Applying Philosophy to Life

C H A P T E R

± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ±

2 IS IT ALL RELATIVE?

Noting that what one society deems morally wrong, another deems right, ethical relativists conclude that morals are like manners or style of dress. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, quoting the poet Pindar, long ago announced the rela- tivist principle when he said, “Custom is king.”

Ethical relativism became popular in the nineteenth century when European social scientists traveled the world and discovered a bewildering variety of moral norms and practices. Anthropologists like Ruth Benedict and sociologists like Wil- liam Graham Sumner embraced ethical relativism and gave it the cachet of science.

Ethical relativism is a tempting doctrine because it appeals to our desire to be tolerant of other societies. However, it has not found much favor among profes- sional philosophers, who point out that while tolerance is a virtue, indifference to suffering is a vice. Several of the philosophers and moralists included in this chapter—Loretta M. Kopelman, Louis Pojman, R. M. MacIver, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—believe that while much morality is indeed a matter of local custom, some objectively valid moral principles apply to everyone. For them, tolerance ends when a practice or custom violates a universal human right. Lawrence Lengbeyer tries to work out a compromise between relativism and absolutism.

Recently a number of anthropologists have joined philosophers and theologians in rejecting relativism. They challenge the idea that social scientists must always be neutral bystanders. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban struggles with the problem of whether to condemn or to refrain from condemning the societies she studies. In the end she finds herself unable to retain the neutral “scientific” stance. Thomas Nagel argues that the Golden Rule in its negative form—not to do unto others what you would not have them do unto you—provides an objective nonrelativistic basis for morality.

Finally, when a relativist like Benedict or Sumner points to the diversity of vil- lages, and thus of norms, those who believe in universal moral standards can point to the newly emerging “global village.” Universal ethical principles are already fully

76

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

codified for the “global village” in such documents as the United Nations Declara- tion of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Children, and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Women. These declarations firmly assert that all people, regardless of cultural background, regardless of gender or social status, should enjoy certain basic moral rights. While it is certainly true that the United Nations declarations are not universally enforced, their very exis- tence suggests there may be far more moral consensus in the world than the relati- vists allow.

IS IT ALL RELATIVE? 77

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Morality As Custom

Herodotus

Herodotus (c. 485–425 B.C.) was the first Western historian. Much of what we know about the ancient world in and around Greece derives from him.

Following is one of the fragments of text by Herodotus available to us today. Although brief, it clearly shows that Herodotus may well be the first thinker in Western intellectual history to espouse a version of what today we call ethical relativism.

If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably, after careful consideration of their relative merits, choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things. There is abundant evi- dence that this is the universal feeling about the ancient customs of one’s country. One might recall, in particular, an anecdote of Darius. When he was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the pres- ence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so that they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians, of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents’ dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do, and Pindar, in my opinion, was right when he called it “king of all.”

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Herodotus says that people prefer the customs of their own country over those of all other countries. That may have been true in his day. Is it true in ours?

2. Herodotus’s example of what the ancient Greeks and Indians did with the bodies of their dead parents clearly shows that cultures have different customs. But does that make the case for ethical relativism? Though the two societies did it in very different ways, both seem to be engaged in honoring their deceased parents.

MORALITY AS CUSTOM From Herodotus’s The Histories, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, revised by A. R. Burn (Penguin Classics 1954, revised edition 1972), copyright © the Estate of Aubrey de Sélincourt, 1954, copyright © A. R. Burn, 1972.

78

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

A Defense of Moral Relativism

Ruth Benedict

Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) was one of America’s foremost anthropolo- gists. Her Patterns of Culture (1935) is considered a classic of comparative anthropology.

Morality, says Ruth Benedict, is a convenient term for socially approved customs (that is, mores). What one society approves may be disgraceful and unacceptable to another. Moral rules, like rules of etiquette or styles of dress, vary from society to society. Morality is culturally relative. Values are shaped by culture. As Benedict points out, trances are highly regarded in India, so in India many people have trances. Some ancient societies praised homosexual love, so there homosexuality was a norm. Where material possessions are highly valued, people amass property. “Most indi- viduals are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born.”

Modern social anthropology has become more and more a study of the varieties and common elements of cultural environment and the consequences of these in human behavior. For such a study of diverse social orders primitive peoples fortu- nately provide a laboratory not yet entirely vitiated by the spread of a standardized worldwide civilization. Dyaks and Hopis, Fijians and Yakuts are significant for psy- chological and sociological study because only among these simpler peoples has there been sufficient isolation to give opportunity for the development of localized social forms. In the higher cultures the standardization of custom and belief over a couple of continents has given a false sense of the inevitability of the particular forms that have gained currency, and we need to turn to a wider survey in order to check the conclusions we hastily base upon this near-universality of familiar cus- toms. Most of the simpler cultures did not gain the wide currency of the one which, out of our experience, we identify with human nature, but this was for various his- torical reasons, and certainly not for any that gives us as its carriers a monopoly of social good or of social sanity. Modern civilization, from this point of view, becomes not a necessary pinnacle of human achievement but one entry in a long series of possible adjustments.

These adjustments, whether they are in mannerisms like the ways of showing anger, or joy, or grief in any society, or in major human drives like those of sex, prove to be far more variable than experience in any one culture would suggest. In certain fields, such as that of religion or of formal marriage arrangements, these

A DEFENSE OF MORAL RELATIVISM From “Anthropology and the Abnormal” by Ruth Benedict, in The Journal of General Psychology 10 (1934): 59–82. Reprinted with permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation. Published by Heldref Publications, 1319 Eighteenth St., N.W., Washington, DC, 20036-1802. Copyright © 1934.

RUTH BENEDICT: A DEFENSE OF MORAL RELATIVISM 79

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

wide limits of variability are well known and can be fairly described. In others it is not yet possible to give a generalized account, but that does not absolve us of the task of indicating the significance of the work that has been done and of the pro- blems that have arisen.

One of these problems relates to the customary modern normal-abnormal cate- gories and our conclusions regarding them. In how far are such categories culturally determined, or in how far can we with assurance regard them as absolute? In how far can we regard inability to function socially as diagnostic of abnormality, or in how far is it necessary to regard this as a function of the culture?

As a matter of fact, one of the most striking facts that emerge from a study of widely varying cultures is the ease with which our abnormals function in other cul- tures. It does not matter what kind of “abnormality” we choose for illustration, those which indicate extreme instability, or those which are more in the nature of character traits like sadism or delusions of grandeur or of persecution, there are well-described cultures in which these abnormals function at ease and with honor, and apparently without danger or difficulty to the society.

The most notorious of these is trance and catalepsy. Even a very mild mystic is aberrant in our culture. But most peoples have regarded even extreme psychic man- ifestations not only as normal and desirable, but even as characteristic of highly val- ued and gifted individuals. This was true even in our own cultural background in that period when Catholicism made the ecstatic experience the mark of sainthood. It is hard for us, born and brought up in a culture that makes no use of the experi- ence, to realize how important a role it may play and how many individuals are capable of it, once it has been given an honorable place in any society.…

Cataleptic and trance phenomena are, of course, only one illustration of the fact that those whom we regard as abnormals may function adequately in other cul- tures. Many of our culturally discarded traits are selected for elaboration in differ- ent societies. Homosexuality is an excellent example, for in this case our attention is not constantly diverted, as in the consideration of trance, to the interruption of rou- tine activity which it implies. Homosexuality poses the problem very simply. A ten- dency toward this trait in our culture exposes an individual to all the conflicts to which all aberrants are always exposed, and we tend to identify the consequences of this conflict with homosexuality. But these consequences are obviously local and cultural. Homosexuals in many societies are not incompetent, but they may be such if the culture asks adjustments of them that would strain any man’s vitality. Wherever homosexuality has been given an honorable place in any society, those to whom it is congenial have filled adequately the honorable roles society assigns to them. Plato’s Republic is, of course, the most convincing statement of such a read- ing of homosexuality. It is presented as one of the major means to the good life, and it was generally so regarded in Greece at that time.

The cultural attitude toward homosexuals has not always been on such a high ethical plane, but it has been very varied. Among many American Indian tribes there exists the institution of the berdache, as the French called them. These men- women were men who at puberty or thereafter took the dress and the occupations of women. Sometimes they married other men and lived with them. Sometimes they were men with no inversion, persons of weak sexual endowment who chose this rôle to avoid the jeers of the women. The berdaches were never regarded as of

80 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

first-rate super-natural power, as similar men-women were in Siberia, but rather as leaders in women’s occupations, good healers in certain diseases, or, among certain tribes, as the genial organizers of social affairs. In any case, they were socially placed. They were not left exposed to the conflicts that visit the deviant who is excluded from participation in the recognized patterns of his society.

The most spectacular illustrations of the extent to which normality may be cul- turally defined are those cultures where an abnormality of our culture is the corner- stone of their social structure. It is not possible to do justice to these possibilities in a short discussion. A recent study of an island of northwest Melanesia by Fortune describes a society built upon traits which we regard as beyond the border of para- noia. In this tribe the exogamic groups look upon each other as prime manipulators of black magic, so that one marries always into an enemy group which remains for life one’s deadly and unappeasable foes. They look upon a good garden crop as a confession of theft, for everyone is engaged in making magic to induce into his gar- den the productiveness of his neighbors’; therefore no secrecy in the island is so rig- idly insisted upon as the secrecy of a man’s harvesting of his yams. Their polite phrase at the acceptance of a gift is, “And if you now poison me, how shall I repay you this present?” Their preoccupation with poisoning is constant; no woman ever leaves her cooking pot for a moment untended. Even the great affinal economic exchanges that are characteristic of this Melanesian culture area are quite altered in Dobu since they are incompatible with this fear and distrust that pervades the culture. They go farther and people the whole world outside their own quarters with such malignant spirits that all-night feasts and ceremonials simply do not occur here. They have even rigorous religiously enforced customs that forbid the sharing of seed even in one family group. Anyone else’s food is deadly poison to you, so that communality of stores is out of the question. For some months before harvest the whole society is on the verge of starvation, but if one falls to the temp- tation and eats up one’s seed yams, one is an outcast and a beachcomber for life. There is no coming back. It involves, as a matter of course, divorce and the break- ing of all social ties.

Now in this society where no one may work with another and no one may share with another, Fortune describes the individual who was regarded by all his fellows as crazy. He was not one of those who periodically ran amok and, beside himself and frothing at the mouth, fell with a knife upon anyone he could reach. Such behavior they did not regard as putting anyone outside the pale. They did not even put the individuals who were known to be liable to these attacks under any kind of control. They merely fled when they saw the attack coming on and kept out of the way. “He would be all right tomorrow.” But there was one man of sunny, kindly disposition who liked work and liked to be helpful. The compul- sion was too strong for him to repress it in favor of the opposite tendencies of his culture. Men and women never spoke of him without laughing; he was silly and simple and definitely crazy. Nevertheless, to the ethnologist used to a culture that has, in Christianity, made his type the model of all virtue, he seemed a pleasant fellow.…

… Among the Kwakiutl it did not matter whether a relative had died in bed of disease, or by the hand of an enemy, in either case death was an affront to be wiped out by the death of another person. The fact that one had been caused to mourn

RUTH BENEDICT: A DEFENSE OF MORAL RELATIVISM 81

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

was proof that one had been put upon. A chief’s sister and her daughter had gone up to Victoria, and either because they drank bad whiskey or because their boat capsized they never came back. The chief called together his warriors. “Now I ask you, tribes, who shall wail? Shall I do it or shall another?” The spokesman answered, of course, “Not you, Chief. Let some other of the tribes.” Immediately they set up the war pole to announce their intention of wiping out the injury, and gathered a war party. They set out, and found seven men and two children asleep and killed them. “Then they felt good when they arrived at Sebaa in the evening.”

The point which is of interest to us is that in our society those who on that occasion would feel good when they arrived at Sebaa that evening would be the definitely abnormal. There would be some, even in our society, but it is not a rec- ognized and approved mood under the circumstances. On the Northwest Coast those are favored and fortunate to whom that mood under those circumstances is congenial, and those to whom it is repugnant are unlucky. This latter minority can register in their own culture only by doing violence to their congenial responses and acquiring others that are difficult for them. The person, for instance, who, like a Plains Indian whose wife has been taken from him, is too proud to fight, can deal with the Northwest Coast civilization only by ignoring its strongest bents. If he can- not achieve it, he is the deviant in that culture, their instance of abnormality.

This head-hunting that takes place on the Northwest Coast after a death is no matter of blood revenge or of organized vengeance. There is no effort to tie up the subsequent killing with any responsibility on the part of the victim for the death of the person who is being mourned. A chief whose son has died goes visiting wher- ever his fancy dictates, and he says to his host, “My prince has died today, and you go with him.” Then he kills him. In this, according to their interpretation, he acts nobly because he has not been downed. He has thrust back in return. The whole procedure is meaningless without the fundamental paranoid reading of bereave- ment. Death, like all the other untoward accidents of existence, confounds man’s pride and can only be handled in the category of insults.

Behavior honored upon the Northwest Coast is one which is recognized as abnormal in our civilization, and yet it is sufficiently close to the attitudes of our own culture to be intelligible to us and to have a definite vocabulary with which we may discuss it. The megalomaniac paranoid trend is a definite danger in our society. It is encouraged by some of our major preoccupations, and it confronts us with a choice of two possible attitudes. One is to brand it as abnormal and repre- hensible, and is the attitude we have chosen in our civilization. The other is to make it an essential attribute of ideal man, and this is the solution in the culture of the Northwest Coast.

These illustrations, which it has been possible to indicate only in the briefest manner, force upon us the fact that normality is culturally defined. An adult shaped to the drives and standards of either of these cultures, if he were transported into our civilization, would fall into our categories of abnormality. He would be faced with the psychic dilemmas of the socially unavailable. In his own culture, however, he is the pillar of society, the end result of socially inculcated mores, and the prob- lem of personal instability in his case simply does not arise.

No one civilization can possibly utilize in its mores the whole potential range of human behavior. Just as there are great numbers of possible phonetic articulations,

82 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

and the possibility of language depends on a selection and standardization of a few of these in order that speech communication may be possible at all, so the possibil- ity of organized behavior of every sort, from the fashions of local dress and houses to the dicta of a people’s ethics and religion, depends upon a similar selection among the possible behavior traits. In the field of recognized economic obligations or sex tabus this selection is as non-rational and subconscious a process as it is in the field of phonetics. It is a process which goes on in the group for long periods of time and is historically conditioned by innumerable accidents of isolation or of con- tact of peoples. In any comprehensive study of psychology, the selection that differ- ent cultures have made in the course of history within the great circumference of potential behavior is of great significance.

Every society, beginning with some slight inclination in one direction or another, carries its preference farther and farther, integrating itself more and more completely upon its chosen basis, and discarding those types of behavior that are uncongenial. Most of those organizations of personality that seem to us most uncontrovertibly abnormal have been used by different civilizations in the very foundations of their institutional life. Conversely the most valued traits of normal individuals have been looked on in differently organized cultures as aberrant. Nor- mality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined. It is primarily a term for the socially elaborated segment of human behavior in any culture; and abnormality, a term for the segment that that particular civilization does not use. The very eyes with which we see the problem are conditioned by the long tradi- tional habits of our own society.

It is a point that has been made more often in relation to ethics than in relation to psychiatry. We do not any longer make the mistake of deriving the morality of our locality and decade directly from the inevitable constitution of human nature. We do not elevate it to the dignity of a first principle. We recognize that morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits. Man- kind has always preferred to say, “It is morally good,” rather than “It is habitual,” and the fact of this preference is matter enough for a critical science of ethics. But historically the two phrases are synonymous.

The concept of the normal is properly a variant of the concept of the good. It is that which society has approved. A normal action is one which falls well within the limits of expected behavior for a particular society. Its variability among different peoples is essentially a function of the variability of the behavior patterns that dif- ferent societies have created for themselves, and can never be wholly divorced from a consideration of culturally institutionalized types of behavior.

Each culture is a more or less elaborate working-out of the potentialities of the segment it has chosen. In so far as a civilization is well integrated and consistent within itself, it will tend to carry farther and farther, according to its nature, its ini- tial impulse toward a particular type of action, and from the point of view of any other culture those elaborations will include more and more extreme and aberrant traits.

Each of these traits, in proportion as it reinforces the chosen behavior patterns of that culture, is for that culture normal. Those individuals to whom it is congenial either congenitally, or as the result of childhood sets, are accorded prestige in that culture, and are not visited with the social contempt or disapproval which their

RUTH BENEDICT: A DEFENSE OF MORAL RELATIVISM 83

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

traits would call down upon them in a society that was differently organized. On the other hand, those individuals whose characteristics are not congenial to the selected type of human behavior in that community are the deviants, no matter how valued their personality traits may be in a contrasted civilization.

