Moral Relativism In Trying Out One's New Chores

Moral relativism is one’s perception of what is acknowledged to be morally just or unjust depending on accepted demeanor. Certain behaviors and manners that a specific culture may consider to be acceptable, another culture may consider to be unethical. In such an instance, neither one of the cultures would be incorrect. Morals are culturally defined in that it originates from the root as to what is considered socially acceptable. In Mary Midgley’s “Trying out one’s new sword”, she argues that moral judgment between cultures is a necessity. The main example that she uses to justify her case is that without moral judgment, we would not be able to express disapproval of the ancient Samurai custom where they evaluate the effectiveness of a new sword by slicing an innocent passerby into halves with a single stroke. Samurais would justify this action by saying that passerby’s give consent to be sliced. She claims that people who don’t believe in morally judging others are considered moral isolationists, based upon their belief that one does not understand enough about another’s culture in order to be able to make an intelligent
informed opinion upon it. Moral isolationists are deemed inconsistent by Midgley because they do not agree in morally criticizing other cultures, yet they do believe in expressing praise towards other cultures. If you are not to pass judgment on other cultures, then that would mean that you are not to have an opinion on the practices of other cultures. This indicates that praising them would be hypocritical. She states that outsiders can make perfectly good indictments against other cultures, but it does take some time spent within that culture in order to make an intelligent, informed decision. I would deem this as a strong argument based upon the example that she has given. If there would be no moral judgment passed between cultures, one could make their own unjust morals and it would not be overturned.
Another argument that Midgley makes is that moral judgment should work both ways. People in other cultures should be equally able to criticize us. They should only be able to do so as long as they have an intelligent understanding in our customs and are able to make an informed judgment upon our cultural practices. The same thing would apply for us passing judgment on the cultures of others. An outsider can thrive in the culture of others because they would bring another perspective and can help to improve morals of the visiting culture. Midgley believes that if we need to gain understanding of another culture before we can pass judgment, we also need the same level of understanding before we can give praise. Judging means forming an opinion and expressing it when it is necessary. Moral isolationism bans us from passing judgment because we do not understand the culture of others. This does not seem to be a sensible defense, because we pass judgment upon our own culture all the time, although there are parts of it that we do not yet understand.
Without being able to morally judge, we would not be able to benefit from the insights and intelligence of others, thus we could never improve our own culture.
The defense that one would have when we are criticizing their culture would be to say that we don’t understand. This infers that if we did understand, only then would we be able to pass judgment and criticize their practices. Thus, they believe that we will be able to understand once we are informed. The only defense of proving that one’s culture’s practices are morally just is to explain and inform the foreigner as to why they are not unjust. If one persuades the foreigner to agree with them, it would only make sense that the foreigner incorporates their newly informed values to improve their own culture. This proves that there is indeed a relationship between morality and
culture. Moral isolationism is unreal. Many cultures are formed from so many influences coming from the outside world. The United States is indeed a mixture of cultures, creating one in itself. Globalization in itself proves that there are certain morals that are shared between cultures. Moral judgment must be able to be passed in order to form such a culture. Morally and figuratively, there is only one world and we all have to live in it, thus passing judgment and making it better.
According to Ruth Benedict’s “The case for moral relativism”, the concept of normality is culturally defined. Benedict believes that the concept of the normal is a variant of the concept of the good. She supports this claim by the small number of deviants in any society. This is testament to the fact that most people readily take any shape that is presented to them by society. Our behaviors are shaped by social conditioning. Different cultures condition behaviors differently. Some may be on completely opposite sides of the spectrum when determining what behavior is deemed acceptable. Benedict argues that if shared beliefs and normal behaviors vary from culture to culture, then morality must also vary between cultures. Therefore, morality is relative to the culture.
This poses the question just because something is normal, does that make it moral? If morality is socially constructed, then the normal behavior would dictate the morality of that culture. This is a weak argument for the fact that the actions of one do not define the actions of all.
This would make morality meaningless since it would be superficial and can change at any time based upon the normal behaviors of the majority of the culture. I strongly disagree with Benedict, merely based on the concept of war. I believe that morals are shared between cultures and although they have variances, there is a shared concept of just and unjust behaviors. If morality only existed in isolation, there would be no war on terror, apartheid, and genocide. Nations form alliances when it comes to certain issues to attempt to maintain a morally just world. When one country announces usage or plans to prepare a nuclear weapon, countries join forces and fight to stop such actions because they believe that it is morally unjust. If moral isolationism was the way of the world, then one would not pay attention to or be concerned with the business of other cultures. Even when countries do not have interest in the resources and benefits of another country, they will still intervene to help the victims of genocide in order to attempt to restore order around the world. Although there are cultural variances, there are certain morals that are shared around the world. If morality was defined as the normal behavior of a culture, places with high rates of homicide would have a shared belief that murder is acceptable. There is a difference between what is normal and what is morally just. There are uprisings against excessive force used by police enforcement and abuse of power all of the time. When people feel as if there is an injustice done to someone, they revolt and fight for what is morally right even if it does not directly affect them. If the uprising is strong enough, the circumstance may change so that the same situation never happens again. Just because something is within the law or within the normality of the culture does not define it as morally just.