Task 1: read the PDF I upload and do a writing assignment (about 1 page) Task 2: Discussion Initial Post 150 words + 3 replies (each 50-75 words) Task 3: 10 multiple choices I will upload instructions in detail in word format. Three tasks have different due time

Task 1: read a passage and do a writing assignment (about 1 page)

Task 2: Discussion Initial Post 150 words + 3 replies (each 50-75 words)

Task 3: 10 multiple choices (Due at 5/24 11:59am)

I will put the instructions separately.

 

Task 1 (Due at 5/21 4pm)

In class and in the readings, we covered what the different kinds of relativism are and some of the various arguments for moral relativism. In this assignment you need to:

1. Choose one of the arguments for moral relativism
2. Explain that argument
3. Explain at least one of the problems the argument has
4. Say how serious you think the problem is and why you think that

Each of these should take you around a paragraph to answer. Each of them are worth 5pts. Since this is worth 20pts, this is worth 5% of your total grade.

Example:

This is a bare outline of a possible paper, there is no explanations or anything like that in it:

1. One of the arguments for moral relativity is the Cultural Differences Argument.
   1. Explanation of the Cultural Differences Argument.
2. One of the problems for this argument is that it is not valid.
   1. Examples of its invalidity
3. I think that this is not a damning objection.
   1. The reason for this is that I am a poor scientist/philosopher and will hold my stance no matter what and for any reason.

In this version, I would be able to do the entire paper in 3 paragraphs. If you go that route, make it clear to me where the individual parts are.

 

 

Task 2 (Initial post due at 5/22 4pm, after u give the initial post, I will send you what to reply, replies are due 5/24 11:59pm)

The Dip Discussion (Discussion 7)

Purpose:

The purpose of this discussion is for you to think critically about what make actions right or wrong, why do people’s intuitions about similar cases seem so different. This will help you make better explanations of your actions in the future and also, if you find that you have done wrong, make better excuses.

Case:

In some Inuit cultures, there is a common practice know as ‘the dip’ (my translation). When a child is born in the dead of winter, it is common for the mother to carve out a hole in the ice and place the child in the water. This kills the child instantly (infanticide). This is done purely at the parents’ discretion and there is no negative stigma about it. Old people also, when they became too feeble to contribute to the family, were left out in the snow to die.

You may remember this case from the pages of the module.

Task:

1. For your initial post, you need to:
   • Think carefully about the dip. Are the cultures which do this doing something morally wrong? What reason can you think of for them killing babies? Do they value human life?
   • Say why you think that. As always these cases, you should not say merely that this is how you feel, but rather explain why you have that feeling.
   • Say how you think another student may reply to your stance.
2. Reply to 3 other students in this class who have opposing views to you or take on the role as the devil’s advocate and object to them. If possible, avoid replying in the way that they thought someone might reply.

 

Task 3

I will send the 10 multiple questions to you after you finish the assignment and initial post.

The Cultural Differences Argument and Its Problems

Some Examples to Start Us Off

Often, people argue for moral relativism by pointing to examples, it is often claimed that due to the differences in moral beliefs, there must not be an objective, absolute morality. If you remember from my charts, the moral relativism still holds that there are moral truths, but those truths are relative to the culture. Cultural Moral Relativism is by far the most common stance found in popular culture, so that’s the one we will point to, but individual moral relativism has similar problems as well as others unique to it. Here is a classical example used to argue for Cultural Moral Relativism:

Darius, a king of ancient Persia, was intrigued by the variety of cultures he encountered in his travels. The Callatians (a tribe of Indians) customarily ate the bodies of their dead fathers. The Greeks practiced cremation. Darius thought that an understanding of the world must include an appreciation of such differences. One day, he brought some Greeks who happened to be present and asked them what they would take to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They were shocked and replied that no amount of money could persuade them to do such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians, and while the Greeks listened asked them what they would take to burn their dead fathers’ bodies. The Callatians were horrified and told Darius not even to mention such a dreadful thing. The two people had a very similar reaction to the opposite actions.¹

From this, we can see that two cultures, when the encountered the customs of the other were equally mortified. but sometimes, even the most ‘socially aware’ of us will be mortified by customs found in other cultures. Take this example:

In some Inuit cultures, there is a common practice know as ‘the dip’ (my translation). When a child is born in the dead of winter, it is common for the mother to carve out a hole in the ice and place the child in the water. This kills the child instantly (infanticide). This is done purely at the parents’ discretion and there is no negative stigma about it. Old people also, when they became too feeble to contribute to the family, were left out in the snow to die.