The Dobuan who is not easily susceptible to fear of treachery, who enjoys work and likes to be helpful, is their neurotic and regarded as silly. On the Northwest Coast the person who finds it difficult to read life in terms of an insult contest will be the person upon whom fall all the difficulties of the culturally unprovided for. The person who does not find it easy to humiliate a neighbor, nor to see humilia- tion in his own experience, who is genial and loving, may, of course, find some unstandardized way of achieving satisfactions in his society, but not in the major patterned responses that his culture requires of him. If he is born to play an impor- tant rôle in a family with many hereditary privileges, he can succeed only by doing violence to his whole personality. If he does not succeed, he has betrayed his cul- ture; that is, he is abnormal.

I have spoken of individuals as having sets toward certain types of behavior, and of these sets as running sometimes counter to the types of behavior which are institutionalized in the culture to which they belong. From all that we know of con- trasting cultures it seems clear that differences of temperament occur in every soci- ety. The matter has never been made the subject of investigation, but from the available material it would appear that these temperament types are very likely of universal recurrence. That is, there is an ascertainable range of human behavior that is found wherever a sufficiently large series of individuals is observed. But the pro- portion in which behavior types stand to one another in different societies is not universal. The vast majority of the individuals in any group are shaped to the fash- ion of that culture. In other words, most individuals are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. In a society that values trance, as in India, they will have supernormal experience. In a society that institutionalizes homosexuality, they will be homosexual. In a society that sets the gathering of pos- sessions as the chief human objective, they will amass property. The deviants, what- ever the type of behavior the culture has institutionalized, will remain few in number, and there seems no more difficulty in moulding that vast malleable major- ity to the “normality” of what we consider an aberrant trait, such as delusions of reference, than to the normality of such accepted behavior patterns as acquisitive- ness. The small proportion of the number of the deviants in any culture is not a function of the sure instinct with which that society has built itself upon the funda- mental sanities, but of the universal fact that, happily, the majority of mankind quite readily take any shape that is presented to them.…

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you think that the fact of cultural diversity is itself an argument for ethical relativ- ism? Explain.

2. If Benedict’s defense of ethical relativism is correct, then the correct way to resolve a personal dilemma might be to take a survey or poll to see what the majority in your society think is right. If the majority favor capital punishment and oppose abortion, for example, then capital punishment is right and abortion is wrong. Can you defend Benedict against this odd consequence? Explain.

84 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

3. Do you think that certain types of behavior (for example, executing children or beating animals to death) are wrong wherever they occur, despite attitudes prevailing in the societies that practice them? If you believe that such acts are universally wrong, what makes them wrong?

4. How might Benedict account for notions of moral enlightenment and moral progress?

A Defense of Cultural Relativism

William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) was a sociologist, an economist, and a proponent of Darwinism. His books include What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) and Folkways (1906).

William Graham Sumner claims that his ethical relativism is derived from having observed other societies. According to Sumner, the “folkways”— that is, the customs, mores, and traditions of each society—are so ingrained in its members that they naturally come to think of them as objectively “right” and “good.” We may build elaborate philosophical and legal doctrines around these concepts, but it is the folkways that deter- mine their true meaning.

There is a right way to catch game, to win a wife, to make one’s self appear, to cure disease, to honor ghosts, to treat comrades or strangers, to behave when a child is born, on the warpath, in council, and so on in all cases which can arise. The ways are defined on the negative side, that is, by taboos. The “right” way is the way which the ancestors used and which has been handed down. The tradition is its own warrant. It is not held subject to verification by experience. The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to them to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right. This is because they are traditional, and therefore contain in themselves the authority of the ances- tral ghosts. When we come to the folkways we are at the end of our analysis. The notion of right and ought is the same in regard to all the folkways.…

The morality of a group at a time is the sum of the taboos and prescriptions in the folkways by which right conduct is defined. Therefore morals can never be intu- itive. They are historical, institutional, and empirical. World philosophy, life policy, right, rights, and morality are all products of the folkways. They are reflections on, and generalizations from, the experience of pleasure and pain which is won in efforts to carry on the struggle for existence under actual life conditions.

A DEFENSE OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM From Folkways by William Graham Sumner.

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER: A DEFENSE OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM 85

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

The generalizations are very crude and vague in their germinal forms. They are all embodied in folklore, and all our philosophy and science have been developed out of them.

Mores Are a Directive Force

Of course the view which has been stated is antagonistic to the view that philoso- phy and ethics furnish creative and determining forces in society and history. That view comes down to us from the Greek philosophy and it has now prevailed so long that all current discussion conforms to it. Philosophy and ethics are pursued as independent disciplines, and the results are brought to the science of society and to statesmanship and legislation as authoritative dicta. We also have Völkerpsycho- logie, Sozialpolitik, and other intermediate forms which show the struggle of meta- physics to retain control of the science of society. The “historic sense,” the Zeitgeist, and other terms of similar import are partial recognitions of the mores and their importance in the science of society. We shall see below that philosophy and ethics are products of the folkways. They are taken out of the mores, but are never original and creative; they are secondary and derived. They often interfere in the second stage of the sequence—act, thought, act. Then they produce harm, but some ground is furnished for the claim that they are creative or at least regulative. In fact, the real process in great bodies of men is not one of deduction from any great principle of philosophy or ethics. It is one of minute efforts to live well under existing conditions, which efforts are repeated indefinitely by great numbers, getting strength from habit and from the fellowship of united action. The resultant folkways become coercive. All are forced to conform, and the folkways dominate the societal life. Then they seem true and right, and arise into mores as the norm of welfare. Thence are produced faiths, ideas, doctrines, religions, and philosophies, according to the stage of civilization and the fashions of reflection and generalization.

What Is Goodness or Badness of the Mores?

It is most important to notice that, for the people of a time and place, their own mores are always good, or rather that for them there can be no question of the goodness or badness of their mores. The reason is because the standards of good and right are in the mores. If the life conditions change, the traditional folkways may produce pain and loss, or fail to produce the same good as formerly. Then the loss of comfort and ease brings doubt into the judgment of welfare (causing doubt of the pleasure of the gods, or of war power, or of health), and thus dis- turbs the unconscious philosophy of the mores. Then a later time will pass judg- ment on the mores. Another society may also pass judgment on the mores. In our literary and historical study of the mores we want to get from them their educa- tional value, which consists in the stimulus or warning as to what is, in its effects, societally good or bad. This may lead us to reject or neglect a phenomenon like infanticide, slavery, or witchcraft, as an old “abuse” and “evil,” or to pass by the crusades as a folly which cannot recur. Such a course would be a great error. Everything in the mores of a time and place must be regarded as justified with

86 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

regard to that time and place. “Good” mores are those which are well adapted to the situation. “Bad” mores are those which are not so adapted. The mores are not so stereotyped and changeless as might appear, because they are forever moving towards more complete adaptation to conditions and interests, and also towards more complete adjustment to each other. People in mass have never made or kept up a custom in order to hurt their own interests. They have made innumerable errors as to what their interests were and how to satisfy them, but they have always aimed to serve their interests as well as they could. This gives the stand- point for the student of the mores. All things in them come before him on the same plane. They all bring instruction and warning. They all have the same rela- tion to power and welfare. The mistakes in them are component parts of them. We do not study them in order to approve some of them and condemn others. They are all equally worthy of attention from the fact that they existed and were used. The chief object of study in them is their adjustment to interests, their rela- tion to welfare, and their coordination in a harmonious system of life policy. For the men of the time there are no “bad” mores. What is traditional and current is the standard of what ought to be. The masses never raise any question about such things. If a few raise doubts and questions, this proves that the folkways have already begun to lose firmness and the regulative element in the mores has begun to lose authority. This indicates that the folkways are on their way to a new adjustment. The extreme of folly, wickedness, and absurdity in the mores is witch persecutions, but the best men in the seventeenth century had no doubt that witches existed, and that they ought to be burned. The religion, statecraft, juris- prudence, philosophy, and social system of that age all contributed to maintain that belief. It was rather a culmination than a contradiction of the current faiths and convictions, just as the dogma that all men are equal and that one ought to have as much political power in the state as another was the culmination of the political dogmatism and social philosophy of the nineteenth century. Hence our judgments of the good or evil consequences of folkways are to be kept separate from our study of the historical phenomena of them, and of their strength and the reasons for it. The judgments have their place in plans and doctrines for the future, not in a retrospect.

The Mores Have the Authority of Facts

The mores come down to us from the past. Each individual is born into them as he is born into the atmosphere, and he does not reflect on them, or criticize them any more than a baby analyzes the atmosphere before he begins to breathe it. Each one is subjected to the influence of the mores, and formed by them, before he is capable of reasoning about them. It may be objected that nowadays, at least, we criticize all traditions, and accept none just because they are handed down to us. If we take up cases of things which are still entirely or almost entirely in the mores, we shall see that this is not so. There are sects of free-lovers amongst us who want to discuss pair marriage. They are not simply people of evil life. They invite us to discuss rationally our inherited customs and ideas as to marriage, which, they say, are by no means so excellent and elevated as we believe. They

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER: A DEFENSE OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM 87

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

have never won any serious attention. Some others want to argue in favor of polygamy on grounds of expediency. They fail to obtain a hearing. Others want to discuss property. In spite of some literary activity on their part, no discussion of property, bequest, and inheritance has ever been opened. Property and mar- riage are in the mores. Nothing can ever change them but the unconscious and imperceptible movement of the mores. Religion was originally a matter of the mores. It became a societal institution and a function of the state. It has now to a great extent been put back into the mores. Since laws with penalties to enforce religious creeds or practices have gone out of use any one may think and act as he pleases about religion. Therefore, it is not now “good form” to attack religion. Infidel publications are now tabooed by the mores, and are more effectually repressed than ever before. They produce no controversy. Democracy is in our American mores. It is a product of our physical and economic conditions. It is impossible to discuss or criticize it. It is glorified for popularity, and is a subject of dithyrambic rhetoric. No one treats it with complete candor and sincerity. No one dares to analyze it as he would aristocracy or autocracy. He would get no hearing and would only incur abuse. The thing to be noticed in all these cases is that the masses oppose a deaf ear to every argument against the mores. It is only insofar as things have been transferred from the mores into laws and positive institutions that there is discussion about them or rationalizing upon them. The mores contain the norm by which, if we should discuss the mores, we should have to judge the mores. We learn the mores as unconsciously as we learn to walk and eat and breathe. The masses never learn how we walk, and eat, and breathe, and they never know any reason why the mores are what they are. The justification of them is that when we wake to consciousness of life we find them facts which already hold us in the bonds of tradition, custom, and habit. The mores contain embodied in them notions, doctrines, and maxims, but they are facts. They are in the present tense. They have nothing to do with what ought to be, will be, may be, or once was, if it is not now.

Mores and Morals; Social Code

For everyone the mores give the notion of what ought to be. This includes the notion of what ought to be done, for all should cooperate to bring to pass, in the order of life, what ought to be. All notions of propriety, decency, chastity, polite- ness, order, duty, right, rights, discipline, respect, reverence, cooperation, and fel- lowship, especially all things in regard to which good and ill depend entirely on the point at which the line is drawn, are in the mores. The mores can make things seem right and good to one group or one age which to another seem antagonistic to every instinct of human nature. The thirteenth century bred in every heart such a sentiment in regard to heretics that inquisitors had no more misgivings in their pro- ceedings than men would have now if they should attempt to exterminate rattle- snakes. The sixteenth century gave to all such notions about witches that witch persecutors thought they were waging war on enemies of God and man. Of course the inquisitors and witch persecutors constantly developed the notions of heretics and witches. They exaggerated the notions and then gave them back again to the

88 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

mores, in their expanded form, to inflame the hearts of men with terror and hate and to become, in the next stage, so much more fantastic and ferocious motives. Such is the reaction between the mores and the acts of the living generation. The world philosophy of the age is never anything but the reflection on the mental hori- zon, which is formed out of the mores, of the ruling ideas which are in the mores themselves. It is from a failure to recognize the to and fro in this reaction that the current notion arises that mores are produced by doctrines. The “morals” of an age are never anything but the consonance between what is done and what the mores of the age require. The whole revolves on itself, in the relation of the specific to the general, within the horizon formed by the mores. Every attempt to win an outside standpoint from which to reduce the whole to an absolute philosophy of truth and right, based on an unalterable principle, is a delusion. New elements are brought in only by new conquests of nature through science and art. The new conquests change the conditions of life and the interests of the members of the society. Then the mores change by adaptation to new conditions and interests. The philosophy and ethics then follow to account for and justify the changes in the mores; often, also, to claim that they have caused the changes. They never do anything but draw new lines of bearing between the parts of the mores and the horizon of thought within which they are enclosed, and which is a deduction from the mores. The horizon is widened by more knowledge, but for one age it is just as much a generalization from the mores as for another. It is always unreal. It is only a prod- uct of thought. The ethical philosophers select points on this horizon from which to take their bearings, and they think that they have won some authority for their sys- tems when they travel back again from the generalization to the specific custom out of which it was deduced. The cases of the inquisitors and witch persecutors who toiled arduously and continually for their chosen ends, for little or no reward, show us the relation between mores on the one side and philosophy, ethics, and religion on the other.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Sumner says, “For the people of a time and place, their own mores are always good, or rather … for them there can be no question of the goodness or badness of their mores.” Explain his position. Has Sumner overlooked the possibility that a people could wonder whether their own mores are correct? Or does Sumner deny this is possible?

2. Sumner says that we often pass judgment on mores of the past or on mores of other people in the present. For example, we now think that infanticide and slavery were wrong. Why does Sumner believe that such moralizing is inappropriate?

3. Sumner believes that mores change when scientific discoveries or technological inven- tions change the conditions of life. Why is it only practical inventions that change mores, and not moral insights?

4. What is the Zeitgeist? How is the concept relevant to Sumner’s theory? 5. Sumner denies that mores are ever produced by doctrines. Does this mean that the

moral doctrines of philosophers like Aristotle, Kant, or Mill have no influence on what counts as moral? Explain.

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER: A DEFENSE OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM 89

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (b. 1945) is a professor of anthropology at Rhode Island College, where she is director of the general education program. She has written a number of works on Islamic culture and practice, including Modern Egypt and Its Heritage (1990), Islamic Society in Practice (1994), and Race and Racism: An Introduction (2006).

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban is an anthropologist who objects to the widespread acceptance of ethical relativism by her peers. She points out that in 1947, when the idea of an international declaration of universal human rights was first being discussed, anthropologists, who were mainly ethical relati- vists, declined to participate. Fluehr-Lobban says that this laissez-faire pos- ture must change: “the time has come” for anthropologists to take a stand on key human-rights issues. This will entail morally judging and condemn- ing some of the societies they study. In particular, Fluehr-Lobban con- demns the mores that in many cultures contribute to the exploitation and degradation of women. Fluehr-Lobban advocates active measures to get social change: “We cannot just be bystanders.”

Cultural relativism, long a key concept in anthropology, asserts that since each cul- ture has its own values and practices, anthropologists should not make value judg- ments about cultural differences. As a result, anthropological pedagogy has stressed that the study of customs and norms should be value-free, and that the appropriate role of the anthropologist is that of observer and recorder.

Today, however, this view is being challenged by critics inside and outside the discipline, especially those who want anthropologists to take a stand on key human-rights issues. I agree that the time has come for anthropologists to become more actively engaged in safeguarding the rights of people whose lives and cultures they study.

Historically, anthropology as a discipline has declined to participate in the dia- logue that produced international conventions regarding human rights. For exam- ple, in 1947, when the executive board of the American Anthropological Association withdrew from discussions that led to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” it did so in the belief that no such declaration would be applicable to all human beings. But the world and anthropology have changed. Because their research involves extended interaction with people at the grassroots, anthropolo- gists are in a unique position to lend knowledge and expertise to the international debate regarding human rights.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL RIGHTS Used by permission of the author.

90 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Doing so does not represent a complete break with the traditions of our field. After all, in the past, anthropologists did not hesitate to speak out against such rep- rehensible practices as Nazi genocide and South African apartheid. And they have testified in U.S. courts against government rules that impinge on the religious tradi- tions or sacred lands of Native Americans, decrying government policies that treat groups of people unjustly.

However, other practices that violate individual rights or oppress particular groups have not been denounced. Anthropologists generally have not spoken out, for example, against the practice in many cultures of female circumcision, which critics call a mutilation of women. They have been unwilling to pass judgment on such forms of culturally based homicide as the killing of infants or the aged. Some have withheld judgment on acts of communal violence, such as clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India or Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, perhaps because the animosities between those groups are of long standing.

