Cultural Relativism and Women

In every culture there is a different conception of what the place of women in society ought to be. Now, one may ask whether the conduct of the members of all these societies toward women is morally acceptable. If you are a cultural relativist, you will say that the rightness and wrongness of moral matters is determined by culture and that we have no culture-independent standard for evaluating the morality of these cultures. According to relativists, the disagreements that exist between cultures are not rationally resolvable, and therefore there is no rational standard for the superiority of one culture over another, and hence different cultures are of equal value. Since they are equal to one another, the set of moral practices that occur in each culture cannot be compared with the values of another culture. For each of these cultures has its own values, and the values of one culture cannot be imposed on other cultures.

When observing different cultures and their treatment of women, accepting cultural relativism becomes very difficult. In some societies, girls are circumcised, are forced into compulsory marriage at a young age without wanting it or knowing what they want, have no right to education, and define rape only as occurring outside of marriage. Accepting the cultural relativist's statement would mean that in these cultures, the circumcision of girls is prevalent, or that in a particular culture, forced marriage is a norm. Although this point is not a matter of dispute, why does the cultural relativist repeat them? His repetition stems from his belief that if he can show that completely different cultures with different moral principles exist in various societies, then the existence of objectivity in morality is refuted. He says, if morality is objective, then why have different cultures arrived at different moralities? Therefore, the cultural relativist must first describe for us relativism in different cultures. For this reason, this approach is called descriptive relativism. If the relativist succeeds in showing that descriptive relativism exists, he must then tell us why we cannot have a standard beyond our own culture by which to examine our own culture and other cultures. So, we will take these two steps with the cultural relativist and examine them.

Cultural relativists consider each culture as a single, coherent whole. They view different cultures as a series of distinct and separate sets, each containing certain beliefs. But cultures are not monolithic, coherent, and unchanging. In every culture, there are very different individuals and groups who also disagree with one another. It cannot be said that all members of a society follow a single custom and norm. Hence, individuals within a culture sometimes offer completely different narratives of their own culture. Furthermore, cultures are in contact and exchange with one another, and it is not the case that each culture is sealed and closed off and undergoes no change whatsoever. The globalization of cultures in today's world has also strengthened this exchange. Due to various factors, including the economy, mass media such as the internet, etc., cultures have extensive contact with one another, and therefore any encounter with other cultures is real, and because of the overlap and conflict they can have with one another, relativism cannot be a genuine option.

One of the claims made against moral absolutism is that anthropologists have shown that there are no fixed values among human societies and that every culture has its own distinct and specific values. But it must be borne in mind that there are no fundamental moral differences between different cultures. Of course, some disagreements are difficult to resolve, but this does not mean that there is not sufficient agreement and similarity to resolve disagreements, or that these disagreements are irresolvable. The claim that moral disagreements between cultures are irresolvable is not based on observation and is, in fact, a rational argument. We can merely say that the disagreements observed so far do not appear to be resolvable, but their rational irresolvability is not dependent on observation. Since relativists claim to be describing different cultures, they must always bear in mind that this claim—that moral differences between cultures are irresolvable—is not descriptive.

Another issue is that within a culture, distinguishing actions that have a moral dimension from those that lack such a dimension is no simple task. Especially when we encounter another culture, we measure their actions against our own moral actions; hence we pay attention to what resembles our own moral actions or conflicts with them, and we may overlook many of those moral actions. Another point is that the evidence anthropologists provide from different cultures is usually obtained from a small group they have studied. Anthropological accounts of other cultures are not the accounts of women and minorities of non-Western cultures, but rather the accounts of those with power in each society or the voice of the majority. (Moody-Adams, 2001)

There are shared moral values among different cultures, and without some of these values, the formation and endurance of societies is generally not possible. At least two values exist without which human societies could not survive: the unacceptability of murder and lying. Imagine a society where murder is an accepted norm. Would such a society endure? Furthermore, the possibility of communication between different individuals is only possible if a large part of what they say to each other is true. (Rachels 2009) This does not mean that communication is only possible if no one ever lies; it means that if lying were accepted as a norm in a society, that is, if lying had no problem whatsoever, or were equal in value to truth-telling, communication among the members of society would be disrupted, and such a society, even if formed, would not endure.

