Having listened to the podcast assigned as homework, I am reflecting back on a conversation I had in my Intro to International Relations course last fall. We discussed cultural relativism in depth but not quite in the same lens of ethics as discussed in the podcast. Cultural relativism as a topic has always interested me greatly. How are we to determine a right and wrong in the world when so many factors lead people to believe one or the other? What are the steps necessary to make the world a better place when we can’t even agree on what constitutes better or worse? Sure, there are times in which certain actions, such as murder or terrorism, have consequences which severely impact human good. So we can agree that those are bad. But there is so much in between that requires evaluation, and the frameworks which surround those evaluations are greatly important.
When discussing circumcision on the podcast this idea was made especially clear. What is it about male circumcision that makes it more socially acceptable than female circumcision or mutilation? For one, removing the female clitoris, a major sex organ, is, to me, pretty problematic. But just because I think that doesn’t mean that a woman who wants to undergo the ritual shouldn’t. But just because male circumcision isn’t quite the same doesn’t necessarily make it okay. Clearly, I’m not the only one who has tried to reconcile this debate.
I think in the grand scheme of things, it is dependent upon the natural evolution of ethics. In the reading, there was a brief mention of slavery being bad when introducing noncognitivists. We can all agree that the ownership and exploitation of any persons is bad. But at the time of slavery in the US, that wasn’t considered an ethical wrong. It took the development of ethics and morals alongside resistance, protest, and war to give way to a new way of thinking amongst people in the US. This evolution of ideas, customs and norms was greatly important and still is for so many other topics. The interrogation of good and bad, right and wrong, and so on and so forth, is what matters most in my opinion.
I agree it is really difficult to determine what is right and wrong when we consider cultural relativism, and that questioning and philosophizing good and bad is a good course of action.
I totally agree with your ideas of the interrogation being the way to determine “right” and “wrong” and the natural evolution of ethics.
I thought the conversation about male circumcision and the removal of body parts, in general, was also quite interesting because I began to think a lot about medical morality that occurs that we often see in tv medical dramas that reflect very real situations. For example, a family refusing a life-saving procedure for their child, a minor, based on their religion? Yet what if the child wants the procedure done? Is it morally wrong for letting their child die because of their religion or abandoning their religion and letting their child live?
In the circumcision example, I like how you pointed out that your personal ethical beliefs has no affect over wether or not someone should go through with a circumcision. It made me think of abortion. Just because someone is morally against abortion, I don’t think that should have any impact over if I can get one or not. Ethics are so complicated because our beliefs are so diverse and specific to cultures.