Moreover, as a practical matter, organized anthropology’s refusal to participate in drafting the 1947 human-rights declaration has meant that anthropologists have not had much of a role in drafting later human-rights statements, such as the United Nations’ “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,” approved in 1979. In many international forums discussing women’s rights, participants have specifically rejected using cultural relativism as a barrier to improving women’s lives.

The issue of violence against women throws the perils of cultural relativism into stark relief. Following the lead of human-rights advocates, a growing number of anthropologists and others are coming to recognize that violence against women should be acknowledged as a violation of a basic human right to be free from harm. They believe that such violence cannot be excused or justified on cultural grounds.

Let me refer to my own experience. For nearly 25 years, I have conducted research in the Sudan, one of the African countries where the practice of female cir- cumcision is widespread, affecting the vast majority of females in the northern Sudan. Chronic infections are a common result, and sexual intercourse and child- birth are rendered difficult and painful. However, cultural ideology in the Sudan holds that an uncircumcised woman is not respectable, and few families would risk their daughter’s chances of marrying by not having her circumcised. British colonial officials outlawed the practice in 1946, but this served only to make it sur- reptitious and thus more dangerous. Women found it harder to get treatment for mistakes or for side effects of the illegal surgery.

For a long time I felt trapped between, on one side, my anthropologist’s under- standing of the custom and of the sensitivities about it among the people with whom I was working, and, on the other, the largely feminist campaign in the West to eradicate what critics see as a “barbaric” custom. To ally myself with Western feminists and condemn female circumcision seemed to me to be a betrayal of the value system and culture of the Sudan, which I had come to understand. But as I was asked over the years to comment on female circumcision because of my expertise in the Sudan, I came to realize how deeply I felt that the practice was harmful and wrong.

CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN: CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL RIGHTS 91

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

In 1993, female circumcision was one of the practices deemed harmful by delegates at the international Human Rights Conference in Vienna. During their dis- cussions, they came to view circumcision as a violation of the rights of children as well as of the women who suffer its consequences throughout life. Those discussions made me realize that there was a moral agenda larger than myself, larger than West- ern culture or the culture of the northern Sudan or my discipline. I decided to join colleagues from other disciplines and cultures in speaking out against the practice.

Some cultures are beginning to change, although cause and effect are difficult to determine. Women’s associations in the Ivory Coast are calling for an end to female circumcision. In Egypt, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights has reported the first publicly acknowledged marriage of an uncircumcised woman. In the United States, a Nigerian woman recently was granted asylum on the ground that her returning to her country would result in the forcible circumcision of her daughter, which was deemed a violation of the girl’s human rights.

To be sure, it is not easy to achieve consensus concerning the point at which cultural practices cross the line and become violations of human rights. But it is important that scholars and human-rights activists discuss the issue. Some examples of when the line is crossed may be clearer than others. The action of a Japanese wife who feels honor-bound to commit suicide because of the shame of her husband’s infidelity can be explained and perhaps justified by the traditional code of honor in Japanese society. However, when she decides to take the lives of her children as well, she is committing murder, which may be easier to condemn than suicide.

What about “honor” killings of sisters and daughters accused of sexual miscon- duct in some Middle Eastern and Mediterranean societies? Some anthropologists have explained this practice in culturally relativist terms, saying that severe disrup- tions of the moral order occur when sexual impropriety is alleged or takes place. To restore the social equilibrium and avoid feuds, the local culture requires the shed- ding of blood to wash away the shame of sexual dishonor. The practice of honor killings, which victimizes mainly women, has been defended in some local courts as less serious than premeditated murder, because it stems from longstanding cul- tural traditions. While some judges have agreed, anthropologists should see a differ- ent picture: a pattern of cultural discrimination against women.

As the issue of domestic violence shows, we need to explore the ways that we balance individual and cultural rights. The “right” of a man to discipline, slap, hit, or beat his wife (and often, by extension, his children) is widely recognized across many cultures in which male dominance is an accepted fact of life. Indeed, the issue of domestic violence has only recently been added to the international human-rights agenda, with the addition of women’s rights to the list of basic human rights at the Vienna conference.

The fact that domestic violence is being openly discussed and challenged in some societies (the United States is among the leaders) helps to encourage dialogue in societies in which domestic violence has been a taboo subject. This dialogue is relatively new, and no clear principles have emerged. But anthropologists could inform and enrich the discussion, using their knowledge of family and community life in different cultures.

92 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Cases of genocide may allow the clearest insight into where the line between local culture and universal morality lies. Many anthropologists have urged the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments to stop gold miners from slaughtering the Yanomami people, who are battling the encroachment of miners on their rain for- ests. Other practices that harm individuals or categories of people (such as the elderly, women, and enslaved or formerly enslaved people) may not represent geno- cide per se, and thus may present somewhat harder questions about the morality of traditional practices. We need to focus on the harm done, however, and not on the scale of the abuse. We need to be sensitive to cultural differences but not allow them to override widely recognized human rights.

The exchange of ideas across cultures is already fostering a growing acceptance of the universal nature of some human rights, regardless of cultural differences. The right of individuals to be free from harm or the threat of harm, and the right of cultural minorities to exist freely within states, are just two examples of rights that are beginning to be universally recognized—although not universally applied.

Fortunately, organized anthropology is beginning to change its attitude toward cultural relativism and human rights. The theme of the 1994 convention of the American Anthropological Association was human rights. At the sessions organized around the topic, many anthropologists said they no longer were absolutely com- mitted to cultural relativism. The association has responded to the changing attitude among its members by forming a Commission for Human Rights, charged with developing a specifically anthropological perspective on those rights, and with chal- lenging violations and promoting education about them.

Nevertheless, many anthropologists continue to express strong support for cul- tural relativism. One of the most contentious issues arises from the fundamental question: What authority do we Westerners have to impose our own concept of universal rights on the rest of humanity? It is true that Western ideas of human rights have so far dominated international discourse. On the other hand, the cul- tural relativists’ argument is often used by repressive governments to deflect interna- tional criticism of their abuse of their citizens. At the very least, anthropologists need to condemn such misuse of cultural relativism, even if it means that they may be denied permission to do research in the country in question.

Personally, I would go further: I believe that we should not let the concept of relativism stop us from using national and international forums to examine ways to protect the lives and dignity of people in every culture. Because of our involve- ment in local societies, anthropologists could provide early warnings of abuses—for example, by reporting data to international human-rights organizations, and by joining the dialogue at international conferences. When there is a choice between defending human rights and defending cultural relativism, anthropologists should choose to protect and promote human rights. We cannot just be bystanders.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What prompted Fluehr-Lobban to pass moral judgment on the societies she was studying? How does she justify this to herself as an anthropologist who is sensitive to the feelings of the people she is judging?

2. Now that she is no longer merely standing by as an observer, what role does Fluehr-Lobban see herself playing?

CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN: CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL RIGHTS 93

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

3. How, in the opinion of Fluehr-Lobban, is “cultural relativism” being misused by some anthropologists?

4. Give an example of what Fluehr-Lobban considers to be an abusive practice in a soci- ety, and state what human right it violates. How might an outsider go about getting the abusive practice changed?

Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation and Ethical Relativism

Loretta M. Kopelman

Loretta Kopelman (b. 1938) is professor emeritus at East Carolina Univer- sity. She specializes in bioethics and has written more than 140 articles and edited several books on the topic.

Some relativists claim that “an action is right if it is approved in a person’s culture and wrong if it is disapproved.” By this reasoning, no culture has the moral authority to criticize the practices of other cultures; each society determines for itself what is right and wrong. Kopelman opposes this the- ory and points out that it can be used to justify horrific practices like apartheid, genocide, and war—and female genital mutilation (FGM). She rejects the relativist view on the grounds that moral judgments, like medi- cal or scientific findings, can be evaluated for consistency and empirical accuracy. Those who defend FGM, for example, often justify it by claiming it is a religious imperative and is essential to women’s health. In fact, it is not required by the Koran, and it is manifestly bad for women’s health. Most cultures, says Kopelman, share similar basic moral values and goals, such as the alleviation of suffering and the promotion of personal well- being. They are also responsive to logic and rules of evidence. These com- mon goals give her hope that we can engage in meaningful intercultural discussions about right and wrong.

In northern Africa and southern Arabia many girls undergo ritual surgery involving removal of parts of their external genitalia; the surgery is often accompanied by cer- emonies intended to honor and welcome the girls into their communities. About 80 million living women have had this surgery, and an additional 4 or 5 million girls undergo it each year. Usually performed between infancy and puberty, these

Loretta M. Kopelman, “Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation and Ethical Relativism,” Second Opinion 20, no. 2 (October 1994): 55–71. Reprinted by permission of the Park Ridge Center.

94 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

ancient practices are supposed to promote chastity, religion, group identity, cleanli- ness, health, family values, and marriage goals. This tradition is prevalent and deeply embedded in many countries, including Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Chad, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Mauritania, Nigeria, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, and Egypt. Modified versions of the surgeries are also performed in Southern Yemen and Musqat-Oman. Tragically, the usual ways of performing these surgeries deny women sexual orgasms, cause significant morbidity or mortality among women and children, and strain the overburdened health care systems in these developing countries. Some refer to these practices as female cir- cumcision, but those wishing to stop them increasingly use the description female genital mutilation.

Impassioned cultural clashes erupt when people from societies practicing female circumcision/genital mutilation settle in other parts of the world and bring these rites with them. It is practiced, for example, by Muslim groups in the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Europe, and North America. Parents may use tradi- tional practitioners or seek medical facilities to reduce the morbidity or mortality of this genital surgery. Some doctors and nurses perform the procedures for large fees or because they are concerned about the unhygienic techniques that traditional practitioners may use. In the United Kingdom, where about 2,000 girls undergo the surgery annually, it is classified as child abuse. Other countries have also classi- fied it as child abuse, including Canada and France….

Many international agencies like UNICEF, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, and the World Health Organization (WHO) openly condemn and try to stop the practices of female genital mutilation. Such national groups as the American Medical Association … have also denounced these rituals. Women’s groups from around the world protest these practices and the lack of notice they receive….

Most women in cultures practicing female circumcision/genital mutilation, when interviewed by investigators from their culture, state that they do not believe that such practices deprive them of anything important. They do not think that women can have orgasms or that sex can be directly pleasing to women but assume that their pleasure comes only from knowing they contribute to their husbands’ enjoyment. Some critics argue that women who hold such beliefs cannot be under- stood to be making an informed choice; they thus condemn this custom as a form of oppression….

International discussion, criticisms, and condemnation of female circumcision/ genital mutilation help activists who struggle to change these rites that are thor- oughly entrenched in their own cultures. Not surprisingly, people who want to con- tinue these practices resent such criticisms, seeing them as assaults upon their deeply embedded and popular cultural traditions.

Underlying intercultural disputes is often a basic moral controversy: Does praise or criticism from outside a culture or society have any moral authority within it? That is, do the moral judgments from one culture have any relevance to judg- ments about what is right or wrong within another culture? According to some ver- sions of ethical relativism, to say that something is right means that it is approved of in the speaker’s culture; to say that something is wrong means that it is

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 95

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

disapproved. If this is correct, there is no rational basis for establishing across cultures that one set of culturally established moral values is right and the other wrong. The right action is one that is approved by the person’s society or culture, and the wrong action is one that is disapproved by the person’s society or culture; there are moral truths, but they are determined by the norms of the society. On this view, then, the cultural approval of female circumcision/genital mutilation means that the practice is right; disapproval means that it is wrong.

In contrast to such versions of ethical relativism, other traditions hold that to say something is morally right means that the claim can be defended with reasons in a certain way. Saying that something is approved (such as slavery) does not settle whether it is right, because something can be wrong even when it is approved by most people in a culture. Moral judgments do not describe what is approved but prescribe what ought to be approved; if worthy of being called moral or ethical judgments, they must be defensible with reasons that are consistent and empirically defensible. As we shall find, advocates of the practice of female circumcision/genital mutilation do not say, “We approve of these rituals, and that is the end of the matter.” Rather, they try to defend the practice as useful in promoting many impor- tant goals. In fact, however, the practice is inconsistent with important goals and values of the cultures in which it is practiced. We find that we can evaluate some of the reasons given for performing these rituals and that despite our cultural differ- ences about what to value and how to act, we share many methods of discovery, evaluation, and explanation. These enable us sometimes correctly to judge other cultures, and they us. Moral judgments can be evaluated at least in terms of their consistency and their relation to stable evidence, like medical or scientific findings. By this means certain moral claims can be challenged, even where we have different cultural values, and the practice of female circumcision/genital mutilation shown to be wrong. Thus, both intercultural and intracultural discussions, criticisms, and condemnation of female genital mutilation as well as support for activists seeking to stop the practice can have moral authority, or so I argue.

After considering some of the health hazards of female circumcision/genital mutilation, I review the version of ethical relativism that denies moral authority to cross-cultural moral judgments. By examining the cultural reasons used to justify female circumcision/genital mutilation, I want to show that many aspects of this discussion are open to cross-cultural evaluation and understanding and hence that this version of ethical relativism fails. After discussing some anticipated objections, I conclude that these relativists have a heavy burden of proof to show why we cannot make intercultural judgments that have moral force concerning female geni- tal mutilation, just as we do concerning such things as oppression, intolerance, exploitation, waste, aggression, and torture or imprisonment of dissidents.

Types of Surgery and Their Health Consequences

Female circumcision/genital mutilation takes three forms. Type 1 circumcision involves pricking or removing the clitoral hood, or prepuce. This is the least muti- lating type and should not preclude sexual orgasms in later life, unlike other forms. When this surgery is performed on infants and small children, however, it may be difficult to avoid removal of additional tissue, because infants’ genitalia are small,

96 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

and the tools commonly used are pins, scissors, razors, and knives. In the southern Arabian countries of Southern Yemen and Musqat-Oman, Type 1 circumcision is commonly practiced. In African countries, however, Type 1 circumcision is often not regarded as a genuine circumcision. Only about 3 percent of the women in one east African survey had this type of circumcision, and none in another where all the women surveyed had been circumcised.

Type 2, or intermediary, circumcision involves removal of the clitoris and most or all of the labia minora. In Type 3 circumcision, or infibulation, the cli- toris, labia minora, and parts of the labia majora are removed. The gaping wound to the vulva is stitched tightly closed, leaving a tiny opening so that the woman can pass urine and menstrual flow. (Type 3 is also known as Pharaonic circumcision, suggesting that it has been done since the time of the pharaohs.) In some African countries most young girls between infancy and 10 years of age have Type 3 circumcision. Traditional practitioners often use sharpened or hot stones, razors, or knives, frequently without anesthesia or antibiotics. In many communities thorns are used to stitch the wound closed, and a twig is inserted to keep an opening. The girl’s legs may be bound for a month or more while the scar heals….

Almost all girls experience immediate pain following the surgery. El Dareer found other immediate consequences, including bleeding, infection, and shock correlating with the type of circumcision. The published studies by investigators from the regions where these rituals are practiced uniformly find that women expressed similar complaints and had similar complications from female circumci- sion/genital mutilation: at the site of the surgery, scarring can make penetration difficult and intercourse painful; cysts may form, requiring surgical repairs; a vari- ety of menstrual problems arise if the opening left is too small to allow adequate drainage; fistulas or tears in the bowel or urinary tract are common, causing incontinence, which in turn leads to social as well as medical problems; maternal-fetal complications and prolonged and obstructed labor are also well- established consequences. El Dareer writes, “The result almost invariably causes immediate and long-term medical complications, especially at childbirth. Consum- mation of marriage is always a difficult experience for both partners, and marital problems often result. Psychological disturbances in girls due to circumcision are not uncommon.” The operation can also be fatal because of shock, tetanus, and septicemia….

Ethical Relativism

Female circumcision/genital mutilation serves as a test case for some versions of eth- ical relativism because the practice has widespread approval within the cultures where it is practiced and widespread disapproval outside those cultures. Relativism, however, means different things to different “academic cultures.” Indeed one of the most striking things about the term relativism is that it is used in so many different ways, spanning the banal to the highly controversial. In the Encyclopedia of Philos- ophy, Richard D. Brandt writes, “Contemporary philosophers generally apply the term [ethical relativism] to some position they disagree with or consider absurd, sel- dom to their own views; social scientists, however, often classify themselves as

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 97

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

relativists.” Philosophers and those in religious studies often distinguish two ways to understand relativism: one is controversial, and the other is not. The noncontro- versial, descriptive version, often called descriptive relativism, is the view that peo- ple from different cultures do act differently and have distinct norms. Social scientists often work as descriptive relativists: they try to understand cultural differ- ences and look for any underlying similarities. Those studying or criticizing female circumcision/genital mutilation, of course, recognize that we do act differently and have different values. But descriptions about how or in what way we are different do not entail statements about how we ought to act.