In addition, Donald Brown, by reviewing anthropological studies that have been conducted, states that there are very many shared values among the various societies anthropologists have studied. In the following, I will briefly mention a few of them:

At the linguistic level, the use of stories, metaphor, and composing poetry is seen in all cultures. All cultures have words to refer to day, month, season, and year, past, future, present, body parts, emotions, thoughts, plants, weather, tools, speed, trade, numbers, and counting. At the level of rationality, the use of logic exists in all these cultures. All of them utilize "and," "or," the negation of a sentence, and identity in their thinking. Contradiction is known to all of them, for example between whole and part, white and black, natural and cultural, and good and bad. At the behavioral level, all humans use a smile to show their friendly behavior; all humans shed tears and express their emotions in this way. At the psychological level, all humans distinguish between self and other, voluntary and involuntary. Also, concepts such as responsibility, intentionality, normal and abnormal mental states, sexual attractiveness, and jealousy exist among all humans. At the normative level, in all societies studied by anthropologists, actions such as murder, rape, and violence and conflict are condemned, and they consider punishments for such actions. Also, members of all societies make tools and use medicine for treatment. (Baghramian 2004) The cultural relativist attitude also believes in a kind of cultural determinism. As if someone who grew up in a particular culture is condemned to always behave based on the culture in which they were raised, whereas this is not the case. Within every culture, there is a critic of the values of that same culture, and individuals can change, modify, or completely reject the values present in their culture.

Therefore, for descriptive relativism to be correct, we must consider a coherent, unified, fixed, and deterministic phenomenon called culture, ignore the existence of moral commonalities and values, and listen to some of the official voices of those societies, and then claim that the evidence confirms cultural relativism. In that case, the validity of cultural relativism will be dependent on the idealization of culture, ignoring similarities, and relying on the testimony of powerful individuals in each society. Not only is culture not as the cultural relativist considers it, but the existence of very many similarities between cultures makes possible the comparison and examination of disagreements based on these commonalities.

The Rationality of Cultural Values

Now that the indefensibility of descriptive relativism has been established, let us turn to another claim upon which cultural relativism rests. One of the most important requirements for moral relativism is to reject reason as an independent criterion for moral judgments. What is meant is cross-cultural rationality. If rationality is objective, that is, not dependent on personal opinion, and if it is universal, that is, common to all. Therefore, by negating the role of reason, the realm left for explaining morality is motivation and desires. One of the most important contemporary defenses of moral relativism has been presented by Gilbert Harman (1975). In Harman's view, the reasons we have for doing things originate from our internal desires and motivations, and there is no external rational reason by which right and wrong can be determined. The motivation and desire to do something is a reason for doing it, but if there is no desire or motivation to do something, there is also no reason to do it. Harman considers the common morality within a culture to be the result of an agreement among the members of that society, because, in his view, the members of a society have congruent or similar desires and motivations. Since the desires and motivations of these individuals are similar, using words like "ought," "wrong," or "right" in moral matters is meaningful. However, since the members of different societies have their own unique motivations and desires, using words like "ought," "right," "wrong" is meaningless. Although he believes that when encountering very different cultures, we can use words to express our astonishment. For example, if in a society women are treated like children, and this is unacceptable according to our shared culture and morality, we can use words like "horrible." Therefore, in Harman's model, if misogyny or slavery exists in a society, and the women and men, and the masters and slaves, all accept these conditions and have no problem with the matter, in Harman's view, that society has no problem internally. We can only say that the society is horrible because we share no common ground.

