DCL: Cultural Relativism

Thanks, Pro! I. OverviewEthical theories are not cultures. There is no "ethical nihilist culture" or "anarchist culture. " There may be individual nihilists or anarchists, but they are part of other, existing societies, whose moral rules differ from their own personal beliefs. Cultures, however, are amalgamations of many people with different views on morality. Because societies are blendings of different individual perspectives, historical events, and political realities, societies' moral views are more of a hodgepodge of different values, rather than any particular moral theory. No country, for example, makes decisions solely based on egoism or solely based on consequentialism, but they may incorporate aspects of both. The US, for example, may make consequentialist decisions in regards to drone strikes, but acts deontologically when it prohibits torture. Societies are not morally monochromatic. Because individual persons aren't cultures either, arguing for individual subjectivism/relativism does not affirm the topic. If moral views are particularized to the individual, rather than societal level, Pro is not affirming cultural relativsm. Therefore, (1) Pro must support that a culture's moral views ought to be imposed on individuals who disagree with those views but are within that culture, and (2) Pro cannot use individual subjectivism or different ethical theories as evidence for his position. II. Pro's CaseA. Different Moral Codes and PreceptsI'll agree that different societies have different moral codes--the superficial differences there are obvious. Pro offers no positive reason to affirm the idea that there are no universal precepts, truths, or beliefs uniting all moral codes, saying that it is my job to negate that. Keep in mind that he needs to prove that cultural relativism is likely, and if he can't provide positive evidence in support of this point, he cannot prove that this point is likely true. B. Moral CodesPro seems to misunderstand what this debate is about when he writes, "[d]ue to how subjective all of these normative ethical theories are there is no way to classify any one theory as 'inherently better' than any other. " This debate is NOT about different ethical theories. This debate is about different cultural moral codes. See the overview; talking about theories is a redherring. Pro also talks about what "people" believe, not what cultures believe. Cultural relativism is not the same as individual relativism. Again, see the overview. Since all cultures must, for instance, include consequentialist moral norms, or norms against murder, I can use these shared precepts or norms as a basis for cross-cultural judgement. I can judge the Eskimo practice of senicide, for instance, by whether it truly produces the best results for the greatest number. So, even if I could not compare the ethical theory of consequentialism to the ethical theory of deontology, that is not what the topic is asking me to do, because no culture is solely deontological or solely consequentialist. And even if we were talking about theories, I can still use logic to critique those theories. Even so, the fact that all cultures, by necessity, share some basic moral beliefs means that they can be compared using those beliefs as a basic framework for comparison. C. Society's RightPro defeats himself in his own syllogism. In his own P2, Pro affirms a universal right for everyone to believe what they want to believe. If Pro agrees that such a universal right exists, then the second element of the definition of cultural relativism is negated; such a universal right would constitute a universal precept, truth, or belief shared by all cultures. If Pro backtracks from P2, then his syllogism collapses, because he cannot show that anyone has a right to believe anything. Either he (a) agrees that the right to believe what you want is a universal moral truth or (b) says that not everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe. It's a catch-22. There are also some prominent non-sequiturs in his logic. Firstly, his premises refer to individual persons ("everybody"). Persons are not societies; Pro has not demonstrated societies have a right to believe what they want to believe. Secondly, in his first syllogism, Pro claims that different normative ethical theories are subjective because people believe in different ones (they have different opinions on the matter). In his second syllogism, Pro builds off the idea that normative ethical theories are subjective in order to reach his conclusion. Unfortunately, in both of these syllogisms, Pro commits another non-sequitur fallacy. Pro basically assumes that because people do believe different things/have different opinions, objective morality must be false. I may believe that 1 1 = 2, and you may believe that 1 1 = 3, but does this mean that there is no objectively right answer? Obviously not. The mere fact that people disagree is not evidence against their being an ultimately right answer. James Rachels explains further, "To make the point clearer, consider a very different matter. In some societies, people believe the earth is flat. In other societies, such as our own, people believe the earth is (roughly) spherical. Does it follow, from the mere fact that they disagree, that there is no 'objective truth' in geography? Of course not; we would never draw such a conclusion because we realize that, in their beliefs about the world, the members of some societies might simply be wrong. There is no reason to think that if the world is round everyone must know it. Similarly, there is no reason to think that if there is moral truth everyone must know it. The fundamental mistake in the Cultural Differences Argument is that it attempts to derive a substantive conclusion about a subject (morality) from the mere fact that people disagree about it. " [1]Pro's conclusions do not flow from his premises, so he has not substantiated any of the arguments which rely on the syllogisms as evidence for their veracity or likelihood. III. Con's CaseA. EskimosPro makes two response to this argument (a) that I only discuss 2 cultures, which is not enough to negate element two of the definition, and (b) that the a/theism example shows that codes without similar axioms would still be mutually comprehensible. Regarding the first point, this misunderstands the purpose of my Eskimo argument. The purpose of that argument was not to survey "all such codes," but rather to do three things: (1) to illustrate that vastly different practical outcomes could still be rooted in a shared moral precept, (2) to illustrate that superficial analysis of cultural differences was insufficient to affirm, and (3) to act as a concrete example of the analysis in my second contention. Pro doesn't rebut any of these impacts. As for the second point, the atheist example is not analogous at all. The atheist can understand the theist because they share a common logical framework. For both the atheist and the theist, 1 + 1 continues to equal 2. The basic axioms of logic and math form a common framework for both of them to understand each other in the context of that discussion. In moral reasoning, we can distinguish between moral logic and pure logic insofar as moral logic also uses human emotion to reach its outcomes. Because all humans share the same emotions, we have the mutual framework for understanding which is necessary for understanding. If we met aliens who shared none of our emotions, logic, or instincts, we would not be able to understand them at all. It would be like hearing something without any context, such that you are always missing the background needed to truly appreciate what you heard. There must be some common ground as a basis to build understanding. B. Moral Building Blocksi. Drive to SurvivePro has not offered a viable counterexample to my argument per my overview. He talks only about theories, not societies/cultures. Furthermore, I talks about moral "norms against murder. " A "norm" is a standard of proper behavior, which is not the same as a rule. [9]Pro says that, "just because people won't feel safe in societies without murder, doesn't mean that these societies should be considered to be non-existent. " Pro offers no reason to believe why a society with no norms against murder could feasibly exist, while I have provided amply logic as to how such norms are not only good for society, but are a necessary prerequisite to a society's existence. Even for a group of nihilists, if they didn't have norms against killing each other they would (a) die out, (b) break up (ending the society/culture), or (c) be forced to agree not to kill each other, thus making killing "wrong" by their culture's rules and norms. Morality, per the R1 definition, refers to rules or systems of right conduct, and so if the nihilists choose option (c), they have, wittingly or not, developed a moral rule against killing. ii. Common Biology and ExperiencesThe purpose of these arguments was twofold: (1) to demonstrate that humans all share certain experiences or emotions, and (2) to illustrate how these shared experiences and emotions lead to shared moral norms. Pro doesn't rebut the first of these. His rebuttal to the second is to cite an ethical theory (cross-apply the overview) and to say that there are different approaches to these shared feelings. Suppose that we have two cultures who, as a result of their biology, share empathetic desires. In one, this empathetic desire manifests as an obligation to give alms. In the other, it manifests as a duty to rescue. Though the application of the empathetic urge differs, there is a basic, unifying moral rule that arises from it: people should do good to others/people should be empathetic in their interactions with others. The principle that people ought to be empathetic is universal. IV. Sources9 - . http://www.merriam-webster.com...Thank you.