Morality and Cultural Differences
1st Edition
Published on 28. January 1999
217 pages
978-0-19-535207-8 (ISBN)
Description
The scholars who defend or dispute moral relativism, the idea that a moral principle cannot be applied to people whose culture does not accept it, have concerned themselves with either the philosophical or anthropological aspects of relativism. This study shows that in order to arrive at a definitive appraisal of moral relativism, it is necessary to understand and investigate both its anthropological and philosophical aspects. Carefully examining the arguments for and against moral relativism, Cook exposes not only that anthropologists have failed in their attempt to support relativism with evidence of cultural differences, but that moral absolutists have been equally unsuccessful in their attempts to refute it. He argues that these conflicting positions are both guilty of an artificial and unrealistic view of morality and proposes a more subtle and complex account of morality.
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John W. Cook
Morality and Cultural Differences
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02/2003
Oxford University Press Inc
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Morality and Cultural Differences
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04/1999
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Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Introduction
- I. THE CLAIMS OF MORAL RELATIVISM
- 1. Moral Relativism versus Moral Absolutism
- 2. Moral Relativism: A Statement of the Doctrine
- 3. Further Misconceptions about Moral Relativism
- 4. The Paradoxes of Relativism
- II. ANTHROPOLOGY AND MORAL RELATIVISM
- 5. The History of Relativism in Anthropology
- 6. Boas's Criticisms of Cultural Evolutionism
- 7. Boas's Methodological Insights
- 8. Relativism and Ethnocentrism
- 9. Is There Evidence Supporting Moral Relativism?
- 10. Some Obvious Instances of the Projection Error
- 11. The Projection Error as a Source of Moral Relativism
- 12. Pulling the Strands Together
- III. PHILOSOPHY AND MORAL RELATIVISM
- 13. Westermarck's Concession and the Philosophical Argument for Moral Relativism
- 14. A Preliminary Assessment of the Philosophical Argument
- 15. What Is Morality?
- 16. Problems in the Philosophical Description of Morality
- 17. Enculturative Conditioning
- 18. Islandia and Despond
- 19. A Final Look at the Relativist's Argument
- 20. Our Relation to Other Cultures
- Appendices
- Notes
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
