Cultural Relativism Benedict's vs. Rachels

• Ethical objectivism opposes ethical relativism.
• Objectivism suggests that moral principles are universally valid.
• Moral absolutism, the strongest form of objectivism, asserts one right answer to every moral question.
• Moral absolutism states that moral principles cannot be overridden.
• A weaker objectivism sees moral principles as universally valid but not always applicable.

Ruth Benedict's View

• Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) was a prominent American anthropologist.
• Benedict is known for "Patterns of Culture" (1934).
• Benedict views social systems as communities that possess common beliefs and practices.
• Social systems integrate patterns of ideas and practices.
• Social systems emphasize a theme from its repertoire of basic tendencies, producing a holistic design.
• Variations exist between systems, without one system being superior.
• Normal and abnormal behavior depends on the choices of social systems/ culture.
• Benedict sees morality depending on histories and environments of cultures.
• Benedict argues for moral relativism.

Modern Social Anthropology

• Modern social anthropology studies cultural environments and their consequences on human behavior.
• Primitive societies offer a laboratory for this study.
• Dyaks, Hopis, Fijians, and Yakuts help psychological and sociological studies.
• Isolation in simpler societies allows localized social forms to develop.
• Custom and belief standardization provide a false sense of inevitability.
• These simpler cultures don't represent a monopoly of social good or sanity.
• Modern civilization isn't a pinnacle of human achievement, but an adjustment.
• Adjustments, like anger, joy, or grief are varied in different societies.

Normal-Abnormal Categories

• One problem relates to normal-abnormal categories.
• How are such categories culturally determined?
• How far is inability to function socially diagnostic of abnormality?
• Cultures accommodate abnormals.
• Cultures like Catholicism valued ecstatic experience.

Culture Examples

• Societies give honorable positions to people with experiences others cultures make no use of.
• Cataleptic and trance phenomena are illustrations of abnormalities that are functional in other cultures.
• Many culturally discarded traits have been selected for elaboration in different societies.
• Homosexuality is an excellent example.
• Homosexuals do not occur in incompetent societies.
• Homosexuality has been given an honorable place in many societies, Plato's Republic is most convincing.
• Among American Indian tribes, berdaches (men-women) existed.
• Berdaches took the dress and occupations of women.

More Culture Examples

• Society in northwest Melanesia regards others as manipulators of black magic.
• One always marries into an enemy group.
• They regard a good garden crop as a confession of theft.
• No secrecy is more rigidly insisted upon than harvesting of yams.
• Their polite phrase at the acceptance of a gift is, "And if you now poison me, how shall I repay you this present?"
• Dobu altered affinal economic exchanges due to incompatible fear and distrust.
• They forbid sharing seed even in one family group.

Culture Example: Dobu

• For months before harvest, the whole society is on the verge of starvation.
• If one eats up one's seed, one is an outcast and a beachcomber for life.
• In this society Fortune describes an individual who was regarded by all his fellows as crazy.
• He was one of sunny disposition who liked work and liked to be helpful.
• Men and women never spoke of him without laughing.

Culture Example: Kwakiutl

• Death, whether by disease or enemy, was an affront to be wiped out by the death of another person.
• "Shall I do it or shall another?"
• "They felt good when they arrived at Sebaa in the evening."
• Behavior Honored upon the Northwest Coast is abnormal in our civilization.
• The whole procedure is meaningless without the fundamental paranoid reading of bereavement.

Normality

• Normality is culturally defined.
• An adult from another culture would fall into our categories of abnormality.
• No civilization can utilize the whole potential range of human behavior.
• There must be a selection among possible behavior traits.
• Every society reinforces a direction.
• Civilization elaborates on the initial impulse toward action.
• Those congenial to the cultures traits are accorded prestige.
• Those not congenial are deviants despite personality traits.
• Dobuan who is not easily susceptible to fear of treachery and is enjoys work is regarded as silly
• On the Northwest Coast, the person difficult to read insults is unprovided for.
• Someone who does not find it easy to humiliate is not provided for.

Sets

• Differences of temperament occur in society.
• The vast majority are shaped to the culture.
• It must be because they are plastic to the moulding forces of their society.
• There seems no more difficulty moulding people to what we consider traits of reference than like acquisitiveness etc.
• Most people take shape that is presented to them.

Explore ethical objectivism versus relativism, focusing on universal moral principles. Examine Ruth Benedict's anthropological perspective, emphasizing cultural patterns and moral relativity. Understand how social systems shape perceptions of normal and abnormal behavior.