The above example is used in the discussion for this module. The lesson from these two stories (the second of which I have seen it used as examples enough for me to think it’s true) is that different cultures have different moral codes. What is seen as just fine in one culture is seen as horrifying in another. For a fictional case, take this example:

For most of the world, the elderly are treated with respect and cared for until their natural death. The Kaelon people are different. In this society, the prevailing view is that it’s the duty of the ‘elderly’ to leave their tasks to the next generation, that forcing the next generation to care for the elderly is cruel,  and that having death come for a person  seemingly randomly is heartless. So, when a Kaelon turns 60 years old, they undergo the Resolution. In it, a great party is thrown, celebrating their life and accomplishments, and afterwards, the Kaelon commits suicide. Living past this point is seen as greedy, their time is up and their accomplishments after this point are seen as stolen from the next generation. This is expected of all Kaelons, refusing to kill yourself at the allotted time will cause even family members to be ashamed of you. If a Kaelon seeks asylum to avoid the Resolution, the Kaelons will declare war on the other culture in order to kill the person.²

Many have looked at examples like this and have thought that there must not be an actual objective truth about morality, that it must merely be opinion, either held by a person or collectively as a group. This leads us to:

THE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ARGUMENT!

These examples, and my not so subtle  hints, point to a very interesting argument. It seems, given how I have framed it, the most socially conscious stance would be one which puts all cultural customs on equal footing, to not have some objective measure which can be used to discriminate against a culture. So, using this observation, we get this argument:

1. Different cultures have different moral codes.
2. Therefore, there is no objective “truth” about morality.
3. There is disagreement about morality.
4. Therefore, there’s no objective fact of the matter about morality.

But, does this show that the next module in this class is going to be gibberish? Well, no. Though there are some moral relativists out there in philosophy today, there are very few, and no philosopher (no really good philosopher) is a moral relativist because of this argument. There are many problems with it which are worth exploring.

Problem: It isn’t a good argument

For an argument to be good, philosophers have a pretty high standard. The conclusion needs to follow from the premises necessarily. There can be no case where the premises are true and the conclusion false (this is called ‘validity’). If an argument is not valid, then it is not sound. The first line of the argument concerns what people believe while the conclusion concerns what is actually the case. The issue with this sort of reasoning can be seen using a similar sort of method as the Limitation of the Conclusion problems in the arguments for the existence of God. If you think that The Cultural Differences Argument is accurate, then you will, by the same reasoning, need to think that these arguments are accurate:

1. Different cultures/people have different beliefs about the shape of the earth.
2. Therefore, there is no fact of the matter about the shape of the earth.
3. Different people have different beliefs about global warming.
4. Therefore, there’s no fact of the matter about global warming.

This argument follows the exact same reasoning as the cultural differences argument. If it works for one then it should work for the other. But, we can also look at the spirit of the argument, and attack that as well.

Problem: Cultural Oppression

Though the argument may not be any good, all that shows is that the argument isn’t good. It does not show that morality is objective. But, if we look at the last example I gave, involving the Kaelons, we see something interesting. If morality is relative to a culture, there’s nothing stopping one culture, morally speaking, from oppressing people in their culture and oppressing people in other cultures. For example, if there are no objective moral facts, then there would be nothing wrong with the Kaelons declaring war on another culture for allowing someone to receive asylum. Similarly, there would be nothing wrong with the Kaelons forcing members of their culture to unwillingly commit suicide. This sort of case can be found in history as well, with the sear number of examples being too numerous to list. This is a problem which will appear again later in this class, because it’s more obvious inside another argument.

Cultural Imperialism

Throughout history, we have seen cases of one culture forcing beliefs and moral stances onto another. For example, we have the forced religious conversions of the Aztecs by the Spanish, we have the boarding schools which the US put Native American children in, and in China, we have the Uyghurs being put into ‘reeducation camps’ (this may still be happening, this is true as of 2018). All of these examples have/had the same purpose: changing the practices, religions, and moral ideologies of the people.

Cultural Imperialism is the reason for these behaviors, why cultures force themselves on others in this way (and sometimes in even more violent ways). Cultural Imperialism is the stance your culture as all of the right answers, morally speaking, your culture is perfect, and because of this, you are justified in forcing other cultures to change (typically to your own). But, looking at the number of examples from history, we can see that this imperialism is wrong, it should not be done. This can be seen both from an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective. Naturally, this perspective on Imperialism leads easily to Cultural Moral Relativism, because it seems never to be right to judge the values of one culture against the values of another. Put more formally, we get this argument:

