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Do Cultures Create
Morality?
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Some people believe in cultural relativism. Basically it is the idea
that cultures make morality.
If this is true then morality is a subjective truth, based on the taste
of the subject being referred to.
exp.
In America most noises at the table are to
be avoided, no burping, no slurping, and most Americans feel it
is rude not to clean your plate. There is nothing wrong if an American
at an American table follows all those rules.
The Inuit people think it is rude not to burp at the
table.
In China cleaning your plate means your host did not serve enough food.
In Japan it is polite to slurp your noodles.
It is ok to break those American rules if you are at a table of someone
from those countries.
In that sense some morals are relative something can be right for one
group and wrong for another.
So in some ways culture can create moral rules. But even in this case
an absolute moral rule applies, you should be kind to your host. The
moral rule that you should be kind to your host is an objective rule,
it is the host that matters.
If you did happen to break one of these rules
chances are the worst thing that would happen is the Chef's feelings
get hurt, while you should try not to do this it is not earth
shattering if you goof.
There are other rules that have more significance.
India used to have a practice know as Sati where
widows were expected to throw themselves on the funeral fire of their
husband . This was particularly hideous because it was not uncommon for
a very young girl to be forced to marry a man who was very old. Thus
condemning an innocent child to what would certainly be a early death.
If cultures create morality then the British Empire was wrong to save
the lives of these innocent women.
If they were right to stop the people of India from doing this then
cultures don't create morality.
In Nazi Germany The culture as
a
group embraced anti Semitic behavior.
If culture accepting a certain behavior means that the behavior in
question is ok, would that mean that it is ok to kill Jews? That
is what the people who went on trial for war crimes after the second
world war thought. They were just following orders. I don't for
one minute think it was ok but for the sake of discussion lets say we
buy that idea.
Some of the people in Germany did not like the current cultural
morality.
Some people like
the White Rose Society (a Christian anti Nazi group) rebelled semi
openly by
distributing pamphlets
Some hid and protected Jews in silence.
Some preached about the nastiness of Nazi culture from the pulpit.
Heroes like Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoeller, Oscar Schindler ,and many
others
rebelled against the common culture with their own morality, some paid
for their disagreement with the culture with their lives.
Even with the heroes that were at work trying to stem the tide around 5,830,000 Jews were murdered
Who was right in
this situation The culture that slowly stripped all human rights,
including the right to life from the Jews, or the people who said
society is wrong and did what they
could to help the Jews?
If the Nazi's were right cultures create morality.
If the Nazi's were wrong then cultures don't create morailuty, and an
absolute morailty exist.
History tells us many stories about cultures that embraced
things that most people find repugnant, killing young
brides, gassing Jews to death, putting already born children in
the arms of a red hot idol to burn to death, cannibalism, slavery... If
the culture is always right, then these things were right, and the
people who put a stop to these practices were wrong.
If you believe that it was a good thing to end at least some of the
practices above the culture does not create absolute morality and we
have to look somewhere else for the answer where does morality come
from. Morality has to be objective if a person can believe a moral rule
and be wrong.
Please feel free to comment or question this article via E-mail.
Please let me know how you would like me to cite your response.
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Josh McDowell
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