The controversial position, called ethical relativism, is that an action is right if it is approved in a person’s culture and wrong if it is disapproved. Another version of this controversial view is that to say something is right means it has cultural approval; to say something is wrong means it has cultural disapproval. According to this view, which some call cultural relativism, there is no way to evaluate moral claims across cultures; positions taken by international groups like the World Health Organization merely express a cluster of particular societal opinions and have no moral standing in other cultures. On this view it is incoherent to claim that something is wrong in a culture yet approved, or right yet disapproved; people can express moral judgments about things done in their own or other cultures, but they are expressing only their cultural point of view, not one that has moral author- ity in another culture….

I would begin by observing that we seem to share methods of discovery, evaluation, negotiation, and explanation that can be used to help assess moral judg- ments. For example, we agree how to evaluate methods and research in science, engineering, and medicine, and on how to translate, debate, deliberate, criticize, negotiate, and use technology. To do these things, however, we must first have agreed to some extent on how to distinguish good and bad methods and research in science, engineering, and medicine, and what constitutes a good or bad transla- tion, debate, deliberation, criticism, negotiation, or use of technology. These shared methods can be used to help evaluate moral judgments from one culture to another in a way that sometimes has moral authority. An example of a belief that could be evaluated by stable medical evidence is the assertion by people in some regions that the infant’s “death could result if, during delivery, the baby’s head touches the clitoris.” In addition, some moral claims can be evaluated in terms of their coher- ence. It seems incompatible to promote maternal-fetal health as a good and also to advocate avoidable practices known to cause serious perinatal and neonatal infections.

We need not rank values similarly with people in another culture, or our own, to have coherent discussions about their consistency, consequences, or factual pre- suppositions. That is, even if some moral or ethical (I use these terms interchange- ably) judgments express unique cultural norms, they may still be morally evaluated by another culture on the basis of their logical consistency and their coherence with stable and cross-culturally accepted empirical information. In addition, we seem to share some moral values, goals, and judgments such as those about the evils of unnecessary suffering and lost opportunities, the need for food and shelter, the duty to help children, and the goods of promoting public health and personal well-being. Let us consider therefore, the reasons given by men and women

98 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

who practice female circumcision/genital mutilation in their communities. The information presented herein is based upon studies done by investigators who come from these cultures, some of whom had this ritual surgery as children (El Dareer is one such investigator). We can examine whether these reasons allow peo- ple from other cultures any way of entering the debate based upon such considera- tions as consistency or stable medical findings.

Reasons Given for Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation

According to four independent series of studies conducted by investigators from countries where female circumcision is widely practiced, the primary reasons given for performing this ritual surgery are that it (1) meets a religious requirement, (2) preserves group identity, (3) helps to maintain cleanliness and health, (4) preserves virginity and family honor and prevents immorality, and (5) furthers marriage goals including greater sexual pleasure for men.

El Dareer conducted her studies in the Sudan, Dr. Olayinka Koso-Thomas in and around Sierra Leone, and Raquiya Haji Dualeh Abdalla and Daphne Williams Ntiri in Somalia. They argue that the reasons for continuing this practice in their respective countries float on a sea of false beliefs, beliefs that thrive because of a lack of education and open discussion about reproduction and sexuality. Insofar as intercultural methods for evaluating factual and logical statements exist, people from other cultures should at least be able to understand these inconsistencies or mistaken factual beliefs and use them as a basis for making some judgments having intercultural moral authority.

First, according to these studies the main reason given for performing female circumcision/genital mutilation is that it is regarded as a religious requirement. Most of the people practicing this ritual are Muslims, but it is not a practice required by the Koran. El Dareer writes: “Circumcision of women is not explicitly enjoined in the Koran, but there are two implicit sayings of the Prophet Mohammed: ‘Circumcision is an ordinance in men and an embellishment in women’ and, reportedly Mohammed said to Om Attiya, a woman who circumcised girls in El Medina, ‘Do not go deep. It is more illuminating to the face and more enjoyable to the husband.’ Another version says, ‘Reduce but do not destroy. This is enjoyable to the woman and preferable to the man.’ But there is nothing in the Koran to suggest that the Prophet commanded that women be circumcised. He advised that it was important to both sexes that very little should be taken.” Female circumcision/genital mutilation, moreover, is not practiced in the spiritual center of Islam, Saudi Arabia. Another reason for questioning this as a Muslim practice is that clitoridectomy and infibulation predate Islam, going back to the time of the pharaohs….

Second, many argue that the practice helps to preserve group identity. When Christian colonialists in Kenya introduced laws opposing the practice of female cir- cumcision in the 1930s, African leader Kenyatta expressed a view still popular today: “This operation is still regarded as the very essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral and religious implications, quite apart from the operation itself. For the present, it is impossible for a member of the [Kikuyu] tribe to imagine an initiation without clitoridectomy the abolition of

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 99

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

IRUA [the ritual operation] will destroy the tribal symbol which identifies the age group and prevent the Kikuyu from perpetuating that spirit of collectivism and national solidarity which they have been able to maintain from time immemorial.” In addition, the practice is of social and economic importance to older women who are paid for performing the rituals….

Drs. Koso-Thomas, El Dareer, and Abdalla agree that people in these countries support female circumcision as a good practice, but only because they do not understand that it is a leading cause of sickness or even death for girls, mothers, and infants, and a major cause of infertility, infection, and maternal-fetal and mari- tal complications. They conclude that these facts are not confronted because these societies do not speak openly of such matters. Abdalla writes, “There is no longer any reason, given the present state of progress in science, to tolerate confusion and ignorance about reproduction and women’s sexuality.” Female circumcision/genital mutilation is intended to honor women as male circumcision honors men, and members of cultures where the surgery is practiced are shocked by the analogy of clitoridectomy to removal of the penis….

Third, the belief that the practice advances health and hygiene is incompatible with stable data from surveys done in these cultures, where female circumcision/ genital mutilation has been linked to mortality or morbidity such as shock, infertil- ity, infections, incontinence, maternal-fetal complications, and protracted labor….

Fourth, investigators found that circumcision is thought necessary in these cultures to preserve virginity and family honor and to prevent immorality. Type 3 circumcision is used to keep women from having sexual intercourse before marriage and conceiving illegitimate children. In addition, many believe that Types 2 and 3 circumcision must be done because uncircumcised women have excessive and uncontrollable sexual drives. El Dareer, however, believes that this view is not con- sistently held—that women in the Sudan are respected and that Sudanese men would be shocked to apply this sometimes-held cultural view to members of their own families. This reason also seems incompatible with the general view, which investigators found was held by both men and women in these cultures, that sex cannot be pleasant for women. In addition, female circumcision/genital mutilation offers no foolproof way to promote chastity and can even lead to promiscuity because it does not diminish desire or libido even where it makes orgasms impossi- ble. Some women continually seek experiences with new sexual partners because they are left unsatisfied in their sexual encounters. Moreover, some pretend to be virgins by getting stitched up tightly again….

Fifth, interviewers found that people practicing female circumcision/genital mutilation believe that it furthers marriage goals, including greater sexual pleasure for men. To survive economically, women in these cultures must marry, and they will not be acceptable marriage partners unless they have undergone this ritual surgery. It is a curse, for example, to say that someone is the child of an uncir- cumcised woman. The widely held belief that infibulation enhances women’s beauty and men’s sexual pleasure makes it difficult for women who wish to marry to resist this practice. Some men from these cultures, however, report that they enjoy sex more with uncircumcised women. Furthermore, female circumcision/ genital mutilation is inconsistent with the established goals of some of these cultures because it is a leading cause of disability and contributes to the high mortality rate

100 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

among mothers, fetuses, and children. Far from promoting the goals of marriage, it causes difficulty in consummating marriage, infertility, prolonged and obstructed labor, and morbidity and mortality.

Criticisms of Ethical Relativism

Examination of the debate concerning female circumcision suggests several conclu- sions about the extent to which people from outside a culture can understand or contribute to moral debates within it in a way that has moral force. First, the fact that a culture’s moral and religious views are often intertwined with beliefs that are open to rational and empirical evaluation can be a basis of cross-cultural examina- tion and intercultural moral criticism. Beliefs that the practice enhances fertility and promotes health, that women cannot have orgasms, and that allowing the baby’s head to touch the clitoris during delivery causes death to the baby are incompatible with stable medical data. Thus an opening is allowed for genuine cross-cultural dis- cussion or criticism of the practice.

Some claims about female circumcision/genital mutilation, however, are not as easily open to cross-cultural understanding. For example, cultures practicing the Type 3 surgery, infibulation, believe that it makes women more beautiful. For those who are not from these cultures, this belief is difficult to understand, especially when surveys show that many women in these cultures, when inter- viewed, attribute to infibulation their keloid scars, urine retention, pelvic infec- tions, puerperal sepsis, and obstetrical problems. Koso-Thomas writes: “None of the reasons put forward in favor of circumcision have any real scientific or logical basis. It is surprising that aesthetics and the maintenance of cleanliness are advanced as grounds for female circumcision. The scars could hardly be thought of as contributing to beauty. The hardened scar and stump usually seen where the clitoris should be, or in the case of the infibulated vulva, taut skin with an ugly long scar down the middle, present a horrifying picture.” Thus not everyone in these cultures believes that these rituals enhance beauty; some find such claims dif- ficult to understand.

Second, the debate over female circumcision/genital mutilation illustrates another difficulty for defenders of this version of ethical relativism concerning the problem of differentiating cultures. People who brought the practice of female cir- cumcision/genital mutilation with them when they moved to another nation still claim to be a distinct cultural group. Some who moved to Britain, for example, resent the interference in their culture represented by laws that condemn the prac- tice as child abuse. If ethical relativists are to appeal to cultural approval in making the final determination of what is good or bad, right or wrong, they must tell us how to distinguish one culture from another.

How exactly do we count or separate cultures? A society is not a nation-state, because some social groups have distinctive identities within nations. If we do not define societies as nations, however, how do we distinguish among cultural groups, for example, well enough to say that an action is child abuse in one culture but not in another? Subcultures in nations typically overlap and have many variations. Even if we could count cultural groups well enough to say exactly how to distinguish one culture from another, how and when would this be relevant? How big or old or

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 101

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

vital must a culture, subculture, group, or cult be in order to be recognized as a society whose moral distinctions are self-contained and self-justifying?

A related problem is that there can be passionate disagreement, ambivalence, or rapid changes within a culture or group over what is approved or disapproved. According to ethical relativism, where there is significant disagreement within a cul- ture there is no way to determine what is right or wrong. But what disagreement is significant?

Third, despite some clear disagreement such as that over the rightness of female circumcision/genital mutilation, people from different parts of the world share com- mon goals like the desirability of promoting people’s health, happiness, opportu- nities, and cooperation, and the wisdom of stopping war, pollution, oppression, torture, and exploitation. These common goals make us a world community, and using shared methods of reasoning and evaluation, we can discuss how they are understood or how well they are implemented in different parts of our world com- munity. We can use these shared goals to assess whether female circumcision/genital mutilation is more like respect or oppression, more like enhancement or diminish- ment of opportunities, or more like pleasure or torture. Another way to express this is to say that we should recognize universal human rights or be respectful of each other as persons capable of reasoned discourse.

Fourth, this version of ethical relativism, if consistently held, leads to the abhor- rent conclusion that we cannot make intercultural judgments with moral force about societies that start wars, practice torture, or exploit and oppress other groups; as long as these activities are approved in the society that does them, they are allegedly right. Yet the world community believed that it was making a cross- cultural judgment with moral force when it criticized the Communist Chinese gov- ernment for crushing a pro-democracy student protest rally, the South Africans for upholding apartheid, the Soviets for using psychiatry to suppress dissent, and the Bosnian Serbs for carrying out the siege of Sarajevo.

And the judgment was expressed without anyone’s ascertaining whether the respective actions had wide-spread approval in those countries. In each case, repre- sentatives from the criticized society usually said something like, “You don’t understand why this is morally justified in our culture even if it would not be in your society.” If ethical relativism were convincing, these responses ought to be as well.

Relativists who want to defend sound social cross-cultural and moral judg- ments about the value of freedom and human rights in other cultures seem to have two choices. On the one hand, if they agree that some cross-cultural norms have moral authority, they should also agree that some intercultural judgments about female circumcision/genital mutilation may have moral authority. Some relativists take this route …, thereby abandoning the version of ethical relativism being criti- cized herein. On the other hand, if they defend this version of ethical relativism yet make cross-cultural moral judgments about the importance of values like tolerance, group benefit, and the survival of cultures, they will have to admit to an inconsis- tency in their arguments. For example, anthropologist Scheper-Hughes… advocates tolerance of other cultural value systems; she fails to see that she is saying that tol- erance between cultures is right and that this is a cross-cultural moral judgment using a moral norm (tolerance). Similarly, relativists who say it is wrong to

102 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

eliminate rituals that give meaning to other cultures are also inconsistent in making a judgment that presumes to have genuine cross-cultural moral authority.

The burden of proof, then, is upon defenders of this version of ethical relativ- ism to show why we cannot do something we think we sometimes do very well, namely, engage in intercultural moral discussion, cooperation, or criticism and give support to people whose welfare or rights are in jeopardy in other cultures. In addition, defenders of ethical relativism need to explain how we can justify the actions of international professional societies that take moral stands in adopting policy. For example, international groups may take moral stands that advocate fighting pandemics, stopping wars, halting oppression, promoting health education, or eliminating poverty, and they seem to have moral authority in some cases. Some might respond that our professional groups are themselves cultures of a sort. But this response raises the already discussed problem of how to individuate a culture or society.

Objections

Some standard rejoinders are made to criticism of relativism, but they leave untouched the arguments against the particular version of ethical relativism dis- cussed herein. First, some defenders argue that cross-cultural moral judgments per- petuate the evils of absolutism, cultural dogmatism, or cultural imperialism. People rarely admit to such transgressions, often enlisting medicine, religion, science, or the “pure light of reason” to arrive at an allegedly impartial, disinterested, and justified conclusion that they should “enlighten” and “educate” the “natives,” “savages,” or “infidels.” Anthropologist Scheper-Hughes writes, “I don’t ‘like’ the idea of clitori- dectomy any better than any other woman I know. But I like even less the western ‘voices of reason’ [imposing their views].” Scheper-Hughes and others suggest that, in arguing that we can make moral judgments across cultures, we are thereby claiming a particular culture knows best and has the right to impose its allegedly superior knowledge on other cultures.

Claiming that we can sometimes judge another culture in a way that has moral force, however, does not entail that one culture is always right, that absolutism is legitimate, or that we can impose our beliefs on others. Relativists sometimes respond that even if this is not a strict logical consequence, it is a practical result. Sherwin writes, “Many social scientists have endorsed versions of relativism pre- cisely out of their sense that the alternative promotes cultural dominance. They may be making a philosophical error in drawing that conclusion, but I do not think that they are making an empirical one.”…

The version of ethical relativism we have been considering, however, does not avoid cultural imperialism. To say that an act is right, on this view, means that it has cultural approval, including acts of war, oppression, enslavement, aggression, exploitation, racism, or torture. On this view, the disapproval of other cultures is irrelevant in determining whether these acts are right or wrong; accordingly, the disapproval of people in other cultures, even victims of war, oppression, enslavement, aggression, exploitation, racism, or torture, does not count in deciding what is right or wrong except in their own culture. This view thus leads to abhorrent conclusions. It entails not only the affirmation that

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 103

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

female circumcision/genital mutilation is right in cultures where it is approved but the affirmation that anything with wide social approval is right, including slavery, war, discrimination, oppression, racism, and torture. If defenders of the version of ethical relativism criticized herein are consistent, they will dismiss any objections by people in other cultures as merely an expression of their own cul- tural preferences, having no moral standing whatsoever in the society that is engaging in the acts in question.

Defenders of ethical relativism must explain why we should adopt a view lead- ing to such abhorrent conclusions. They may respond that cultures sometimes over- lap and hence that the victims’ protests within or between cultures ought to count. But this response raises two further difficulties for defenders of ethical relativism. First, it is inconsistent if it means that the views of people in other cultures have moral standing and oppressors ought to consider the views of victims. Such judg- ments are inconsistent with this version of ethical relativism because they are cross-cultural judgments with moral authority. The second difficulty with this defense, also discussed above, is that it raises the problem of how we differentiate a culture or society.