The Cultural Imperialism Argument

1. Cultural Imperialism is morally wrong. (Intuition).
   This follows from the examples which I have given, many argue that this sort of behavior is wrong and should not be done at all. The main reason for the Prime Directive in Star Trek is because of the base line principle, you need to let cultures’ internal matters be internal matters.
2. If Cultural Imperialism is morally wrong, then it is wrong to judge the values of one culture against the values of another. (Consequence of it being wrong)
   This, in turn, is a consequence of the wrongness of Cultural Imperialism (the first line). Basically, if it was OK to make judgments about other cultures’ practices, then it would be OK to act on those judgments. Acting on those judgments would be Cultural Imperialism, which we said was wrong.
3. If it is wrong to judge the values of one culture against the values of another, then no person is ever justified in criticizing the moral norms of another culture. (Consequence of the consequence)
   This is a consequence of the wrongness of the judgments about a culture. Criticizing a culture’s practices, in either word or action, is wrong by the same reasoning as Cultural Imperialism. The exact reasoning is found in the previous line.
4. If no person is ever justified in criticizing the moral norms of another culture, there are no non-relative moral truths (they are all relative to culture). (Consequence)
   This is the final line of support for the conclusion. If there were an absolute, objective, moral rule, or set of rules, then it would be possible for a person to be correctly justified in criticizing another culture’s norms. All they would need to do is point to the objective rules and show that the culture is in violation of them. But, we have shown that a person can never be justified in this way, so, it would seem that there must not be an absolute moral standard (they are relative to the culture).
5. Therefore, there are no non-relative moral truths (they are all relative to culture).

Now, despite my build-up and explanation for this, there is a major issue with this argument, both in the way it’s constructed (though, technically valid) and the spirit behind it. For example, I can use this argument, exact same premises, to show that unicorns exist, 2+2=5, and anything else I could want.

The Problem

As I mentioned above, I can use this argument, not the structure, but the argument itself, to prove that mermaids exist. Any argument with this capability will be valid, but it will not be sound, there will be a factual error in it somewhere. For this one, let’s try and work out the factual error, and here it’s fairly easy to spot (hint, look at the first line and the last line):

Cultural Imperialism is morally wrong.

There are no non-relative moral truths.

The problem with this argument is that it’s contradictory. You are saying that the same is both true and false. In the first line, we are saying that Cultural Imperialism is wrong, which is not contradictory on its own (if you think that it can be OK, then you have included other aspects into it). Similarly, the last line says that all moral truths are relative. Again, not contradictory on its own. But, in combination, the lines conflict. The first line is a non-relative moral truth and the last line says that those don’t exist. This also attacks the spirit of the argument, in that the core premises/intuition which build it up come from the idea that Cultural Imperialism is wrong, which contradicts the point it’s trying to prove.

There are a few ways out for the Relativist. First, they could accept that some cases of Cultural Imperialism are fine, making it not always wrong. For example, we can see that the Allies entering WW2 to stop certain behaviors was Cultural Imperialism, but that wasn’t wrong. The issue with this is that if we go down this rabbit hole, we find that the cases where Cultural Imperialism is permissible are cases of objective moral truths, which limits the initial scope of Objectivism, but contradicts Relativism.

Another way out, which limits Cultural Moral Relativism further, is to say that there’s a distinction between internal and external behaviors. Internal behaviors are those which only apply to members of the same culture, while external behaviors are those which involve members of different cultures. Cultural Imperialism is an external behavior. The Relativist here can claim that the morality of internal behaviors is relative while the morality of external behaviors is objective. This has its own issues as well, mostly dealing with cases like the Kaelons which I gave before, and can be easily seen in that case.

 

So, If Moral Relativism is Wrong, What Next?

If you are willing to say that moral cultural relativism is wrong, and, given the general responses to the various problems with moral relativism as well as what can be expected from the tests, you likely are willing to say that it’s wrong, we have some problems. Namely, what is moral? Who decides who’s correct in a moral conflict? Where do moral truths come from? Here I will cover some of the basic questions which former relativists tend to give and the general responses (sometimes, the response will need to be more particular).

If culture’s don’t choose, what is morality?

There are a few ways to go about replying to this question. Morality/ethics centers around ‘should’ questions of a certain kind. When we ask questions like these, for example “what should I do?”, “should you call a doctor?”, “should you get the assignment in on time?”,  there are two different senses, which may or may not overlap, depending on context and relevance. Something is moral/ethical when it’s the correct answer to the question “what should I do?”, when we aren’t talking about practical cases (a practical case is one where you are asking about the correct way to perform some task, like changing the oil on your car). The cultural moral relativist would claim that the correct answer to the question in non-practical cases (for example, should I flip the switch in the trolley problem?) will depend on your culture and the norms associated with it. The moral objectivist, a moral realist who is also a non-relativist, would claim that there’s an actual answer to this question, which is not determined by your culture. The next module of this class covers some of the ways which philosophers have answered how to answer that question, without being relativist. Ethics is, at it’s core, trying to find the correct answer to this question.

