Social and political disagreements both online and elsewhere often take on a moralistic tone in which accusations of "immorality" or even "evil" get thrown around. In recent years, some have invoked "science" to ground the objectivity of their positions. The desire to do so is understandable now that ethics is largely discussed within a secular context and in the absence of a commonly shared theology or metaphysics that leaves much room moral realism (the idea that we don't invent but discover moral properties like good and bad which exist objectively, independently of minds and cultures). Whatever the emotional appeal of such arguments, they are generally conceptually weak.There are many long and complex books on this topic. Here I thought it might do to quote excerpts from a short article by philosopher, Jesse Prinz, that argues for anthropological relativism, or the idea that, as the title of the articles has it, morality is culturally conditioned.
Though the article goes on to argue for a moral theory called "sentimentalism," associated with David Hume, I'm only quoting those excerpts that lay out what seems to be a clear and daunting challenge to the would-be moral realist. It does not follow from cultural relativism that all moral deliberation is non-rational nor that we are ever the "slaves of passions," as sentimentalism would have it. There are good and bad rational arguments in ethics as in other cultural domains, including courts of law. But as with the latter, the basic rules and norms appealed to are already in play culturally and socially when the arguments are made. Further, it is historically the case that many such norms and rules become sources of conflict when they differ dramatically between 2 or more societies, cultures or sub-cultures that interact with one another. With all this in mind, this is a relatively straightforward (if not particularly original) argument based on the facts of the matter, i.e. the extent and type of variation in morality cross-culturally and over historical time. The following excerpts are taken from philosopher, Jesse Prinz' article,
Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response (which originally appeared in Philosophy Now; Issue
82).
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Relativism has been widely criticized. It is attacked as being
sophomoric, pernicious, and even incoherent. Moral philosophers,
theologians, and social scientists try to identify objective values so
as to forestall the relativist menace. I think these efforts have
failed. Moral relativism is a plausible doctrine, and it has important
implications for how we conduct our lives, organize our societies, and
deal with others.
Suppose you have a moral disagreement with someone, for example, a
disagreement about whether it is okay to live in a society where the
amount of money you are born with is the primary determinant of how
wealthy you will end up. In pursuing this debate, you assume that you
are correct about the issue and that your conversation partner is
mistaken. You conversation partner assumes that you are making the
blunder. In other words, you both assume that only one of you can be
correct. Relativists reject this assumption. They believe that
conflicting moral beliefs can both be true. The stanch socialist and
righteous royalist are equally right; they just occupy different moral
worldviews.
Morals vary dramatically across time and place. One group’s good can
be another group’s evil. Consider cannibalism, which has been practiced
by groups in every part of the world. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday
found evidence for cannibalism in 34% of cultures in one
cross-historical sample. Or consider blood sports, such as those
practiced in Roman amphitheaters, in which thousands of excited fans
watched as human beings engaged in mortal combat. Killing for pleasure
has also been documented among headhunting cultures, in which
decapitation was sometimes pursued as a recreational activity. Many
societies have also practiced extreme forms of public torture and
execution, as was the case in Europe before the 18th century. And there
are cultures that engage in painful forms of body modification, such as
scarification, genital infibulation, or footbinding – a practice that
lasted in China for 1,000 years and involved the deliberate and
excruciating crippling of young girls. Variation in attitudes towards
violence is paralleled by variation in attitudes towards sex and
marriage. When studying culturally independent societies,
anthropologists have found that over 80% permit polygamy. Arranged
marriage is also common, and some cultures marry off girls while they
are still pubescent or even younger. In parts of Ethiopia, half the
girls are married before their 15th birthday.
Of course, there are also cross-cultural similarities in morals. No
group would last very long if it promoted gratuitous attacks on
neighbors or discouraged childrearing. But within these broad
constraints, almost anything is possible. Some groups prohibit attacks
on the hut next door, but encourage attacks on the village next door.
Some groups encourage parents to commit selective infanticide, to use
corporal punishment on children, or force them into physical labor or
sexual slavery.
Such variation cries out for explanation. If morality were objective,
shouldn’t we see greater consensus? Objectivists reply in two different
ways:
Deny variation. Some objectivists say moral variation is
greatly exaggerated – people really agree about values but have
different factual beliefs or life circumstances that lead them to behave
differently. For example, slave owners may have believed that their
slaves were intellectually inferior, and Inuits who practiced
infanticide may have been forced to do so because of resource scarcity
in the tundra. But it is spectacularly implausible that all moral
differences can be explained this way. For one thing, the alleged
differences in factual beliefs and life circumstances rarely justify the
behaviors in question. Would the inferiority of one group really
justify enslaving them? If so, why don’t we think it’s acceptable to
enslave people with low IQs? Would life in the tundra justify
infanticide? If so, why don’t we just kill off destitute children around
the globe instead of giving donations to Oxfam? Differences in
circumstances do not show that people share values; rather they help to
explain why values end up being so different.
Deny that variation matters. Objectivists who concede that
moral variation exists argue that variation does not entail relativism;
after all, scientific theories differ too, and we don’t assume that
every theory is true. This analogy fails. Scientific theory variation
can be explained by inadequate observations or poor instruments;
improvements in each lead towards convergence. When scientific errors
are identified, corrections are made. By contrast, morals do not track
differences in observation, and there also is no evidence for rational
convergence as a result of moral conflicts. Western slavery didn’t end
because of new scientific observations; rather it ended with the
industrial revolution, which ushered in a wage-based economy. Indeed,
slavery became more prevalent after the Enlightenment, when
science improved. Even with our modern understanding of racial equality,
Benjamin Skinner has shown that there are more people living in de facto
slavery worldwide today than during the height of the trans-Atlantic
slave trade. When societies converge morally, it’s usually because one
has dominated the other (as with the missionary campaigns to end
cannibalism). With morals, unlike science, there is no well-recognized
standard that can be used to test, confirm, or correct when
disagreements arise.
Objectivists might reply that progress has clearly been made. Aren’t
our values better than those of the ‘primitive’ societies that practice
slavery, cannibalism, and polygamy? Here we are in danger of smugly
supposing superiority. Each culture assumes it is in possession of the
moral truth. From an outside perspective, our progress might be seen as a
regress. Consider factory farming, environmental devastation, weapons
of mass destruction, capitalistic exploitation, coercive globalization,
urban ghettoization, and the practice of sending elderly relatives to
nursing homes. Our way of life might look grotesque to many who have
come before and many who will come after.
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