I found this week’s podcast about Ethics to be very interesting.. Before listening to this (as well as doing the readings), I knew what relative vs normative thinking meant, but I never thought about it before in the context of cultural relativism, and how this affects both our way of thinking and our society today. Also thinking about the combination of all of our “cultures” and how this affects our normative vs relative ways of thinking was a very interesting point to bring up.
From thinking about this, a point relating to the world around us came to my mind. Although we have our own ways of thinking and the organizations/”cultures” we choose to be a part of (such as being a part of the UR culture, hobby cultures, school/work culture/etc and how those affect us, cultures such as the culture of where we were born/live, the religion we are born into, etc, affects both our normative and relative ways of thinking, meaning this cultural relativism in certain senses affects each person and their morals/beliefs without even trying.. We become so accustomed to things in our daily lives and the “truths” of our society that we agree with many of them, just because of how we grew up. For example, when in the podcast it was talking about the differences in circumcision beliefs in the USA vs other countries, if we are looking at it from the context of the women in other countries want this procedure done, we are so accustomed here to not having this be a normal part of life that we inadvertently judge people, as it goes against many of the USA residents beliefs just because we grew up without it (or it could be religious beliefs, but the same principle applies).
This can also be said for our type of government.. For example, I have a friend from China who is so used to China controlling more individual freedoms that when she came to America, the amount of freedom she felt here almost felt “wrong” and immoral. The same can be said when we look at other countries’ governments; Although our democracy has so many layers and there are many things many people (including myself) do not agree with, taken from a big picture perspective, most of us in the USA may think that democracy is the best form of government, but this could just be because it is the environment we grew up in and none of us know anything else or have experienced any other type of governmental way of life. Overall, this means that because of the environment we grew up in, although we may grow to resent certain aspects, these factors of life can lead us to become very adapted to the way things are done around us (as they start to align with our own moral way of seeing things, aka our moral way of seeing things are sometimes formed because of our environment)
I think that your ideas about culture shaping what we see as “right” or “wrong” are very relevant to the global political climate. Often times larger, more wealthy countries think they know what is best for other countries and choose to interfere. However, through your lens of cultural norms and how they are shaped the ethics of “helping” other countries for sure comes into question.
I resonate with your point about growing up with these “truths” that we just accept because everyone else does. I feel like, as a society, we grew up to be accustomed to and repeat whatever our parents did/do. I also feel that our generation, as cliche as it sounds, has the opportunity to change this mindset so that we learn from our society’s mistakes and are able to find the truth behind these “truths” we grew up on.
I agree with your point that one could think that something here in the U.S is done in the best way or is the most ethical, but we might not know any better if we have never experienced anything else. The environment in which we grow up in has such a huge effect on our way of life and the way we see the world. Sometimes what is different is scary, and I think many people have a hard time keeping an open mind to how things are done differently in other places and how they could work just as well.