Dunno Huh

The Challenge of Cultural RelativismÐ'--James Rachels

As Rachels notes, CRs make a variety of claims including:

1.Different societies have different moral codes.12.There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code

better than another.23.The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is merely one among many.34.There is no "universal truth" in ethics; that is, there are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times.45.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.56.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.6

However, we need to determine what is a moral code? What is a moral relativism? Why accept moral relativism?

Moral Codes

The moral code for an individual as the set of moral norms (rules governing behavior) that person accepts.7Examples include:

1This is a claim that is empiricalÐ'--there is either anthropological or sociological evidence for it or against it. 2This is a metaethical claim which may be true. However, even if there is no objective standard by which to determine epistemically which moral code is correct, it does not follow that one or more

is not correct. 3It depends on what "special status" means here. If it means true, it is false. Every internally consistent moral code is true relative to its society. Of course, a moral code of one society has no special status with respect to another societies' moral code. 4This may be true even though moral relativism is false. The rightness or wrongness can depend on non-moral contextual facts and thus the morality of some action can differ in different societies as the result. Consider the morality of insultsÐ'... 5This claim is the core of moral relativism. 6Note that a call for tolerance only makes sense within a moral code. A moral relativist cannot argue for relativism on the basis of the virtue of tolerance.

7Of course, the set of norms accepted is relative to times. Likewise, we should not that there are basic and non-basic norms. A norm is basic for a person if it cannot be derived from any of the

other norms accepted by that person; otherwise, it is non-basic. Ð'*Intentionally killing an innocent person is wrong. Ð'*Lying is wrong unless one has good reason. Ð'*One should help the needy if the cost to oneself is slight.

Granted, moral codes involving dispositions to act and fitting emotions, but they involve at the very least a set of accepted norms.