Full transcript
0:00hi this is dr. Gregory Sadler I'm a
0:04professor of philosophy and the
0:06president and founder of an educational
0:07consulting company called reason IO
0:09where we put philosophy into practice
0:12I've studied and taught philosophy for
0:15over 20 years and I find that many
0:17people run into difficulties reading
0:19classic philosophical texts sometimes
0:22it's the way things are said or how the
0:23text is structured but the concepts
0:26themselves are not always that
0:27complicated and that's where I come in
0:29to help students and lifelong learners
0:32I've been producing longer lecture
0:33videos and posting them to youtube many
0:36viewers say they find them useful what
0:39you're currently watching is part of a
0:40new series of shorter videos each of
0:43them focused on one core concept from an
0:45important philosophical text I hope you
0:48find it useful as well
0:50one of the critical but also positive
0:54steps that James Rachel articulates in
0:56his short piece the challenge of
0:59cultural relativism has to do with what
1:03has come to be called soft universalism
1:06he doesn't use that term here in this
1:09essay but it's often been used to
1:11describe the stance that Rachel's as
1:14well as many other people have taken as
1:16a response to this this problem that
1:20cultural relativism seems to pose and
1:23one of the ways to go about presenting a
1:27counter challenge you could say to
1:29cultural relativism some push back in a
1:32way is to focus on one of the key
1:35premises in the argument which is that
1:38listen different cultures different
1:41societies across the world throughout
1:43history they all have different codes of
1:46ethics different codes of morality
1:48different senses and sensibilities of
1:51what's right and wrong and so because of
1:56that and then all the other things
1:58follow now the question is are the codes
2:02that they have really that different
2:06from each other is our other fundamental
2:09differences things that could make them
2:11absolutely in commence
2:13with each other incomparable so the
2:16question we can frame in this way is how
2:18wide are the differences in the moral
2:21codes that the different societies
2:24espouse and Rachel suggests that what we
2:30need to do is pay close attention not
2:33just to what it is that people say is
2:36right and wrong but why they think it is
2:39right and wrong what arguments what
2:42explanations do they provide we need to
2:45look at the customs and realize that
2:48they are a complex product of both
2:52belief systems and value systems and it
2:57could be that the belief systems from
2:59one culture to the other are quite
3:02different but the value system might in
3:05fact be if not exactly the same at least
3:08within the same as we say ballpark that
3:12is having a similar structure to them so
3:16he says often what seem to be a big
3:18difference turns out to be no difference
3:20at all
3:20he says consider a culture in which
3:22people believe it's wrong to eat cows
3:24this may even be a poor culture in which
3:26there's not enough food but the cows are
3:28not to be touched such a society would
3:31appear to have values very different
3:32from our own think of how we treat cows
3:34we actually have more cows than we
3:38actually need in our society because
3:40we're so hell-bent on beef and dairy
3:43production if it was only you know
3:47commensurate to our actual needs we
3:49probably would have many fewer of them
3:51and we wouldn't be eating them quite as
3:52much so there seems to be a very very
3:55big difference here now he says we have
3:58not yet we have not yet asked why these
4:02people won't eat cows why that's the key
4:05term there suppose they believe that
4:08after death the souls of humans inhabit
4:10the bodies of animals especially cows so
4:14a cow maybe somebody's grandparent shall
4:17we say that their values differ from
4:19ours no because you know we could say
4:22well if I thought that my grandparent
4:25was in this piece of truck I would
4:27break this piece of chalk I would treat
4:28it well or maybe I'm a terrible grandson
4:30and I say ah that'll teach you a
4:33grandparent but it would still be some
4:35sort of point of comparison so the
4:39beliefs are what make the difference
4:42it's not the values that are
4:44fundamentally different and asking the
4:46questions why reveals to us what the
4:48beliefs are we agree we shouldn't need
4:50grandma we disagree about whether the
4:52cow could be grandpa's how he puts it
4:54and then he says the point is many
4:57factors work together to produce the
4:59customs are of a society not only are
5:02the values and we could range these in
5:05what we call a hierarchy of values not
5:07only are the values important but also
5:10and he here he's giving a list and this
5:12isn't necessarily comprehensive but in
5:15this example it would be religious
5:17beliefs factual beliefs physical
5:21environment so if we're in different
5:26physical environments and we have
5:29different beliefs about how the world
5:31works and we have different let's call
5:34them either religious or metaphysical
5:36beliefs about the nature of reality and
5:39the divine and all the other things that
5:41go along with it it's not surprising
5:43that then we would have quite different
5:47conceptions of what is right and what is
5:50wrong consider a case from ancient
5:52Greece the Antigone when we're looking
5:56at that play and the character of
5:57Antigone we might view her actions is
6:00essentially incomprehensible when she's
6:02talking about laws of the Divine and why
6:05she has to put dirt on her brother but
6:08if we understand that without some sort
6:10of burial the person who she loves her
6:14brother who has died in combat against
6:16his own City at the hands of his own
6:18brother who he killed needs to have that
6:22dirt on his body
6:23in order for his ghost to rest a
6:25religious belief and quite possibly a
6:29factual belief about how you know the
6:31efficacy of dirt or something like that
6:33then we can understand the motivation we
6:36can say I hide I still think that what
6:39she's doing
6:40perhaps may not be the right thing but I
6:43can understand where it's coming from
6:45and so he gives another example here
6:47that's quite telling
6:49the Inuit anthropologists studied them
6:53and they thought they were you know
6:54quite different from typical Western
6:56mores and one of the issues was
6:59infanticide there was a practice of
7:03killing babies especially girl babies so
7:06it seemed that that you know shows a
7:08radical difference from our own society
