Benedict Vs Sumner

Slavery once was an acceptable practice in the United States. It was not until 1865 that slavery was abolished due to the ratification of the thirteenth amendment. According to an ethical relativist, slavery, and all other moral issues, cannot be decided to be right or wrong because different cultures have different moral beliefs and since there are many cultures that disagree there can be no objective truth about morality. An Ethical Relativist believes that the only way we could possibly judge another culture, even our own in the past, would be through our own standards and since our standards are not the same as theirs we have no valid way to judge another culture. Finally, an Ethical Relativist could argue that even if there is an objective moral truth we have no way of obtaining it and therefore should consider all cultures believes equally valid.

Ruth Benedict would argue that morals do not exist and the only things that truly exist are the customs of a society. Benedict would also argue that since we do not currently live in the same time period, thus not the same culture, as our ancestors that we have no way to objectively judge rather or not they were morally wrong to have slaves. She would say that since it was the custom of the society at the time to allow slavery that it must have been morally right for our society at that time. She might go further and say people are conditioned by their cultures to have the ethical values and beliefs they do, therefore, even though slavery is not acceptable by today's standards it would have been acceptable for people who grew up during the time of slavery not to believe it was morally wrong because that was not the view of their society (Timmons, pg 49-54).

William Sumner would probably argue that society's beliefs are based on their folkways. Folkways are sets of believes and practices cultures use to find their way around the world (Dictionary). He would say they were something that evolved historically, were based on what was believed to work, and were taught to us while growing up. His defense of slavery in the U.S. would probably make heavy use of the idea of folkways. He might argue that slavery was something that evolved historically; it followed the settlers from England, and during that time slavery was believed to be the best way to do things. Sumner might also argue that all folkways are equal and therefore, we cannot judge our ancestors by our own standards.

Using an example like slavery shows things many people believe to be flaws in Ethical Relativism. James Rachels says that three things come from moral relativism. The first of these things are that people would no longer look down upon the moral customs of other cultures (Timmons, pg. 58). Rachels believes one of the reasons this is bad is because we could no longer say that a culture is morally wrong as long as they are behaving within their own customs. Second, we could not decide whether actions are right or wrong by looking at our own standards (Timmons, pg. 59). He says that this is bad because it would stop us from criticizing our own society, which would mean that the people in the U.S. who were against slavery at the time were wrong since it was something that was acceptable at the time. Finally, Rachels says that the idea of moral progress is not something that would be a valid idea (Timmons, pg. 59). He supports this by saying if we were to adhere strictly to moral relativism we also could not compare our society against itself in the past. By this he means that as long as the laws and ideas of a society were in accordance with social standards of their time they cannot be compared to how things are now. This would mean we could not look at the abolishment of slavery as moral