Countering Views Of Ruth Benedict And Mary Midgley On Ethics
Ethics is a field of philosophy which is concentrated on differentiating between right and wrong. There are various views about morality, in fact there is a vast list of theories concerning ethics. Ruth Benedict and Mary Midgley are theorists of ethics and examples of different opinions which practically contradict each other. Benedict defends the Moral Relativism argument and Midgley is criticizing Moral Isolationism. Even though as a hypothetical concept Relativism is accurate, I personally agree with the counter arguments about isolationism being that when applied in physical life, relativism creates problems which are not moral or ethical.
The view that morality is relative has been introduced long before Ruth Benedict, but she happened to get attention from people; Benedict was living in the 19th- 20th centuries, a good period for being an anthropologist because religion was losing its importance and the emergence of cultural diversity. She states that every moral judgement or moral list is relative to an individual or a group of people and their beliefs. Morals may vary from time to time, between cultures and between points of views. Something can be normal for one group of people and immoral for another. Gordon Marino brings an example of cultural relativism by telling an anecdote, a king summoned Greeks and Indians from a tribe called Callatiae. Greeks had the custom to burn their close ones after death, the Indians used to eat their parents dead bodies; They showed the contrast between values amongst cultures. For one of them, burning a person is completely immoral and out of context, on the contrary burning a person after his death is a tradition in the other culture, and not doing it would be considered as disrespect.
Ruth Benedict brings many examples of moral relativism, and how different can normality be viewed by different points of views. Moral judgement is only true from a particular standpoint or belief, and neither of them can be uniquely true of privileged over every other moral standpoint. So, every moral judgement or claim is justified by a relative culture. Benedict brings examples of cultures that are completely different from the western one. For instance, some cultures believe that people can possess spiritual powers, and those who do are highly respected and valued. They understood seizures and catalepsy as signs of the persons divine features. In the western culture the person would be considered as insane. So the values and beliefs differ throughout cultures. There are two main kinds of relativism that Ruth benedict introduces us to, Cultural and Individual.
Cultural relativism is backed with the differences between the beliefs of cultures, but an example of Individual relativism is when a conflict of morals takes place amidst the people in the group or culture. Individual relativism goes into details and states that moral values and judgements are relative to individual people and their standpoint, therefore there cannot be morals that are universal. After a group of two or more people agree to co-operate they set general norms and morals that they follow, which than become cultural values. So, individual relativism states that there are as many moral truths as there are people. Ruth benedicts overall argument was against ethnocentrism, which is looking only from your cultures perspective, and judging other cultures according to your current beliefs. Ethnocentrism causes excess involvement into what you believe, for example racism, discrimination, homophobia or any kind of conflict. There are many objections to Benedicts theory of relativism. The most common one that facts are proven and no matter which cultural standpoint will you take, it will still be the same fact. Benedict argues that a fact can be approached in many ways, for example a shape is always the same shape which is a fact, but maybe hypothetically for someone it can be something else, or associated to a specific object.
In cultural relativism Ruth Benedict practically states that one can only truly understand his own culture, therefore we should not judge other cultures. But this notion is also criticized because it could prevent us to object other cultures on logical claims and beliefs. It could also limit the progress of discussion and argumentation between two standpoints. Also, a morally relative culture has to be tolerant towards others. Any kind of action should be considered as morally relative, therefore it should not be judged. The problem with individual relativism is the possible chaos that would be created inside cultures and in the world as a whole. When everyone believes that any kind of judgement is relative, so they justify anything by saying that there is no absolute truth would create a conflict of interest and the ends would not justify the means. For example, a relativist believes that murdering someone is immoral but if it is self-defense we can justify it, so if a serial killer thinks that he has an enough of a reason to kill someone he is justified to do it. So, a relativist has a weak understanding of what is right and wrong, many of them use religion as their guidance but religion is losing its power and importance.
Mary Midgley argues against Moral Isolationism by saying that it is inappropriate and irrational. She brings a few arguments against isolationism. If isolationism is true cultures should never judge each other because of the belief that one can only fully understand his own culture, therefore we should respect each other without judging. Midgley states that in order for us to respect one another we have to judge to some extent; At first, we have to acknowledge each-other and explore values and beliefs in order to decide whether we like the other culture or not. Thus, it is essential for us to judge others to some extent to respect them. “I shall call this position "moral isolationism. " I shall suggest that it is certainly not forced upon us, and indeed that it makes no sense at all. People usually take it up because they think it is a respectful attitude to other cultures. In fact, however, it is not respectful. Nobody can respect what is entirely unintelligible to them. To respect some- one, we have to know enough about him to make a favorable judgment, however general and tentative. ” – Mary Midgley. Her main point conveys that it is not possible for us to have only positive feelings about a foreign culture. In another example Midgley argues that isolationism in general puts a ban on any kind of moral judgements and moral reasoning; Individual relativists consider that everyone has their perception, therefore they prefer not to argue about any subject.
In order to judge our own culture, first we need to judge others for a frame of reference. Seeing cultures as separate bubbles is incorrect because they intermix on a daily basis. Isolationism implies that we can’t criticize or judge others, so Midgley brings an example from the Japanese. There is a classical verb in Japanese which means "to try out one's new sword on a chance wayfarer. " They believed that a sword of a true Samurai would cut through someone in one cut, consequently they would do tests to determine who was a real Samurai and who was not. In the western culture this would be considered abnormal. But if you do not criticize you can’t understand it, not the good sides or the bad ones. We have to ask ourselves the question: If we don’t criticize other cultures, do they look at us the same way? Or do they judge us? If they do, is that a disadvantage? Mary Midgley asks the next question: “Does the isolating barrier between cultures block praise as well as blame? If I want to say that the Samurai culture has many virtues, or to praise the South American Indians, am I prevented from doing that by my outside status? Now, we certainly do need to praise other societies in this way. But it is hardly possible that we could praise them effectively if we could not, in principle, criticize them. Our praise would be worthless if it rested on definite grounds, if it did not flow from some understanding. Certainly we may need to praise things which we do not fully understand. We say there's something very good here, but I can't quite make out what it is yet. " This is the occasion when we want to learn from foreign cultures and beliefs but we have to decide which ones are worth listening to.
When I started reading about Cultural Relativism I found a certain logic into it, because we can see multiple types of collisions between interests every day, it could be in politics, philosophy or even just two people arguing about a subject. So, the first thought was that Relativism is accurate, but Mary Midgley made me change my mind after presenting cultural relativism in real life. I saw the problems that could be associated with Moral Relativism, some of them are mentioned above. In the theory of relativism, morals are just considered to be actions that are approved by the society as a whole. But from my perspective there are some morals that will always be formed by cultures, for example every culture states that taking care of the next generation is the right thing to do, but the difference is in the method of bringing up children. I consider that without moral reasoning we will not be able to develop, but the morals are extremely hard to form and they change form frequently.