7:12where babies are generally cherished
7:14although we do have examples of people
7:16abandoning their children or treating
7:18their children quite poorly or
7:20neglecting them once they actually do we
7:22have them even people who foster
7:24children sometimes treat them horribly
7:26but going back to this if we understand
7:30the physical environment then we can
7:34understand why this practice might
7:36actually make sense and he says well
7:39let's think about what would happen if
7:42the Inuit did not in fact engage in any
7:46infanticide says the explanation is not
7:48that they lacked respect for human life
7:50or did not love their children a family
7:54would always protect its babies if
7:56conditions permitted but they lived in
7:58an incredibly harsh environment where
8:00food was scarce and so they could not
8:03nourish all the babies that they had one
8:06reason was as they would nurse infants
8:09long past the stage of being infants
8:12into their toddler years up to four
8:15years sometimes even longer so this
8:18could sustain very few children the
8:21other point in fact that he brings up
8:23the Eskimos or the into it were nomadic
8:25unable to farm they had to keep moving
8:27to find food infants had to be carried
8:30and because of that a mother could carry
8:32only one baby in her parka as she
8:34traveled so that meant that infanticide
8:38would be a way to actually keep at least
8:42one child out of the set alive why
8:46female children why eliminate them does
8:49that show a devaluation of the female in
8:53relation to the
8:54Rachael's points out that actually it
8:58showed a equal valuation it was much
9:02more likely that males out there doing
9:05the hunting and fishing would die and so
9:10if you maintained a strict equality
9:12purport of proportion between the two
9:16genders then you'd wind up with too many
9:18women after a while and not enough men
9:20so when we learn more about the
9:25conditions in which a culture is living
9:29sometimes it's clear that we're not
9:32talking about radically different values
9:35just very different environments and
9:39beliefs so the Inuit provide a great
9:43example of that rachel's goes on and he
9:47says that what this shows us is that we
9:51can talk about some values that are
9:54shared by all cultures and again this is
9:57what we call soft universalism the idea
10:01is that there are universal norms but
10:03we're not saying that they're absolutely
10:05exactly the same from culture to culture
10:07to culture there's some adaptability in
10:10them but in general they're quite
10:13similar to each other and Rachel's only
10:16talks about three main functions here of
10:18those norms but he doesn't preclude that
10:21there couldn't be many others as well so
10:25let's consider the first one caring for
10:27the young the Inuit are in fact taking
10:32care of the young in fact he points out
10:35that killing babies was not the first
10:38option typically considered adoption was
10:41common childless couples were happy to
10:43take a fertile couple's surplus and the
10:46norm the value that was in play was
10:51protecting and fostering the lives of
10:54the young he also points out another
10:57thing what happens if a society doesn't
11:00do this if a society essentially preys
11:03upon its young well after a while it
11:06ceases to be
11:07Society because what allows it to
11:09continue in time is generations taking
11:12care of generations both for you know
11:16towards the future and backwards towards
11:20the past the young take care of the old
11:22the old take care of the young otherwise
11:24you can't maintain a society or culture
11:29another example that he gives
11:31truth-telling as great example he says
11:35within a society in which there was no
11:38value on truth-telling there would be no
11:40presumption that anyone was telling the
11:42truth because there would be no and then
11:44there'd be no reason to pay attention to
11:46what anyone says if I want to know what
11:48time it was why would I ask anyone since
11:50lying is commonplace communication would
11:53be difficult if not impossible in such a
11:56society what would this lead to the
11:58breakdown of that society you cannot
12:02have a society that has no positive norm
12:07of truth-telling there may be variants
12:10about who you could lie to when it's
12:12okay to live what it's okay to lie about
12:14but truth-telling itself has to be some
12:18sort of value
12:19likewise prohibiting murder which is not
12:23necessarily the same as saying that all
12:25killing is illicit or wrong but
12:29prohibiting at least some killing every
12:33society does this and if it did not do
12:35that you would not have a society
12:38because you wouldn't be able to trust
12:40anybody not to kill you he even points
12:42out that let's say we assume we have a
12:44society that breaks down like that and
12:46everyone lives in a you know mutual
12:48distrust and self-sufficiency insofar as
12:51they gather together at all they would
12:53have to have some prohibition on murder
12:55not even a family could survive without
12:58some sort of sense of let's not kill
13:00each other and we could add other things
13:02to this as well Rachel's doesn't but you
13:04might think about stealing taking
13:06property that is not your own or sexual
13:09morality there's almost every society on
13:12earth although it may have quite
13:14different you know mores in you know how
13:17people couple with each other what acts
13:18are allowed has some rules about
13:20who can have sex with who and who cannot
13:23and we could go on and on and on and
13:25think of other examples the point here
13:29that he wants to make is that there are
13:31some moral rules that all societies must
13:35embrace why here's the general principle
13:38because these rules are necessary for
13:41society to exist the concrete shape of
13:45the rule is going to vary from moral
13:49code to moral code he says in fact we do
13:54find these rules enforce across all
13:56cultures they may differ in what they
13:59regard as legitimate exceptions to the
14:00rules or they may differ in where the
14:03limits lie or who they're directed at
14:06but this disagreement exists a growth
14:08against a broad background of agreement
14:12so he concludes not every rule can vary
14:15from society to society again this
14:19stance is called soft universalism and
14:22it is a way of undercutting one of the
14:26central tenets of cultural relativism
14:29which is that everything is completely
14:32different from one moral code to another
14:34from one culture or one society to
14:37another
14:46you