Second, some defenders of ethical relativism argue that we cannot know enough about another culture to make any cross-cultural moral judgments. We can- not really understand another society well enough to criticize it, they claim, because our feelings, concepts, or ways of reasoning are too different; our so-called ordinary moral views about what is permissible are determined by our upbringing and envir- onments to such a degree that they cannot be transferred to other cultures. There are two ways to understand this objection. The first is that nothing counts as understanding another culture except being raised in it. If that is what is meant, then the objection is valid in a trivial way. But it does not address the important issue of whether we can comprehend well enough to make relevant moral distinc- tions or engage in critical ethical discussions about the universal human right to be free of oppression.

The second, and nontrivial, way to understand this objection is that we cannot understand another society well enough to justify claiming to know what is right or wrong in that society or even to raise moral questions about what enhances or diminishes life, promotes opportunities, and so on. Overwhelming data, however, suggest that we think we can do this very well. Travelers to other countries often quickly understand that approved practices in their own country are widely con- demned elsewhere, sometimes for good reasons. For example, they learn that the U.S. population consumes a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources, a fact readily noticed and condemned by citizens in other cultures. We ordinarily view international criticism and international responses concerning human rights violations, aggression, torture, and exploitation as important ways to show that we care about the rights and welfare of other people, and in some cases these responses have moral authority.

People who deny the possibility of genuine cross-cultural moral judgments must account for why we think we can and should make them, or why we sometimes agree more with people from other cultures than with our own relatives and neigh- bors about the moral assessments of aggression, oppression, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, rights to health care, and so on. International meetings,

104 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

moreover, seem to employ genuinely cross-cultural moral judgments when they seek to distinguish good from bad uses of technology, promote better environmental or health policies, and so on.

Third, some defenders of ethical relativism object that eliminating important rituals from a culture risks destroying the society. They insist that these cultures cannot survive if they change such a central practice as female circumcision. This counterargument, however, is not decisive. Slavery, oppression, and exploita- tion are also necessary to some ways of life, yet few would defend these actions in order to preserve a society. Others reply to this objection by questioning the assumption that these cultures can survive only by continuing clitoridectomy or infibulation. These cultures, they argue, are more likely to be transformed by war, famine, disease, urbanization, and industrialization than by the cessation of this ancient ritual surgery. A further argument is that if slavery, oppression, and exploi- tation are wrong whether or not there are group benefits, then a decision to elimi- nate female circumcision/genital mutilation should not depend on a process of weighing its benefits to the group. It is also incoherent or inconsistent to hold that group benefit is so important that other cultures should not interfere with local practices. For this view elevates group benefit as an overriding cross-cultural value, something that these ethical relativists claim cannot be justified. If there are no cross-cultural values about what is wrong or right, a defender of ethical relativism cannot consistently say such things as “One culture ought not interfere with others,” “We ought to be tolerant,” “Every culture is equally valuable,” or “It is wrong to interfere with another culture.”

Comment

We have sufficient reason, therefore, to conclude that these rituals of female circumcision/genital mutilation are wrong. For me to say they are wrong does not mean that they are disapproved by most people in my culture but wrong for reasons similar to those given by activists within these cultures who are work- ing to stop these practices. They are wrong because the usual forms of the surgery deny women orgasms and because they cause medical complications and even death.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Kopelman distinguishes between two types of relativism. What are they, and how do they differ?

2. Kopelman claims that despite differences, societies “share many methods of discovery, evaluation and explanation.” How do these shared methods make intercultural judg- ments possible?

3. In your opinion, which is the greater moral threat: ethical relativism and its apparent tolerance of cruel and unjust practices, or ethical universalism and the risk of absolut- ism, and cultural imperialism?

4. Kopelman notes, “If there are no cross-cultural values” about right and wrong, then the relativist cannot claim that “it is wrong to interfere with other cultures.” The latter is a universal judgment that is ruled out of order by relativism. Is she right to suggest that relativism is self-contradictory?

LORETTA M. KOPELMAN: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION/GENITAL MUTILATION 105

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

An Alternative to Moral Relativism

Lawrence Adam Lengbeyer

Lawrence Adam Lengbeyer (b. 1958) teaches ethics and philosophy at the United States Naval Academy. His published and presented research has dealt with a wide variety of topics, including selflessness, courage, anti- Semitism, and mental compartmentalization.

Lengbeyer endorses an alternative to both absolutism and relativism that he calls ethical pluralism. He points out that many students are uncomfort- able with the “anything goes” character of ethical relativism; on the other hand, they recoil from the idea that there is one right answer to every moral question. Ethical pluralism allows for many ways to be right. Indivi- duals as well as societies may reasonably differ in how much importance to attach to various ideals—compassion, justice, and liberty, for instance— and how to rank order and weight these in making moral decisions. This leaves room for “multiple correct answers to ethical questions of right and wrong, good and bad,” each of which is reasonable and suited to its par- ticular circumstances. At the same time, individuals and even whole socie- ties can be mistaken; this happens when they make decisions based on self- deception, bigotry, misinformation, invalid logic, superstition, or other irrationality. Unlike relativism, pluralism asserts that there are many ways to be wrong.

It is remarkable how many students remain drawn to ethical relativism even after becoming aware of its rather damning shortcomings. They acknowledge that, yes, they know of no cogent positive argument in its favor; that it seemingly undermines the basis for moral reasoning and discussion, and for ethical aspiration and improvement; and that as relativists they may be entangled in self-contradiction. But then they look once again at ethical objectivism, which they see as the only available alternative that still allows for talking about ethical judgments as true or false, and they’re reminded that they deem it to be even more unacceptable: “Given the diversity of divergent opinions about ethical matters, how can I count on my ethical views happening to be the true ones, when they have been so shaped by the happenstance of my background, upbringing, educational exposure, intellectual inclinations, and even genetic makeup?” So they reason, displaying admirable self- awareness and humility. “Did I just happen to obtain the one true view of religion, right and wrong, and what’s valuable in life—while those who disagree with me on questions of morality and value (and not merely factual matters) were instilled with false ideas? Couldn’t they all say the exact same thing about me, and with no less justification? And wouldn’t I now be espousing their ethical convictions if I had

Reprinted by permission of the author.

106 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

been born to their parents, raised in their families and (sub)cultures, taught by their teachers, and exposed to the same arguments as they?”

So, at the end of the day, many students still allow themselves to think and talk like relativists. What else, after all, can they do? To drop relativism for objectivism strikes them as jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. It’s better to stifle one’s judgment than to become indefensibly arrogant, isn’t it?

Now, others will undoubtedly object to such a characterization of objectivism. They believe that, however complicated the right answer to an ethical question sometimes is, there is a right answer—and a, single right answer, not a different one for each different perspective that is taken on the matter. In some cases, more- over, the right answer is obvious—it’s wrong to torture babies for fun; it’s good to help others in need; it’s right to live as Christ decreed, perhaps—and only someone who has been damaged, brainwashed, improperly trained, or seduced by evil can fail to see these truths. Surely it cannot be arrogant to hold fast to clear, important truths?

There is certainly something to be said for this view (and for relativism, for that matter). Moreover, it seems possible to embrace objectivism, and a particular set of uncompromising ethical truths, without taking the further step of imposing these views upon those who disagree. The fact is, though, that many of our students steadfastly regard objectivism as a far-fetched, egotistical or ethnocentric—maybe even dangerous—doctrine. Could they benefit from a deeper, more subtle apprecia- tion of the objectivist and relativist options? Unquestionably. But are they likely ever to obtain such a thorough, detailed philosophical comprehension of the nuan- ces of meta-ethical theory? Not the vast majority of them—and yet their orienta- tions on these issues will pervasively influence their approaches to education, their political attitudes and activities, their relationships with their neighbors, even the ways that they end up raising the next generation of citizens. So it is crucial that we engage these students. And, to be able to engage them at all, we must engage them on their home turf—understanding what brings them to their relativistic atti- tudes, and accepting that they will not be dislodged easily from their simplified, stereotyping conceptions of objectivism and relativism, certainly not by intricate abstract arguments.

Many of these students are drawn to relativism in ethics (and often beyond) due to the anxiety that they feel when they contemplate deviating—even in mere thought, let alone in overt expression—from those ‘reference’ groups or persons to whom they look for their norms. The regard, or mere acceptance, of those persons who they perceive to be hip, astute, or simply normal is too precious for them to risk. Not feeling “safe enough” to engage in moral analysis, not (yet) possessing the basic moral courage required to think for themselves, they adopt a “fatalistic” relativism that rationalizes their disengagement. For other students, of course, it may be mere laziness, a distaste for the hard work of thinking clearly, that draws them in.

These forces aside, however, many students are led into relativism by a reason- able, if exaggerated and perhaps ultimately misguided, worry about being con- temptibly judgmental or arrogant. How, then, can we help them move beyond the disagreeable objectivist-relativist dilemma into which they feel forced? We can, and do, make efforts to open their minds to objectivist alternatives—introducing them

LAWRENCE ADAM LENGBEYER: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MORAL RELATIVISM 107

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

to some versions that are nuanced and/or empirically supported; showing them that humility and tolerance can be compatible with objectivism, and explaining why objectivism does not license the leap to assuming that one’s own current positions are the ones uniquely endowed with truth. But these efforts seem to leave many minds unchanged. To these students, objectivism cannot be rescued or rehabilitated; it is simply a non-starter, and there is nowhere else to turn but relativism, for all its problems.

But we still have one arrow left in our quiver, and it is a philosophically signif- icant and pedagogically fruitful one: we can show these students that there is some- where else to turn. Beside relativism and objectivism, there is a third option in this area—ethical pluralism. Might it avoid those features of its competitors that are so often found unpalatable?

The core claim of pluralism is that there can be multiple correct answers to eth- ical questions of right and wrong, good and bad, better and worse—not merely one correct answer, as objectivists maintain, nor as many correct answers as there are differing cultural (or individual) opinions, as ‘cultural’ (or ‘individual’) relativists maintain. To the objectivist, if people disagree about an ethical matter, only one of them can be right—everyone else is wrong. (Though it may be that none of them has discerned the truth of the matter.) There is a single universal standard of ethical truth, a single all-encompassing ethical reality, against which to measure everyone’s behaviors, beliefs, and feelings. To the cultural relativist, by contrast, every culture’s answer is right ‘for it’—no culture can be mistaken. And it may even be that every single person’s view, no matter how absurd or wrongheaded it seems to others, is right ‘for him’ and thus beyond criticism, as the more radical, ‘individual’ version of relativism maintains. Either way, there is no single ethical reality, hence no universal standards.

The pluralist position lies in between the poles of objectivism and relativism, and claims to possess the most appealing features of each. Yes, there is an objective truth of the matter concerning ethics, and thus it is possible for people’s judgments to be wrong; at the same time, yes, ethical truth is not always single, providing for only one correct answer to every question, and thus there is no good reason to con- clude that all whose judgments disagree with ours are wrong. According to the plu- ralist, then, each ethical question may have multiple equally correct (reasonable, acceptable) answers, but not an unlimited number of such answers. Only certain answers are above reproach; the rest are mistaken. Error, ignorance, misjudgment, wishful thinking, self-deception, and confusion are possible in ethical thinking. So we need not, and ought not, grant an uncritical free pass to the viewpoints of other persons or cultures—or to our own. Critical reflection, inquiry, and debate are important, and not pointless, activities.

Now, this might sound pretty mysterious. How can there be a truth that “is not always single,” that allows for multiple right answers to a question? Are we sup- posed to take this kind of lunacy seriously?

To see the plausibility of pluralism in ethics, we ought first to look outside of ethics, to the domains where the contending theories are most at home, where they strike us as most compelling. Let’s consider the subject matters where it is fairly uncontroversial that objectivism and relativism are appropriate, and that pluralism would therefore be out of place.

108 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Begin with matters of empirical, in particular scientific, fact: there is general consensus on how to go about answering questions about things like distance, mass, heat, voltage, or pressure, or at least on how to test the answers. More- over, each method of testing is required to be objective—to come out with the same answer regardless of who performs it, or what subjective attitudes and pre- ferences the testers bring to it, provided that they have received the appropriate training and are competent. This objectivity is not confined to the physical sciences, either. Journalists, historians, biologists, economists—even ordinary citi- zens trying to learn about the scheduled kickoff time for a football game—regard themselves as pursuing objectively existing and verifiable facts, even if they later launch from these foundations into less objective domains of interpretation and judgment.

Surely, objectivism is the appropriate approach to take here. There are no mul- tiple right answers to questions about such matters, let alone a different correct answer for each (sub)culture or each person!

But let’s give relativism its due, too. Consider matters of taste or preference, regarding such things as food, romantic allure, or how best to spend one’s leisure time. Here we certainly seem not to find the objectivism-favoring features just dis- cussed—the agreement across persons, the methods for verification, the irrelevance of who is doing the judging. The procedures for answering questions about these matters seem to be unavoidably, and irreducibly, subjective: they properly draw upon personally variable, sometimes idiosyncratic, attitudes and other features of our psyches. While it’s possible to make a case that the person who prefers vanilla ice cream to strawberry is objectively wrong, that thunderstorms are inherently unpleasant, or that beaches are more beautiful than mountain ranges, it seems impossible to make a convincing case in such instances. And notice that individual tastes and preferences often are shaped by the surrounding (sub)cultures: to Koreans generally, pickled foods are delicious, but not so for participants in many other culinary traditions.

It would appear, then, that in realms such as these, there seems no problem with saying “to each, his own” for every (sub)culture, or even for every person. Relativism is not out of place here.

But what if someone were to ask for the name of the greatest military leader in American history—or the best route for driving to that football game mentioned above, or the right strategy for succeeding in business, or the best hitter in baseball, or the finest film of all time, or the right way to play a certain Beethoven sonata, or the best teacher at one’s school? Now, there might well be several legitimate, rea- sonable competing answers to any of these questions. But surely there are, as a mat- ter of objective reality, plenty of wrong answers to each, too, answers that have no strong reasons in their favor compared to some other possibilities. Anyone with a few seconds reflection can come up with some.

In matters like these, we obtain answers by turning to the underlying factors or criteria that are relevant. For military leadership, we inquire about such things as engagements won, importance of those victories, quality of the adversaries defeated, handicaps fought under, innovative methods used, and personal character and cha- risma. For excellent teaching, we ask about making class interesting, being a role model, displaying a good sense of humor, having a well-designed syllabus, treating

LAWRENCE ADAM LENGBEYER: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MORAL RELATIVISM 109

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

students fairly and respectfully, inspiring wonder and curiosity, instilling high stan- dards, generating intellectual enthusiasm for the subject-matter, and so on. Yet there can be reasonable disagreement about how to apply each underlying criterion, and even about whether a given criterion is relevant, or how much weight it should be given. Was Star Wars more innovative a film, for instance, than Toy Story? And should innovation even be considered a factor in film greatness? If so, how impor- tant a factor?

Thus, various defensible conceptions or ‘theories’ of military leadership, teach- ing excellence, film greatness, etc., are possible, and they lead to irresolvable debates in bars, at conferences, on talk shows, and on awards panels. Some people are clearly more expert than the rest of us at rendering judgments in these areas, but even these knowledgeable, sage persons disagree. Consequently, pure objectivism looks unsuited to questions like these. Still, there are many, many answers that sim- ply cannot be reasonably defended, and so we also find an important brake on the kind of ‘anything goes,’ all-accepting attitude of relativism. Pluralism seems to offer the best alternative.

So, finally: what about ethics? Here, too, we usually find ourselves drawn toward conceptions that are based upon multiple factors. For example, what makes an action ethically right or wrong? Well, isn’t it important to know whether the action brings pleasure or suffering? And what alternative options are available to the actor? Sure. But what about other implications—say, for human flourishing or well-being or autonomy, pleasure aside? And then there is the actor’s state of mind. And whether any rights, or obligations, are violated. And whether the action displays an excellent, admirable character. And maybe other considerations. Plus, how are these factors supposed to be combined and balanced into a single judg- ment? Some philosophers have become famous by urging that a single factor or set of factors always predominate—for Bentham and Mill, consequences of plea- sure and pain; for Kant, state of mind; for Aristotle and Aquinas, in different ways, character and human flourishing—but few ordinary persons think that con- vincing answers can always be obtained by such a purity, or narrow exclusivity, of vision.