According to Harman’s approach, if someone lacks motivation or desire, they have no reason to do anything. For example, when a man mistreats a woman based on his culture, if he has no motivation or desire to change his behavior, he also has no reason to change his behavior. Harman’s approach stands in opposition to rationalists who believe in reasons independent of desire and motivation. For instance, a rationalist can say “forced marriage is wrong” regardless of the desires and motivations of any individual, the majority, or all members of a society. Harman’s approach is indefensible, because individuals may lack the motivation and desire to do certain things, or they may be inclined to do undesirable things. Desire and motivation are not proof of an action’s rightness or wrongness. However, it cannot be denied that in the absence of desire and motivation, it is unclear how individuals might act based on a reason. To this end, one can note that our desires and motivations are not a limited and fixed set; rather, they can be added to or subtracted from. For example, the desire or motivation to oppress women is a moral vice that may result from the failure to form appropriate motivations. We can revise our desires and motivations, free ourselves from vices, and cultivate moral virtues within ourselves. Moreover, Harman’s emphasis on agreement as the determinant of morality is questionable. There is a clear distinction between what is good and what the members of a culture think is good. As noted, the members of a society may agree on slavery or misogyny, but agreement cannot determine the goodness or badness of slavery and misogyny. Agreement among the members of a society on the undesirability of misogyny and slavery is ideal, but this does not mean that agreement or lack of agreement on them determines their goodness or badness. If there is agreement in a society that slavery or misogyny is permissible or desirable, and we consider agreement among the members of the society, convention, or culture to be the sole determinant of the moral, we must accept the strange conclusion that Martin Luther King or the women who fought for women’s suffrage in their society did something immoral, since they rose up against agreement, convention, or culture. Also, if mere agreement determines morality, and the members of a culture who currently deem slavery and misogyny undesirable were, in the future, through a moral regression, to permit these abominations, misogyny and slavery would be considered moral. This is another strange consequence of this view, demonstrating the unacceptability of determining morality based on the agreement of the members of a society, culture, or convention.

Political Concern

One of the concerns of cultural relativists is that dominant cultures, such as Western cultures, might colonize and suppress other societies by relying on their own ethnocentric values. But relativism cannot guarantee that this will not happen, and in fact, cultural relativism can also lead to colonization and suppression, because if there are no shared moral values or if moral disagreements cannot be rationally resolved, force and coercion become justified. Currently, countries like Saudi Arabia violate human rights by invoking cultural relativism. Mussolini also justified fascism by invoking cultural and moral relativism:

“Everything I have done and said in these last few years has been relativism... If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective and immortal truth... then there is nothing more relativistic than the fascist attitude and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable” (Baghiramian, p. 88, 2004)

Judging the Past

Now that it has become clear that neither of the two claims of cultural relativism is acceptable, let us turn to another question. One of the points that has attracted some people to cultural relativism is that we can judge people of the past solely on the basis of their own time's culture, and thus sympathize with them and refrain from condemning them. One of the most important questions raised in this regard is whether or not we can judge the luminaries and good people of history who were misogynistic. For example, if Saadi has a misogynistic poem, or if Kant held a contemptuous view of women, can we judge them? Can we condemn them? The correct method in confronting such texts is not to consider the existence of such instances as a reason for discrediting all of a person's thoughts and writings. Saadi's composing of a misogynistic poem is not a reason to discard or turn a blind eye to all his poems. Even if we adopt the aforementioned fair-minded approach in confronting such instances, another issue that remains is whether or not we should condemn these good and virtuous human beings for their misogynistic sayings or writings.

One of the best defenses of value relativism from a historical perspective belongs to Bernard Williams (1974). In what follows, Williams's position and Fricker's (2010) critique of it will be the focus of discussion. If we consider cultures as systems that accommodate different beliefs, then we must take two points into consideration. The results that these systems yield are in conflict with one another, and furthermore, if we want to practically live in another system, how would this be possible? Some of these systems are real options for us. For example, when we want to find out about the possibility of having children, consulting a doctor or a fortune-teller are both available and accessible as possible options within the culture, and are in fact real options, and it is possible for us to live in both of these systems. But Williams says that a certain set of cultures are not real options for us; for example, the samurai culture of the Japanese in the Middle Ages. Williams does not debate between different cultures that exist now; his debate is about ancient cultures like samurai culture. In his view, because our way of life is so different from theirs, we simply do not possess the necessary vocabulary to evaluate them.

When we encounter various systems as real options from which we can choose, we can use the evaluative expressions we wish. For instance, we can say this system is good or that system is bad. But Williams believes that we cannot connect with the samurai system in a way that would allow us to use our evaluative vocabulary based on it. For example, the word "courage" as it was used among the samurai is intangible and unfamiliar to us, because this word is tied to a specific kind of life and culture that no longer exists. Since we are not in those circumstances, we cannot evaluate it. Therefore, Williams is not a cultural relativist in the conventional sense; rather, he wants to say that what existed in the past is not a real option for us, and thus in such cases we cannot apply our value terms or evaluations. This does not mean that their value system is identical to our value system or that they have equal value; it simply means that the possibility of valuation does not exist at all, because living in these societies is not real for us, but rather we have only a conceptual encounter.

