. Citizens of other countries probably can recognize oppression, and a) are unable currently to overthrow the powers that be or b) recognize different ways of dealing with oppression. The idea that some other cultures are more primitive has been an excuse for colonialism and imperialism for a long time, and continues today.

Might have been more effective to point out that many ethical theories while impacted religion and were often influenced by religion, don't necessarily require religion, it seems he mostly has a beef with deontological ethics but I don't think even then all deontological ethical theories require religion, and it isn't the only model of ethics that religion might appeal to, i.e. virtue ethics.

[AshleyO]

Yeah. I just thought it was interesting because I always thought cultural relativism was a decent standard to operate on, and at the very least, a way of keeping one's own standards in check.

But where does one draw the line?

In the case for society 3, we have uneducated women. And as insane as it might sound, many of those women, no maybe even a part of the identity of being a woman in that society is to be uneducated. "I must be uneducated in order to be a woman!" A bit of a drastic quote to be sure, but is that really so different than saying "Only knowledge is meant for the man."

The speaker seems to imply that the right thing to do in that society would be to turn the women's heads to the light of the sun. And as reasonable as that might sound, it's frustrating to know that in essence, you are causing harm to one's identity.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by AshleyO

Yeah. I just thought it was interesting because I always thought cultural relativism was a decent standard to operate on, and at the very least, a way of keeping one's own standards in check.

But where does one draw the line?

In the case for society 3, we have uneducated women. And as insane as it might sound, many of those women, no maybe even a part of the identity of being a woman in that society is to be uneducated. "I must be uneducated in order to be a woman!" A bit of a drastic quote to be sure, but is that really so different than saying "Only knowledge is meant for the man."

The speaker seems to imply that the right thing to do in that society would be to turn the women's heads to the light of the sun. And as reasonable as that might sound, it's frustrating to know that in essence, you are causing harm to one's identity.

Right, and we use that kind of justification to cause harm to other countries. We had to read an article in the winter semester called "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?" by Lila Abu-Lughod, which was about how colonial feminism was a justification for the invasion of Afghanistan, and that justification is still used, and has been used before (like the French "liberating" women from the veil to justify their occupation of Algeria).

We've taken the burqa to be the symbol of women oppression, and it was barbaric to force women to wear them and now that they are no longer forced everything is better and they won't want to wear one. But the burqa predates the Taliban and many women still wear it out of choice, its sort of a mobile home for them, means safety and shows off their status as house wives. The argument that the burqa is oppressive has a lot of merit, but it doesn't mean these women are backwards for liking to wear it or we're doing them any favours by banning women from wearing it here.

But certain things like female genital mutilation, I don't think the morality of that is subjective, you know? I think with burqas the harm is debatable, and ultimately it should be a woman's choice to dress herself, lack of education the harm is social/institutional exclusion and harm in a way that its oppressive, but FGM is physical torture, harm and will cause many girls and women to die. The harm with FGM is undeniably and therefore immoral, but the other two relativism does help us understand, and often the reasons for it aren't very simple. Like, if a government bans women from reading, but many civilians hate that, how can we say that society is morally primitive? The problem is with the oppressive government, often who which go against the people's will. I disagree vehemently with the Iraq War but I don't think all Americans are morally bankrupt for their government's policy.

[Alan]

The fuck are you guys talking about? That video was not about cultural relativism at all.

[ape descendant]

I figured this video was more about thinking for ourselves about what is moral/amoral regardless of the cultural glasses we've been taught to see though growing up.

[AshleyO]

Originally Posted by Alan

The fuck are you guys talking about? That video was not about cultural relativism at all.

He was talking about how you can't use "culture" as an excuse to condone bad behavior. It's towards the end of the video.

Word.

[Alan]

Speaking against traditionalism is not the same as speaking against cultural relativism.
He is telling people from his same culture that they can't use culture to justify their moral stances. If he were to say this to other cultures, it would still have to be from inside the culture. If he did otherwise, then he's just a chauvinist all the same.

[AshleyO]

That's kind of what I was talking about.

Does he actually have a place to criticize the religions and ritual practice of other cultures? He may have full reign on condemning Christianity, but is it okay for him to apply those same standards to Islam, which actually may not be within his cultural jurisdiction?