You will notice that when I give examples of cultural norms, most of the time, these are cases where the culture got the answer wrong. Ethical theories are basically hypotheses about the correct way to get the answer to the question. Some theories point to absolute, objective duties which a person has (typically, it’s wrong to be irrational; acting in a certain way is irrational, therefore those ways of acting are wrong). Others point to the well-being of those affected (if an action makes the affected better off than otherwise, that’s the right action). Others still point to some exemplar of morality, some person who has the perfect character and then asks “what would that person do?”. You may have heard that kind of thinking before with ‘WWJD’.

Who decides who’s right in moral conflict?

A moral conflict is a case where two or more people/groups disagree about the answer to the “What should I do?” question, in the relevant sense. The moral cultural relativist has a simple way to answer it, almost too simple, “if it’s two groups in the same culture, the cultural norms settles the conflict, if it’s two cultures, there’s no real conflict.” But this just does not seem right, if you recall the last page, were this true, all civil rights movements would wrong, because the cultural norms would settle the conflict in favor of the oppressing group. Very few of us would want this. So, that’s out, but is there a non-cultural way to get the answer? This is the quest for the moral realist. It’s not going to be based on belief (as the relativist points to).

Recall the Cultural Differences Argument. This argument relies on moral conflicts/disagreements. But, do we always settle debates like that? There may be disagreement about something, anything (for that matter), but it doesn’t follow that there’s no fact of the matter. If there’s a conflict about math, we don’t say that there’s no answer, we consult the rules of mathematics (as they were discovered, not invented). When there’s a conflict in science, we don’t say that there’s no answer, we perform experiments and discover the truth. For the moral realist, settling moral conflicts is more like settling a conflict in math or science than one in art. Realists perform experiments and consult the rules of morality to settle the debates (and the experiments either further support the rules or give examples of amendments which should be made). The quest to get the non-relativist rule to settle moral conflicts is hard, but it does not seem impossible, we do make progress in it. There’s even a scientific-style method for figuring out which ethical theories should be applied and/or how they should be amended (as we will see in the next module).

In short, no one decides who’s right in a moral conflict, it’s just a fact that one is right and the other is wrong (contact me if you are interested in the philosophy of disagreement, I have readings readily available).

Where do moral truths come from?

Moral truths are the answers to the “what should I do?” question (in the relevant sense). The moral cultural relativist has a simple, again almost too simple, answer “from the beliefs of the culture.” Yet again, how can we possibly say that a culture has the wrong answer to the question when the culture chooses the answer? Like the issues before, this just can’t be right. So, the question for the realist is just that, where do they come from?

For the realist, this is like asking “where do scientific truths come from?” or “where do mathematical truths come from?”. Some moral realists point to God and say that all truths flow through Him, moral truths included, saying that God made them (an easy way to get all-knowing and all-good). Others point to the sort of creatures we are and our place in nature, these give us moral truths. Others still point to abstract notions of well-being or rationality.  And even more say that moral truths are things which just could not have been otherwise, they just always are, they didn’t “come from” anything. There is some debate about where they come from.

But, don’t lose heart! There’s just as much debate about where mathematical and scientific truths come from. For example, in the case of math, we could claim that the truths are necessary, they could not have been otherwise. We could claim, with just as much evidence, that the truths are constructs of the definitions of the terms which we are using overlapping in consistent ways (1+2=3 because of the definitions of the terms and operations). And we could also claim that the truths came from God.  As it turns out, in philosophy, the most common stance (for where mathematical truths come from and where moral truths come from) is that they always were and always will be.

What about forcing them onto another culture?

This is a hard problem, because one of the core intuitions behind the Moral Relativist, and one of the big reasons why the stance is contradictory, is that it’s wrong to force your morals onto another. The Moral Objectivist will claim that under the right circumstances, it’s morally required that you force another to change. To some, this feels wrong. This feeling, often, gets traced back to the horrors of history, which I used as examples for the intuition behind the Cultural Imperialism Argument, where one group imposed themselves on another. At the same point, we need to look at history as a whole. There have been times when it was actually correct for one group to come in and force a change. In those cases, the imposing groups had real morality on their side and in the cases where it was wrong, we can say that they were mistaken about morality. For example, the Nazis in WW2 were just wrong about morality and the groups which came in were right. So, the Moral Objectivist just needs to be sure that their moral theory is getting the right answer in the case. This is an epistemological worry for the objectivist, not an ethical, meta-ethical, or metaphysical one.

Interestingly, when we look at our own history, we find things which we are ashamed of, things which we condemn the previous generation for. How and when this is correct is easy for us to see. Since different people at different times are, basically, different cultures, the exact same, or a similar, thought process applies when condemning or appreciating the behaviors of another culture. Kwame Appiah in What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For? 

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gives us some compelling tests for when future generations will be ashamed of our practices. These same tests apply to the behaviors of other cultures and tell us when it may be OK to force a change. This content may become a page in its own right in future versions of this class.