We thus face a choice when we answer an ethical question. We must decide, in effect, which factors to weigh, and how heavily to weigh each, without there being only one proper way to decide these matters. The result is that there are multiple defensible methods for reaching a final judgment, and, often, multiple divergent answers each of which can be defended with sound reasoning. The answers do need to be defended—in ethics, as opposed to those issues for which relativism is proper, no one earns a free pass just by showing up and stating a personal or cul- tural opinion. There are implausible, untenable answers that deserve not automatic deference, but disagreement or at least silent critique: answers that rely upon irrele- vant issues (e.g., the rightness of an action typically does not depend upon the actor’s race, or political views), answers that ignore relevant ones, and answers that are based upon mistakes of fact or upon inconsistent or fallacious reasoning. Ethically sophisticated, wise persons are familiar with all the relevant factors, and can insightfully and logically analyze and discuss their applications in particular cases. They are also astute enough to know that, in ethics, the expectation of a sin- gle correct answer is typically a misguided one.

110 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What, according to Lengbeyer, are the defects of relativism and absolutism (objectiv- ism) that make ethical pluralism attractive? Do you think it is a workable compromise?

2. Consider a specific moral disagreement on an issue such as abortion or capital punish- ment and explain how pluralists might approach the questions in an objective spirit and arrive at different “right” conclusions. Evaluate various arguments for and against the idea that well-considered opposing answers could all be right.

3. Explain Lengbeyer’s distinction among questions that have objective answers (e.g., in math and physics); questions that are wholly subjective (personal preferences for foods or landscapes); and complex questions that are a mix of objectivity and subjectivity— such as who were the best generals in American history, or what are the best films of all time. Do you agree with him that ethics questions fit best in this third pluralistic category?

Who’s to Judge?

Louis Pojman

Louis Pojman (1935–2005) was a professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is the author of Religious Belief and the Will (1986), The Theory of Knowledge (1993), Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong (1995), and most recently, Who Are We?: Theories of Human Nature (2005).

Louis Pojman discusses and opposes the view that moral truth is relative to a group (conventional relativism) or to each individual (subjective relativ- ism). The conventional relativist holds that society determines right and wrong. For the subjective relativist individuals decide for themselves. And who’s to say they judge wrongly? Believing that moral truth is determined by particular social groups or by individuals, the ethical relativists deny that there are any moral principles binding on all human beings.

Pojman argues that neither form of relativism can be sustained, since both lead to absurdities that the relativist is anxious to avoid. Having con- cluded that relativism is untenable, Pojman turns again to the question “Who’s to judge what’s right or wrong?” to which he replies, “We are.”

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every stu- dent entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will

WHO’S TO JUDGE? Used by permission of the estate of the author.

LOUIS POJMAN: WHO’S TO JUDGE? 111

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self- evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4.… The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedi- cated itself to inculcating. (Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind)

In an ancient writing, the Greek historian Herodotus (485–430 B.C.) relates that the Persian King Darius once called into his presence some Greeks and asked them what he should pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when they died. They replied that no sum of money would tempt them to do such a terrible deed; where- upon Darius sent for certain people of the Callatian tribe, who eat their fathers, and asked them in the presence of the Greeks what he should give them to burn the bodies of their fathers at their decease [as the Greeks do]. The Callatians were hor- rified at the thought and bid him desist in such terrible talk. So Herodotus con- cludes, “Culture is King o’er all.”

Today we condemn ethnocentricism, the uncritical belief in the inherent superior- ity of one’s own culture, as a variety of prejudice tantamount to racism and sexism. What is right in one culture may be wrong in another, what is good east of the river may be bad west of the same river, what is a virtue in one nation may be seen as a vice in another, so it behooves us not to judge others but to be tolerant of diversity.

This rejection of ethnocentricism in the West has contributed to a general shift in public opinion about morality, so that for a growing number of Westerners, consciousness-raising about the validity of other ways of life has led to a gradual erosion of belief in moral objectivism, the view that there are universal moral prin- ciples, valid for all people at all times and climes. For example, in polls taken in my ethics and introduction to philosophy classes over the past several years (in three different universities in three areas of the country) students by a two-to-one ratio affirmed a version of moral relativism over moral absolutism with hardly 3 percent seeing something in between these two polar opposites. Of course, I’m not suggest- ing that all of these students have a clear understanding of what relativism entails, for many of those who say that they are ethical relativists also state on the same questionnaire that “abortion except to save the mother’s life is always wrong,” that “capital punishment is always morally wrong,” or that “suicide is never mor- ally permissible.” The apparent contradictions signal an apparent confusion on the matter.

In this essay I want to examine the central notions of ethical relativism and look at the implications that seem to follow from it. After this I want to set forth the outlines of a very modest objectivism, which holds to the objective validity of moral principles but takes into account many of the insights of relativism.

An Analysis of Relativism

Ethical relativism is the theory that there are no universally valid moral principles, but that all moral principles are valid relative to culture or individual choice. It is to be distinguished from moral skepticism, the view that there are no valid moral

112 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

principles at all (or at least we cannot know whether there are any), and from all forms of moral objectivism or absolutism. The following statement by the relativist philosopher John Ladd is a good characterization of the theory.

Ethical relativism is the doctrine that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions varies from society to society and that there are no absolute universal moral standards binding on all men at all times. Accordingly, it holds that whether or not it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on or is relative to the society to which he belongs. (John Ladd, Ethical Relativism)

If we analyze this passage, we derive the following argument:

1. What is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society, so that there are no moral principles accepted by all societies.

2. All moral principles derive their validity from cultural acceptance. 3. Therefore, there are no universally valid moral principles, objective standards

which apply to all people everywhere and at all times.

1. The first thesis, which may be called the Diversity Thesis and identified with Cultural Relativism, is simply an anthropological thesis, which registers the fact that moral rules differ from society to society. As we noted in the introduction of this essay, there is enormous variety in what may count as a moral principle in a given society. The human condition is malleable in the extreme, allowing any num- ber of folkways or moral codes. As Ruth Benedict has written:

The cultural pattern of any civilization makes use of a certain segment of the great arc of potential human purposes and motivations…. [A]ny culture makes use of certain selected material techniques or cultural traits. The great arc along which all the possible human behaviors are distributed is far too immense and too full of contradictions for any one culture to utilize even any considerable portion of it. Selection is the first requirement. (Patterns of Culture, New York, 1934, p. 219)

It may or may not be the case that there is not a single moral principle held in common by every society, but if there are any, they seem to be few, at best. Cer- tainly, it would be very hard to derive one single “true” morality on the basis of observation of various societies’ moral standards.

2. The second thesis, the Dependency Thesis, asserts that individual acts are right or wrong depending on the nature of the society from which they emanate. Morality does not occur in a vacuum, but what is considered morally right or wrong must be seen in a context, depending on the goals, wants, beliefs, history, and environment of the society in question. As William Graham Sumner says, “We learn the [morals] as unconsciously as we learn to walk and hear and breathe, and they never know any reason why the [morals] are what they are. The justifica- tion of them is that when we wake to consciousness of life we find them facts which already hold us in the bonds of tradition, custom, and habit.”1 Trying to see things from an independent, non-cultural point of view would be like taking out our eyes

1 Folkways, New York, 1906, section 80. Ruth Benedict indicates the depth of our cultural condition- ing this way: “The very eyes with which we see the problem are conditioned by the long traditional habits of our own society” (“Anthropology and the Abnormal,” in The Journal of General Psychology [1934], pp. 59–82).

LOUIS POJMAN: WHO’S TO JUDGE? 113

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

in order to examine their contours and qualities. We are simply culturally deter- mined beings.

We could, of course, distinguish a weak and a strong thesis of dependency. The nonrelativist can accept a certain relativity in the way moral principles are applied in various cultures, depending on beliefs, history, and environment. For example, Orientals show respect by covering the head and uncovering the feet, whereas Occidentals do the opposite, but both adhere to a principle of respect for deserving people. They just apply the principle of respect differently. Drivers in Great Britain drive on the left side of the road, while those in the rest of Europe and the United States drive on the right side, but both adhere to a principle of orderly progression of traffic. The application of the rule is different but the principle in question is the same principle in both cases. But the ethical relativist must maintain a stronger the- sis, one that insists that the very validity of the principles is a product of the culture and that different cultures will invent different valid principles. The ethical relativist maintains that even beyond the environmental factors and differences in beliefs, there is a fundamental disagreement between societies.

In a sense, we all live in radically different worlds. Each person has a different set of beliefs and experiences, a particular perspective that colors all of his or her perceptions. Do the farmer, the real estate dealer, and the artist, looking at the same spatio-temporal field, see the same field? Not likely. Their different orientations, values, and expectations govern their perceptions, so that different aspects of the field are highlighted and some features are missed. Even as our individual values arise from personal experience, so social values are grounded in the peculiar history of the community. Morality, then, is just the set of common rules, habits, and cus- toms which have won social approval over time, so that they seem part of the nature of things, as facts. There is nothing mysterious or transcendent about these codes of behavior. They are the outcomes of our social history.

There is something conventional about any morality, so that every morality really depends on a level of social acceptance. Not only do various societies adhere to different moral systems, but the very same society could (and often does) change its moral views over time and place. For example, the southern United States now views slavery as immoral whereas just over one hundred years ago, it did not. We have greatly altered our views on abortion, divorce, and sexuality as well.

3. The conclusion that there are no absolute or objective moral standards bind- ing on all people follows from the first two propositions. Cultural relativism (the Diversity Thesis) plus the Dependency Thesis yields ethical relativism in its classic form. If there are different moral principles from culture to culture and if all moral- ity is rooted in culture, then it follows that there are no universal moral principles valid for all cultures and people at all times.

Subjective Ethical Relativism (Subjectivism)

Some people think that even this conclusion is too tame and maintain that morality is not dependent on the society but on the individual him or herself. As students sometimes maintain, “Morality is in the eye of the beholder.” Ernest Hemingway wrote, “So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after and judged by these

114 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

moral standards, which I do not defend, the bullfight is very moral to me because I feel very fine while it is going on and have a feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality, and after it is over I feel very sad but very fine.”2

This form of moral subjectivism has the sorry consequence that it makes moral- ity a useless concept, for, on its premises, little or no interpersonal criticism or judg- ment is logically possible. Hemingway may feel good about killing bulls in a bull fight, while Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa may feel the opposite. No argu- ment about the matter is possible. The only basis for judging Hemingway or any- one else wrong would be if he failed to live up to his own principles, but, of course, one of Hemingway’s principles could be that hypocrisy is morally permissible (he feels good about it), so that it would be impossible for him to do wrong. For Hemingway hypocrisy and non-hypocrisy are both morally permissible. On the basis of Subjectivism it could very easily turn out that Adolf Hitler is as moral as Gandhi, so long as each believes he is living by his chosen principles. Notions of moral good and bad, right or wrong, cease to have interpersonal evaluative meaning.

In the opening days of my philosophy classes, I often find students vehemently defending subjective relativism. I then give them their first test of the reading mate- rial— which is really a test of their relativism. The next class period I return all the tests, marked with the grade “F” even though my comments show that most of them are of very high quality. When the students explode with outrage (some of them have never before seen this letter on their papers) at this “injustice,” I explain that I too have accepted subjectivism for purposes of marking exams, in which case the principle of justice has no objective validity and their complaint is without merit.

You may not like it when your teacher gives you an F on your test paper, while she gives your neighbor an A for one exactly similar, but there is no way to criticize her for injustice, since justice is not one of her elected principles.

Absurd consequences follow from Subjective Ethical Relativism. If it is correct, then morality reduces to aesthetic tastes over which there can be no argument nor interpersonal judgment. Although many students say that they hold this position, there seems to be a conflict between it and other of their moral views (e.g., that Hitler is really morally bad or capital punishment is always wrong). There seems to be a contradiction between Subjectivism and the very concept of morality, which it is supposed to characterize, for morality has to do with “proper” resolu- tion of interpersonal conflict and the amelioration of the human predicament. Whatever else it does, it has a minimal aim of preventing a state of chaos where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But if so, Subjectivism is no help at all in doing this, for it doesn’t rest on social agreement of principle (as the con- ventionalist maintains) or on an objectively independent set of norms that bind all people for the common good.

Subjectivism treats individuals as billiard balls on a societal pool table where they meet only in radical collisions, each aiming for its own goal and striving to do the other fellow in before he does you. This atomistic view of personality is belied by the fact that we develop in families and mutually dependent communities, in which we share a common language, common institutions, and habits, and that

2 Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (Scribner’s, 1932), p. 4.

LOUIS POJMAN: WHO’S TO JUDGE? 115

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

we often feel each other’s joys and sorrows. As John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”

Radical individualistic relativism seems incoherent. If so, it follows that the only plausible view of ethical relativism must be one that grounds morality in the group or culture. This form of relativism is called “conventionalism,” and to it we now turn.

Conventional Ethical Relativism (Conventionalism)

Conventional Ethical Relativism, the view that there are no objective moral princi- ples but that all valid moral principles are justified by virtue of their cultural accep- tance, recognizes the social nature of morality. That is precisely its power and virtue. It does not seem subject to the same absurd consequences which plague Sub- jectivism. Recognizing the importance of our social environment in generating cus- toms and beliefs, many people suppose that ethical relativism is the correct ethical theory. Furthermore, they are drawn to it for its liberal philosophical stance. It seems to be an enlightened response to the sin of ethnocentricity, and it seems to entail or strongly imply an attitude of tolerance towards other cultures. As Benedict says, in recognizing ethical relativity “we shall arrive at a more realistic social faith, accepting as grounds of hope and as new bases for tolerance the coexisting and equally valid patterns of life which mankind has created for itself from the raw materials of existence.”3 The most famous of those holding this position is the anthropologist Melville Herskovits, who argues even more explicitly than Benedict that ethical relativism entails intercultural tolerance:

1. If Morality is relative to its culture, then there is no independent basis for crit- icizing the morality of any other culture but one’s own.

2. If there is no independent way of criticizing any other culture, we ought to be tolerant of the moralities of other cultures.

3. Morality is relative to its culture.

Therefore

4. we ought to be tolerant of the moralities of other cultures.4

Tolerance is certainly a virtue, but is this a good argument for it? I think not. If morality simply is relative to each culture then if the culture does not have a princi- ple of tolerance, its members have no obligation to be tolerant. Herskovits seems to be treating the principle of tolerance as the one exception to his relativism. He seems to be treating it as an absolute moral principle. But from a relativistic point of view there is no more reason to be tolerant than to be intolerant, and neither stance is objectively morally better than the other.

Not only do relativists fail to offer a basis for criticizing those who are intolerant, but they cannot rationally criticize anyone who espouses what they might regard as a heinous principle. If, as seems to be the case, valid criticism supposes an objective or impartial standard, relativists cannot morally criticize anyone outside their own

3 Patterns of Culture (New American Library, 1934), p. 257. 4 Melville Herskovits, Cultural Relativism (Random House, 1972).

116 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

culture. Adolf Hitler’s genocidal actions, so long as they are culturally accepted, are as morally legitimate as Mother Teresa’s works of mercy. If Conventional Relativism is accepted, racism, genocide of unpopular minorities, oppression of the poor, slav- ery, and even the advocacy of war for its own sake are as equally moral as their opposites. And if a subculture decided that starting a nuclear war was somehow mor- ally acceptable, we could not morally criticize these people.

Any actual morality, whatever its content, is as valid as every other, and more valid than ideal moralities—since the latter aren’t adhered to by any culture.

There are other disturbing consequences of ethical relativism. It seems to entail that reformers are always (morally) wrong since they go against the tide of cultural standards. William Wilberforce was wrong in the eighteenth century to oppose slav- ery; the British were immoral in opposing suttee in India (the burning of widows, which is now illegal in India). The Early Christians were wrong in refusing to serve in the Roman army or bow down to Caesar, since the majority in the Roman Empire believed that these two acts were moral duties. In fact, Jesus himself was immoral in breaking the law of his day by healing on the Sabbath day and by advocating the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, since it is clear that few in his time (or in ours) accepted them.

