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Cultural Relativism 1 Outline Introduction: Cultural differences: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Cultural Relativism 1 Outline Introduction: Cultural differences: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Cultural Relativism 1 Outline Introduction: Cultural differences: the lesson to take The Cultural Difference Argument Against Cultural Relativism Lessons and Conclusion 2 Cultural Differences: The Lesson to take From cultural differences to
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Cultural Differences: The Lesson to take From cultural differences to cultural relativism?
An undeniable fact: Different values in different cultures Two ways to take this fact into account:
- 1. Moral Circumspection – healthy especially for
Westerners
- 2. Cultural Relativism – there are no culture-
independent moral values What’s the difference ? Cultural Relativism is a view on Morality
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Cultural Differences: The Lesson to take Signs that something must be wrong
- 1. Comparison with science:
Scientific Circumspection vs Scientific Relativism
- 2. What if we take Cultural Relativism seriously?
- no way to criticize values from other societies
- no way to criticize values from our own society
- no way to talk about moral progress
Our aim for the class: Find a way to save tolerance without falling into mere relativism.
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Outline
Introduction: Cultural differences: the lesson to take The Cultural Difference Argument Against Cultural Relativism Lessons and Conclusion
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Outline
Introduction: Cultural differences: the lesson to take The Cultural Difference Argument Against Cultural Relativism Lessons and Conclusion
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Cultural Relativism: The Cultural Difference Argument
The Cultural Difference Argument:
- P1. Different Cultures have different sets of moral
values
- CC. Therefore, there exists no truth about morality
Why is the Cultural Difference Argument not valid? Whether something is the case or not does not have anything to do with what people believe about it
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Cultural Relativism: The Cultural Difference Argument
The Cultural Difference Argument about the Earth:
- P1. Different Cultures have different beliefs about
whether the Earth is round or flat
- CC. Therefore, there exists no truth about whether the
Earth is flat or round
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Cultural Relativism: The Cultural Difference Argument
The Cultural Difference Argument about God:
- P1. Different Cultures have different beliefs about
whether or not there exists a God
- CC. Therefore, there exists no truth about whether or
not there exists a God
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Cultural Relativism: The Cultural Difference Argument
The Cultural Difference Argument about X:
- P1. Different Cultures have different beliefs about
whether or not X is the case
- CC. Therefore, there exists no truth about whether or
not X is the case The Cultural Difference argument is not valid
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Outline
Introduction: Cultural differences: the lesson to take The Cultural Difference Argument Against Cultural Relativism Lessons and Conclusion
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Against Cultural Relativism: Cultural Agreement
Surface difference between customs, deep agreement concerning values: Grandma the cow Dealing with the dead Much more agreement than one might think Cultural Relativism fails to account for such agreement
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Against Cultural Relativism: Cultural Agreement
A custom is often not a good indicators of deep values:
- The same value can be expressed through different
customs Ex: Grandma the cow again!
- The same custom can be the expression of different
values Ex: various vegetarians One has to look deeper into cultural differences
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Against Cultural Relativism: Cultural Agreement
Values that are the very conditions of possibility of a viable society: Truth telling Prohibition of murder There are some deep values that must be shared by any society
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Outline
Introduction: Cultural differences: the lesson to take The Cultural Difference Argument Against Cultural Relativism Lessons and Conclusion
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Lessons to Take From Cultural Differences
As a view on Morality, Cultural Relativism fails:
- the argument in its favor is invalid
- there is counter-evidence (cultural agreement)
The fact of Cultural Differences still calls for tolerance Warning against self-centered dogmatism and prejudices
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Lessons to Take From Cultural Differences
We CAN claim:
- That some values are better than others
- That some customs are wrong
BUT we CANNOT make such a claim JUST BECAUSE such values correspond to the values
- f our own society
- The “best” values may or may not be the values of
- ur own society
- In which society such or such value is accepted is
irrelevant to whether or not we take it as among the “best” values.
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