Yet we normally feel just the opposite, that the reformer is the courageous innovator who is right, who has the truth, against the mindless majority. Sometimes the individual must stand alone with the truth, risking social censure and persecu- tion. As Dr. Stockman says in Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, after he loses the battle to declare his town’s profitable polluted tourist spa unsanitary, “The most danger- ous enemy of the truth and freedom among us—is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, and liberal majority. The majority has might—unfortunately— but right it is not. Right are I and a few others.” Yet if relativism is correct, the opposite is necessarily the case. Truth is with the crowd and error with the individual.…

There is an even more basic problem with the notion that morality is depen- dent on cultural acceptance for its validity. The problem is that the notion of a culture or society is notoriously difficult to define. This is especially so in a plu- ralistic society like our own where the notion seems to be vague with unclear boundary lines. One person may belong to several societies (subcultures) with different value emphases and arrangements of principles. A person may belong to the nation as a single society with certain values of patriotism, honor, courage, laws (including some which are controversial but have majority acceptance, such as the law on abortion). But he or she may also belong to a church which opposes some of the laws of the State. He may also be an integral member of a socially mixed community where different principles hold sway, and he may belong to clubs and a family where still other rules are adhered to. Relativism would seem to tell us that where he is a member of societies with conflicting moralities he must be judged both wrong and not-wrong whatever he does. For example, if Mary is a U.S. citizen and a member of the Roman Catholic Church, she is wrong (qua Catholic) if she chooses to have an abortion and not-wrong (qua citizen of the U.S.A.) if she acts against the teaching of the Church on abor- tion. As a member of a racist university fraternity, KKK, John has no obligation to treat his fellow Black student as an equal, but as a member of the University

LOUIS POJMAN: WHO’S TO JUDGE? 117

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

community itself (where the principle of equal rights is accepted) he does have the obligation; but as a member of the surrounding community (which may reject the principle of equal rights) he again has no such obligation; but then again as a member of the nation at large (which accepts the principle) he is obligated to treat his fellow with respect. What is the morally right thing for John to do? The question no longer makes much sense in this moral Babel. It has lost its action-guiding function.

Perhaps the relativist would adhere to a principle which says that in such cases the individual may choose which group to belong to as primary. If Mary chooses to have an abortion, she is choosing to belong to the general society relative to that principle. And John must likewise choose between groups. The trouble with this option is that it seems to lead back to counter-intuitive results. If Gangland Gus of Murder, Incorporated, feels like killing Bank President Ortcutt and wants to feel good about it, he identifies with the Murder, Incorporated society rather than the general public morality. Does this justify the killing? In fact, couldn’t one justify any- thing simply by forming a small subculture that approved of it? Charles Manson would be morally pure in killing innocents simply by virtue of forming a little coterie. How large must the group be in order to be a legitimate sub-culture or society? Does it need ten or fifteen people? How about just three? Come to think about it, why can’t my burglary partner and I found our own society with a morality of its own? Of course, if my partner dies, I could still claim that I was acting from an originally social set of norms. But why can’t I dispense with the inter-personal agreements alto- gether and invent my own morality—since morality, on this view, is only an inven- tion anyway? Conventionalist Relativism seems to reduce to Subjectivism. And Subjectivism leads, as we have seen, to the demise of morality altogether.

However, while we may fear the demise of morality, as we have known it, this in itself may not be a good reason for rejecting relativism; that is, for judging it false. Alas, truth may not always be edifying. But the consequences of this position are sufficiently alarming to prompt us to look carefully for some weakness in the relativist’s argument. So let us examine the premises and conclusion listed at the beginning of this essay as the three theses of relativism.

1. The Diversity Thesis What is considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society, so that there are no moral principles accepted by all societies.

2. The Dependency Thesis All moral principles derive their validity from cultural acceptance.

3. Ethical Relativism Therefore, there are no universally valid moral principles, objective standards which apply to all people everywhere and at all times.

Does any one of these seem problematic? Let us consider the first thesis, the Diversity Thesis, which we have also called Cultural Relativism. Perhaps there is not as much diversity as anthropologists like Sumner and Benedict suppose. One can also see great similarities between the moral codes of various cultures. E. O. Wilson has identified over a score of common features, and before him Clyde Kluc- khohn has noted some significant common ground.

Every culture has a concept of murder, distinguishing this from execution, killing in war, and other “justifiable homicides.” The notions of incest and other regulations

118 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

upon sexual behavior, the prohibitions upon untruth under defined circumstances, of restitution and reciprocity, of mutual obligations between parents and children—these and many other moral concepts are altogether universal. (“Ethical Relativity: Sic et Non,” Journal of Philosophy, LII, 1955)

And Colin Turnbull, whose description of the sadistic, semi-displaced Ik in Northern Uganda, was seen as evidence of a people without principles of kindness and cooperation, has produced evidence that underneath the surface of this dying society, there is a deeper moral code from a time when the tribe flourished, which occasionally surfaces and shows its nobler face.

On the other hand, there is enormous cultural diversity and many societies have radically different moral codes. Cultural Relativism seems to be a fact, but, even if it is, it does not by itself establish the truth of Ethical Relativism. Cultural diversity in itself is neutral between theories. For the objectivist could concede complete cultural relativism, but still defend a form of universalism; for he or she could argue that some cultures simply lack correct moral principles.

On the other hand, a denial of complete Cultural Relativism (i.e., an admission of some universal principles) does not disprove Ethical Relativism. For even if we did find one or more universal principles, this would not prove that they had any objective status. We could still imagine a culture that was an exception to the rule and be unable to criticize it. So the first premise doesn’t by itself imply Ethical Relativism and its denial doesn’t disprove Ethical Relativism.

We turn to the crucial second thesis, the Dependency Thesis. Morality does not occur in a vacuum, but what is considered morally right or wrong must be seen in a context, depending on the goals, wants, beliefs, history, and environment of the society in question. We distinguished a weak and a strong thesis of dependency. The weak thesis says that the application of principles depends on the particular cultural predicament, whereas the strong thesis affirms that the principles them- selves depend on that predicament. The nonrelativist can accept a certain relativity in the way moral principles are applied in various cultures, depending on beliefs, history, and environment. For example, a raw environment with scarce natural resources may justify the Eskimos’ brand of euthanasia to the objectivist, who in another environment would consistently reject that practice. The members of a tribe in the Sudan throw their deformed children into the river because of their belief that such infants belong to the hippopotamus, the god of the river. We believe that they have a false belief about this, but the point is that the same principles of respect for property and respect for human life are operative in these contrary prac- tices. They differ with us only in belief, not in substantive moral principle. This is an illustration of how nonmoral beliefs (e.g., deformed children belong to the hip- popotamus) when applied to common moral principles (e.g., give to each his due) generate different actions in different cultures. In our own culture the difference in the nonmoral belief about the status of a fetus generates opposite moral prescrip- tions. So the fact that moral principles are weakly dependent doesn’t show that Ethical Relativism is valid. In spite of this weak dependency on non-moral factors, there could still be a set of general moral norms applicable to all cultures and even recognized in most, which are disregarded at a culture’s own expense.

What the relativist needs is a strong thesis of dependency, that somehow all prin- ciples are essentially cultural inventions. But why should we choose to view morality

LOUIS POJMAN: WHO’S TO JUDGE? 119

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

this way? Is there anything to recommend the strong thesis over the weak thesis of dependency? The relativist may argue that in fact we don’t have an obvious impartial standard from which to judge. “Who’s to say which culture is right and which is wrong?” But this seems to be dubious. We can reason and perform thought experi- ments in order to make a case for one system over another. We may not be able to know with certainty that our moral beliefs are closer to the truth than those of another culture or those of others within our own culture, but we may be justified in believing that they are. If we can be closer to the truth regarding factual or scientific matters, why can’t we be closer to the truth on moral matters? Why can’t a culture simply be confused or wrong about its moral perceptions? Why can’t we say that the society like the Ik which sees nothing wrong with enjoying watching its own children fall into fires is less moral in that regard than the culture that cherishes children and grants them protection and equal rights? To take such a stand is not to commit the fallacy of ethnocentricism, for we are seeking to derive principles through critical rea- son, not simply uncritical acceptance of one’s own mores.…

In conclusion I have argued (1) that Cultural Relativism (the fact that there are cultural differences regarding moral principles) does not entail Ethical Relativ- ism (the thesis that there are no objectively valid universal moral principles); (2) that the Dependency Thesis (that morality derives its legitimacy from individual cultural acceptance) is mistaken; and (3) that there are universal moral principles based on a common human nature and a need to solve conflicts of interest and flourish.

So, returning to the question asked at the beginning of this essay, “Who’s to judge what’s right or wrong?” the answer is: We are. We are to do so on the basis of the best reasoning we can bring forth and with sympathy and understanding.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Discuss Pojman’s distinction between cultural relativism and ethical relativism. Why is one a mere matter of describing society and the other an ethical theory? Is Pojman’s use of the term “cultural relativism” the same as Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban’s? Or does she mean by cultural relativism what Pojman means by ethical relativism? Explain.

2. Discuss the two varieties of ethical relativism: subjective and conventional. To which kind of relativism did Ernest Hemingway appeal when he justified the practice of bull- fighting? Show how one might use conventional ethical relativism to justify bullfighting.

3. What argument does Pojman use against subjectivism? Did the arguments convince you? Why or why not?

4. What are his arguments against conventional relativism? Are they strong? Convincing? Explain.

5. Pojman makes much of the fact that we do not normally belong to single, well-defined communities. How does this adversely affect the ethical relativist belief that the com- munity determines what is good and right?

6. What does Pojman mean by the dependency thesis, and why does he conclude that it is mistaken?

7. Pojman says that in the final analysis it is we who are to judge. Since so many other communities have other views and judgments, how can we justify favoring our judg- ment over theirs?

120 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

The Objective Basis of Morality

Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel (b. 1937) is a professor of philosophy at New York Univer- sity. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The View from Nowhere (1986), Concealment and Exposure: And Other Essays (2002), and Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, Essays 2002–2008 (2010). He is coauthor of The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice (2002).

The biblical injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself is often interpreted negatively as the injunction not to do unto your neighbor what you would not have your neighbor do unto you. Thomas Nagel argues that this prin- ciple is universally valid apart from any religious beliefs one might have. He notes that we all feel resentful when someone whom we have not pro- voked harms us: since he had no reason to harm us, he shouldn’t have. Nagel points out that such resentment is reasonable and is the basis of a universal and objective principle that all such harm is morally wrong.

Suppose you work in a library, checking people’s books as they leave, and a friend asks you to let him smuggle out a hard-to-find reference work that he wants to own.

You might hesitate to agree for various reasons. You might be afraid that he’ll be caught, and that both you and he will then get into trouble. You might want the book to stay in the library so that you can consult it yourself.

But you may also think that what he proposes is wrong—that he shouldn’t do it and you shouldn’t help him. If you think that, what does it mean, and what, if anything, makes it true?

To say it’s wrong is not just to say it’s against the rules. There can be bad rules which prohibit what isn’t wrong—like a law against criticizing the government. A rule can also be bad because it requires something that is wrong—like a law that requires racial segregation in hotels and restaurants. The ideas of wrong and right are different from the ideas of what is and is not against the rules. Otherwise they couldn’t be used in the evaluation of rules as well as of actions.

If you think it would be wrong to help your friend steal the book, then you will feel uncomfortable about doing it: in some way you won’t want to do it, even if you are also reluctant to refuse help to a friend. Where does the desire not to do it come from; what is its motive, the reason behind it?

There are various ways in which something can be wrong, but in this case, if you had to explain it, you’d probably say that it would be unfair to other users of

THE OBJECTIVE BASIS OF MORALITY From What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philoso- phy, pp. 59–67. Copyright © 1987 by Thomas Nagel. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

THOMAS NAGEL: THE OBJECTIVE BASIS OF MORALITY 121

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

the library who may be just as interested in the book as your friend is, but who consult it in the reference room, where anyone who needs it can find it. You may also feel that to let him take it would betray your employers, who are paying you precisely to keep this sort of thing from happening.

These thoughts have to do with effects on others—not necessarily effects on their feelings, since they may never find out about it, but some kind of damage nev- ertheless. In general, the thought that something is wrong depends on its impact not just on the person who does it but on other people. They wouldn’t like it, and they’d object if they found out.

But suppose you try to explain all this to your friend, and he says, “I know the head librarian wouldn’t like it if he found out, and probably some of the other users of the library would be unhappy to find the book gone, but who cares? I want the book; why should I care about them?”

The argument that it would be wrong is supposed to give him a reason not to do it. But if someone just doesn’t care about other people, what reason does he have to refrain from doing any of the things usually thought to be wrong, if he can get away with it: what reason does he have not to kill, steal, lie, or hurt others? If he can get what he wants by doing such things, why shouldn’t he? And if there’s no reason why he shouldn’t, in what sense is it wrong?

Of course most people do care about others to some extent. But if someone doesn’t care, most of us wouldn’t conclude that he’s exempt from morality. A per- son who kills someone just to steal his wallet, without caring about the victim, is not automatically excused. The fact that he doesn’t care doesn’t make it all right: he should care. But why should he care?

There have been many attempts to answer this question. One type of answer tries to identify something else that the person already cares about, and then con- nect morality to it.

For example, some people believe that even if you can get away with awful crimes on this earth, and are not punished by the law or your fellow men, such acts are forbidden by God, who will punish you after death (and reward you if you didn’t do wrong when you were tempted to). So even when it seems to be in your interest to do such a thing, it really isn’t. Some people have even believed that if there is no God to back up moral requirements with the threat of punish- ment and the promise of reward, morality is an illusion: “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”

This is a rather crude version of the religious foundation for morality. A more appealing version might be that the motive for obeying God’s commands is not fear but love. He loves you, and you should love Him, and should wish to obey His commands in order not to offend Him.

But however we interpret the religious motivation, there are three objections to this type of answer. First, plenty of people who don’t believe in God still make judgments of right and wrong, and think no one should kill another for his wallet even if he can be sure to get away with it. Second, if God exists, and forbids what’s wrong, that still isn’t what makes it wrong. Murder is wrong in itself, and that’s why God forbids it (if He does). God couldn’t make just any old thing wrong— like putting on your left sock before your right—simply by prohibiting it. If God would punish you for doing that it would be inadvisable to do it, but it wouldn’t

122 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

be wrong. Third, fear of punishment and hope of reward, and even love of God, seem not to be the right motives for morality. If you think it’s wrong to kill, cheat, or steal, you should want to avoid doing such things because they are bad things to do to the victims, not just because you fear the consequences for yourself, or because you don’t want to offend your Creator.

This third objection also applies to other explanations of the force of morality which appeal to the interests of the person who must act. For example, it may be said that you should treat others with consideration so that they’ll do the same for you. This may be sound advice, but it is valid only so far as you think what you do will affect how others treat you. It’s not a reason for doing the right thing if others won’t find out about it, or against doing the wrong thing if you can get away with it (like being a hit and run driver).

There is no substitute for a direct concern for other people as the basis of morality. But morality is supposed to apply to everyone: and can we assume that everyone has such a concern for others? Obviously not: some people are very self- ish, and even those who are not selfish may care only about the people they know, and not about everyone. So where will we find a reason that everyone has not to hurt other people, even those they don’t know?

Well, there’s one general argument against hurting other people which can be given to anybody who understands English (or any other language), and which seems to show that he has some reason to care about others, even if in the end his selfish motives are so strong that he persists in treating other people badly anyway. It’s an argument that I’m sure you’ve heard, and it goes like this: “How would you like it if someone did that to you?”

It’s not easy to explain how this argument is supposed to work. Suppose you’re about to steal someone else’s umbrella as you leave a restaurant in a rainstorm, and a bystander says, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” Why is it supposed to make you hesitate, or feel guilty?

Obviously the direct answer to the question is supposed to be, “I wouldn’t like it at all!” But what’s the next step? Suppose you were to say, “I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me. But luckily no one is doing it to me. I’m doing it to some- one else, and I don’t mind that at all!”

This answer misses the point of the question. When you are asked how you would like it if someone did that to you, you are supposed to think about all the feelings you would have if someone stole your umbrella. And that includes more than just “not liking it”—as you wouldn’t “like it” if you stubbed your toe on a rock. If someone stole your umbrella you’d resent it. You’d have feelings about the umbrella thief, not just about the loss of the umbrella. You’d think, “Where does he get off, taking my umbrella that I bought with my hard-earned money and that I had the foresight to bring after reading the weather report? Why didn’t he bring his own umbrella?” and so forth.

When our own interests are threatened by the inconsiderate behavior of others, most of us find it easy to appreciate that those others have a reason to be more considerate. When you are hurt, you probably feel that other people should care about it: you don’t think it’s no concern of theirs, and that they have no reason to avoid hurting you. That is the feeling that the “How would you like it?” argument is supposed to arouse.

THOMAS NAGEL: THE OBJECTIVE BASIS OF MORALITY 123

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Because if you admit that you would resent it if someone else did to you what you are now doing to him, you are admitting that you think he would have a rea- son not to do it to you. And if you admit that, you have to consider what that rea- son is. It couldn’t be just that it’s you that he’s hurting, of all the people in the world. There’s no special reason for him not to steal your umbrella, as opposed to anyone else’s. There’s nothing so special about you. Whatever the reason is, it’s a reason he would have against hurting anyone else in the same way. And it’s a rea- son anyone else would have too, in a similar situation, against hurting you or any- one else.

But if it’s a reason anyone would have not to hurt anyone else in this way, then it’s a reason you have not to hurt someone else in this way (since anyone means everyone). Therefore it’s a reason not to steal the other person’s umbrella now.

This is a matter of simple consistency. Once you admit that another person would have a reason not to harm you in similar circumstances, and once you admit that the reason he would have is very general and doesn’t apply only to you, or to him, then to be consistent you have to admit that the same reason applies to you now. You shouldn’t steal the umbrella, and you ought to feel guilty if you do.

Someone could escape from this argument if, when he was asked, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” he answered, “I wouldn’t resent it at all. I wouldn’t like it if someone stole my umbrella in a rainstorm, but I wouldn’t think there was any reason for him to consider my feelings about it.” But how many people could honestly give that answer? I think most people, unless they’re crazy, would think that their own interests and harms matter, not only to themselves, but in a way that gives other people a reason to care about them too. We all think that when we suffer it is not just bad for us, but bad, period.

The basis of morality is a belief that good and harm to particular people (or animals) is good or bad not just from their point of view, but from a more general point of view, which every thinking person can understand. That means that each person has a reason to consider not only his own interests but the interests of others in deciding what to do. And it isn’t enough if he is considerate only of some others—his family and friends, those he specially cares about. Of course he will care more about certain people, and also about himself. But he has some rea- son to consider the effect of what he does on the good or harm of everyone. If he’s like most of us, that is what he thinks others should do with regard to him, even if they aren’t friends of his.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What does Nagel mean by “the objective basis of morality”? How does he argue for it? In your opinion does Nagel succeed in demonstrating that morality is “objective”? Explain.

2. How, according to Nagel, may someone who “has no direct concern for the feelings of others” nevertheless be forced to acknowledge that it is wrong to harm them?

3. Both Nagel and Kant (page 230) argue for the universality and objectivity of ethical principles. How do they differ? Whom do you favor? Explain.

124 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

The Deep Beauty of the Golden Rule

R. M. MacIver

R. M. MacIver (1882–1970) was a professor of sociology and political sci- ence at Columbia University. His works include Community: A Sociologi- cal Study (1917), The Pursuit of Happiness (1955), and Academic Freedom in Our Time (1967).

R. M. MacIver finds in the Golden Rule—“Do to others as you would have others do to you”—the way out of the relativist impasse. It is a sensi- tive rule based on reason and common sense. It does not oppose itself to the norms of any given society because it does not tell anyone what to do. However, it does provide a policy to be followed that puts one on the alert: “If you would disapprove that another should treat you as you treat him, the situations being reversed is not that a sign that, by the standard of your own values, you are mistreating him?” This procedural rule is univer- sal precisely because it is compatible with the values of both parties, pro- vided both respect the other’s rights and liberties.

The subject that learned men call ethics is a wasteland on the philosophical map. Thousands of books have been written on this matter, learned books and popular books, books that argue and books that exhort. Most of them are empty and nearly all are vain. Some claim that pleasure is the good; some prefer the elusive and more enticing name of happiness; others reject such principles and speak of equally elu- sive goals such as self-fulfillment. Others claim that the good is to be found in look- ing away from the self in devotion to the whole—which whole? in the service of God—whose God?—even in the service of the State—who prescribes the service? Here indeed, if anywhere, after listening to the many words of many apostles, one goes out by the same door as one went in.

The reason is simple. You say: “This is the way you should behave.” But I say: “No, that is not the way.” You say: “This is right.” But I say: “No, that is wrong, and this is right.” You appeal to experience. I appeal to experience against you. You appeal to authority: it is not mine. What is left? If you are strong, you can punish me for behaving my way. But does that prove anything except that you are stronger than I? Does it prove the absurd dogma that might makes right? Is the slavemaster right because he owns the whip, or Torquemada because he can send his heretics to the flames?

THE DEEP BEAUTY OF THE GOLDEN RULE By Robert M. MacIver from Moral Principles of Action (Science Culture Series, Vol. 3) by Ruth Nanda Anshen, editor. Copyright 1952 by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1980 by Ruth Nanda Anshen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

R. M. MACIVER: THE DEEP BEAUTY OF THE GOLDEN RULE 125

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

From this impasse no system of ethical rules has been able to deliver itself. How can ethics lay down final principles of behavior that are not your values against mine, your group’s values against my group’s?…

Does all this mean that a universal ethical principle, applicable alike to me and you, even where our values diverge, is impossible? That there is no rule to go by, based on reason itself, in this world of irreconcilable valuations?

There is no rule that can prescribe both my values and yours or decide between them. There is one universal rule, and one only, that can be laid down, on ethical grounds—that is, apart from the creeds of particular religions and apart from the ways of the tribe that falsely and arrogantly universalize themselves.

Do to others as you would have others do to you. This is the only rule that stands by itself in the light of its own reason, the only rule that can stand by itself in the naked, warring universe, in the face of the contending values of men and groups.

What makes it so? Let us first observe that the universal herein laid down is one of procedure. It prescribes a mode of behaving, not a goal of action. On the level of goals, of final values, there is irreconcilable conflict. One rule prescribes humility, another pride; one prescribes abstinence, another commends the flesh-pots; and so forth through endless variations. All of us wish that our principle could be universal; most of us believe that it should be, that our ought ought to be all men’s ought, but since we differ there can be on this level, no possible agreement.

When we want to make our ethical principle prevail we try to persuade others, to “convert” them. Some may freely respond, if their deeper values are near enough to ours. Others will certainly resist and some will seek to persuade us in turn—why shouldn’t they? Then we can go no further except by resort to force and fraud. We can, if we are strong, dominate some and we can bribe others. We compromise our own values in doing so and we do not in the end succeed; even if we were masters of the whole world we could never succeed in making our principle universal. We could only make it falsely tyrannous.

So if we look for a principle in the name of which we can appeal to all men, one to which their reason can respond in spite of their differences, we must follow another road. When we try to make our values prevail over those cherished by others, we attack their values, their dynamic of behavior, their living will. If we go far enough we assault their very being. For the will is simply valuation in action. Now the deep beauty of the golden rule is that instead of attacking the will that is in other men, it offers their will a new dimension. “Do as you would have others.…” As you would will others to do. It bids you expand your vision, see yourself in new relationships. It bids you transcend your insulation, see yourself in the place of others, see others in your place. It bids you test your values or at least your way of pursuing them. If you would disapprove that another should treat you as you treat him, the situations being reversed is not that a sign that, by the stan- dard of your own values, you are mistreating him?

This principle obviously makes for a vastly greater harmony in the social scheme. At the same time it is the only universal of ethics that does not take sides with or contend with contending values. It contains no dogma. It bids everyone fol- low his own rule, as it would apply apart from the accident of his particular for- tunes. It bids him enlarge his own rule, as it would apply whether he is up or

126 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

whether he is down. It is an accident that you are up and I am down. In another situation you would be down and I would be up. That accident has nothing to do with my final values or with yours.…

It follows that while this first principle attacks no intrinsic values, no primary attachments of men to goods that reach beyond themselves, it nevertheless purifies every attachment, every creed, of its accidents, its irrelevancies, its excesses, its false reliance on power. It saves every human value from the corruption that comes from the arrogance of detachment and exclusiveness, from the shell of the kind of abso- lutism that imprisons its vitality.

At this point a word of caution is in order. The golden rule does not solve for us our ethical problems but offers only a way of approach. It does not prescribe our treatment of others but only the spirit in which we should treat them. It has no sim- ple mechanical application and often enough is hard to apply—what general princi- ple is not? It certainly does not bid us treat others as others want us to treat them— that would be an absurdity. The convicted criminal wants the judge to set him free. If the judge acts in the spirit of the golden rule, within the limits of the discretion permitted him as judge, he might instead reason somewhat as follows: “How would I feel the judge ought to treat me were I in this man’s place? What could I—the man I am and yet somehow standing where this criminal stands—properly ask the judge to do for me, to me? In this spirit I shall assess his guilt and his pun- ishment. In this spirit I shall give full consideration to the conditions under which he acted. I shall try to understand him, to do what I properly can for him, while at the same time I fulfill my judicial duty in protecting society against the dangers that arise if criminals such as he go free.”

“Do to others as you would have others do to you.” The disease to which all values are subject is the growth of a hard insulation. “I am right: I have the truth. If you differ from me, you are a heretic, you are in error. Therefore while you must allow me every liberty when you are in power I need not, in truth I ought not to, show any similar consideration for you.” The barb of falsehood has already begun to vitiate the cherished value. While you are in power I advocate the equal rights of all creeds: when I am in power, I reject any such claim as ridiculous. This is the position taken by various brands of totalitarianism, and the communists in particu- lar have made it a favorite technique in the process of gaining power, clamoring for rights they will use to destroy the rights of those who grant them. Religious groups have followed the same line. Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others have on occasion vociferously advocated religious liberty where they were in the minority, often to curb it where in turn they became dominant.

This gross inconsistency on the part of religious groups was flagrantly displayed in earlier centuries, but examples are still not infrequent. Here is one. La Civilita Catholicá, a Jesuit organ published in Rome, has come out as follows:

The Roman Catholic Church, convinced, through its divine prerogatives, of being the only true church, must demand the right to freedom for herself alone, because such a right can only be possessed by truth, never by error. As to other religions, the church will certainly never draw the sword, but she will require that by legitimate means they shall not be allowed to propagate false doctrine. Consequently, in a state where the majority of the people are Catholic, the Church will require that legal existence be

R. M. MACIVER: THE DEEP BEAUTY OF THE GOLDEN RULE 127

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

denied to error.… In some countries, Catholics will be obliged to ask full religious free- dom for all, resigned at being forced to cohabitate where they alone should rightly be allowed to live.… The Church cannot blush for her own want of tolerance, as she asserts it in principle and applies it in practice.1

Since this statement has the merit of honesty it well illustrates the fundamental lack of rationality that lies behind all such violations of the golden rule. The argu- ment runs: “Roman Catholics know they possess the truth; therefore they should not permit others to propagate error.” By parity of reasoning why should not Pro- testants say—and indeed they have often said it—“We know we possess the truth; therefore we should not tolerate the errors of Roman Catholics.” Why then should not atheists say: “We know we possess the truth; therefore we should not tolerate the errors of dogmatic religion.”

No matter what we believe, we are equally convinced that we are right. We have to be. That is what belief means, and we must all believe something. The Roman Catholic Church is entitled to declare that all other religious groups are sunk in error. But what follows? That other groups have not the right to believe they are right? That you have the right to repress them while they have no right to repress you? That they should concede to you what you should not concede to them? Such reasoning is mere childishness. Beyond it lies the greater foolishness that truth is advanced by the forceful suppression of those who believe differently from you. Beyond that lies the pernicious distortion of mean- ings which claims that liberty is only “the liberty to do right”—the “liberty” for me to do what you think is right. This perversion of the meaning of liberty has been the delight of all totalitarians. And it might be well to reflect that it was the radical Rousseau who first introduced the doctrine that men could be “forced to be free.”

How much do they have truth who think they must guard it within the fortress of their own might? How little that guarding has availed in the past! How often it has kept truth outside while superstition grew moldy within! How often has the false alliance of belief and force led to civil dissension and the futile ruin of war! But if history means nothing to those who call themselves “Christian” and still claim exclusive civil rights for their particular faith, at least they might blush before this word of one they call their Master: “All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them; for this is the law and the prophets.”

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. How does MacIver see in the Golden Rule an answer to relativism? 2. Look again at Thomas Nagel’s essay (page 113), and compare his argument for objec-

tivity in ethics with MacIver’s arguments for the Golden Rule. 3. Why does MacIver feel that the Golden Rule has “deep beauty”? 4. Discuss the “procedural” character of the Golden Rule. Why does MacIver think that

this is one of its best features? How does its being procedural help it avoid the traps of relativism?

1 Quoted in the Christian Century (June 1948).

128 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), a Baptist minister and theologian, was a principal figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his leadership role in that movement. King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King’s thrilling 1963 speech, delivered in Washington, D.C., between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, is a typi- cal example of how antirelativist, universalist assumptions are simply taken for granted by popular moralists. King feels no need to argue that basic moral principles are applicable to everyone regardless of race or social background. In dreaming of a future in which African Americans are fully free, King is confident that justice is a universal and inalienable human right. He is equally confident that the quarter million people who are lis- tening to his speech, many of them devout believers in the universality and truth of Judeo-Christian moral principles, believe this as well.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of with- ering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro still languishes in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaran- teed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check: a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is

Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I HAVE A DREAM 129

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be nei- ther rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our right- ful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must for- ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evi- denced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their freedom is inex- tricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We can- not turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?”

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the

130 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffer- ing is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true mean- ing of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state swelter- ing with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are

presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be trans- formed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and moun-

tain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let free- dom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California. But not only that: let freedom ring from

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I HAVE A DREAM 131

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every moun- tainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiri- tual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What is the moral basis underlying King’s appeal for changes that will end discriminatory practices against African Americans? Could a relativist have been equally eloquent? Equally persuasive? Why or why not?

2. It is clear that King believes in some universal human rights. What are these rights? Do you agree we have such rights? Why or why not?

3. King’s address had an enormous impact throughout the United States. Explain why. Can you think of other writings or speeches that have something like the moral force of this speech? If so, name them and explain your answer.

The United Nations Charter: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The Declaration was characterized as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” The first twenty-one articles of the Declaration of Human Rights are similar to the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Articles 22 through 27, which assert rights to economic and social benefits, reflect specific articles in the former Soviet constitution.

The Declaration was condemned by the American Anthropological Association as “a statement of rights conceived only in terms of the values prevalent in the countries of Western Europe and America.” Calling it “ethnocentric,” the associa- tion suggested that the Declaration betrayed a lack of respect for cultural differences.1

The articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declare that all human beings have the right to a dignified and secure existence. They prohibit torture and

THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS by permission of the United Nations © All United Nations rights reserved. 1 “Statement on Human Rights,” American Anthropologist 49 (1947): 539–543.

132 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

slavery. They enjoin equality before the law and prohibit arbitrary arrest in any coun- try. They prohibit limitations of movement within national borders.

The articles assert the right of political asylum; the right to citizenship in some country; the right of adults to marry and have families; the right to one’s property; the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to social security; the right to belong to unions; the right to a decent standard of living and access to health; the right to an education. The articles assert the principle of freedom of assembly—the freedom to take part in the government of one’s country.

Finally, the articles assure that no state may engage in any activity aimed at the restriction of any of the rights and liberties set forth in the declaration.

It should be noted that the members of the United Nations General Assembly, in thus proclaiming universal standards of social ethics for all societies, are not eth- ical relativists.

Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the people of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the great- est importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore,

The General Assembly Proclaims

This Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive mea- sures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 133

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Article 1 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2 Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Dec- laration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, reli- gion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdic- tional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4 No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6 Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7 All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimina- tion to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8 Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the con- stitution or by law.

Article 9 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10 Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obliga- tions and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11 (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be pre- sumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or interna- tional law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

134 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

Article 13 (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14 (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15 (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right

to change his nationality.

Article 16 (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are enti- tled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is enti- tled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17 (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in asso- ciation with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18 Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and reli- gion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20 (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21 (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this

will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22 Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic,

THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 135

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23 (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and sup- plemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limi- tation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25 (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of liveli- hood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26 (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be com- pulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personal- ity and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27 (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28 Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29 (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

136 I S IT ALL RELATIVE?

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due rec- ognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the pur- poses and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30 Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. The Declaration contains thirty articles. Discuss three that you consider very important, and defend their fundamental character.

2. Obviously the Declaration has not been enforced. What then is its value, if any? Discuss.

3. Do you agree that all human beings have the rights and liberties outlined in the articles? How would you argue in their defense if someone challenged some or all of the articles?

4. The first twenty articles assert negative rights of freedom from governmental interfer- ence. Later articles (21–28) assert positive rights that require a government to ensure such basic benefits as work, housing, and medical care. Many conservatives object to the inclusion of positive rights, saying that it endorses socialism. On the other hand, many socialists maintain that exclusive rights of liberty merely give everyone the right to starve. Discuss this issue.

5. The American Anthropological Association objected to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as being “ethnocentric.” Discuss. Do you agree with the association that the lack of moral consensus in the world “validates” ethical relativism? Explain.

THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 137

© C

en ga

ge L

ea rn

in g.

A ll

rig ht

s r es

er ve

d. N

o di

st rib

ut io

n al

lo w

ed w

ith ou

t e xp

re ss

a ut

ho riz

at io

n.