The fact that people in the past did things very differently from us and that their circumstances were very different from ours is not a good reason to consider their behavior or actions not wrong. Miranda Fricker accepts that the wrongness of an action is not dependent on circumstances, history, and culture, but she says we can blame people of the past only when we are sure that these individuals were in conditions where they could have thought differently or acted better, but did not do so. For example, if physical punishment of students was completely accepted in a society, we cannot blame them, but this does not mean that what they did was not wrong. Therefore, Fricker does not relativize the wrongness of actions according to history and culture; rather, by relativizing blame, she provides the possibility of refraining from blaming individuals for the pervasive ignorance of their own time. However, in Fricker's view, we can still consider their action wrong.

Williams, on the one hand, says that because we do not have a real confrontation with the culture of people who lived in the Bronze Age, we cannot use evaluative expressions about them, and on the other hand, he wants to criticize the oppression of women in past centuries or slavery in American society, which are more recent phenomena. As we said, in Williams's view, to condemn the values of a culture, living in it must be a real option, or in other words, the possibility of living in that culture must exist, but we cannot go back to the nineteenth century or ten thousand years ago and live in the cultures of each of those periods. The distinction between notional confrontation and real confrontation does not make it possible to determine a temporal distance. Therefore, if it is possible to judge people of the nineteenth century, then it is also possible regarding the Samurai. In fact, for Williams, a real option exists when we can live in that culture. If a real option is truly at issue, a German can go to Iraq, and a Japanese person can go to Brazil, so these are real options. But returning to the era of slavery is not a real option, yet it is quite clear that we can blame this practice that took place in the past.

The concepts that were raised in ancient Greece more than two thousand years ago are not only real options but are also examined in philosophy departments. For example, the concepts of ethics, justice, and beauty that were discussed in that era are completely understandable and evaluable in the era we live in. The content of ancient religions is also understandable to us, and we examine them. There are many ways to understand the concepts that people in the ancient world used. In examining the concept of "courage," Bertrand Russell states that the Samurai in Japan had monopolized courage, just as other societies in the past restricted courage to noble or aristocratic men in order to justify their dominance over other members of society. But the monopoly of courage by a particular group in societies was broken in various ways. For example, in Japan, conscription for war took courage out of the monopoly of the Samurai, or women in Europe and America, by gaining the right to vote, showed that courage is not exclusive to men (Russell 2013). Hence, the acceptance that concepts that existed in past cultures are so incomprehensible to us that they deprive us of the possibility of judgment is not defensible.

For a complete and correct understanding of a culture, evaluation is inevitable, and this requires a good and careful study of the conditions. For example, to examine Saadi's misogynistic poems, the awareness of the people of that era regarding the conditions of women must be investigated. Fricker says that if there was no idea at all in that era about considering women equal to men, then they cannot be blamed. But it is not necessary to become a relativist about blame in order to avoid hostile judgment against a past culture. By being careful in historical study, one can avoid unrealistic judgments about individuals, but this does not prevent judging a wrong action and blaming that action.

Always before a moral change or transformation occurs in a society, voices of opposition to the custom or culture of that society are raised, and over time, awareness of the existing moral vice in the society takes shape. But this change and transformation occurs slowly in some societies. For example, despite the fact that misogyny is widely accepted as a moral vice, the reaction of some societies to this issue is very disappointing. In this regard, freedom of expression can help us greatly. If we allow dissenting voices to be heard, they sometimes point to the vices that exist in society, vices to which we may have become accustomed in our society. We must not forget that if we silence a dissenting voice and thereby eliminate the possibility of awareness of a vice, we will deserve the blame of future generations. One of the vices that has still not been eradicated among us is misogyny, something that certainly deserves and will deserve blame.

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References:

Baghramian, M. (2004). Relativism. Routledge.

Fricker, M. (2010, June). I—The Relativism of Blame and Williams's Relativism of Distance. In Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume (Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 151-177). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Harman, G. (1975). Moral relativism defended. The Philosophical Review, 84(1), 3-22.

Moody-Adams, M. (2001). The empirical underdetermination of descriptive cultural relativism (Vol. 96). New York: Oxford University Press.

Rachels, J., 2009, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, in Steven M. Cahn (ed.), Exploring Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Russell, B. (2013). What I believe. Routledge.

Williams, B. (1974, January). The truth in relativism. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Vol. 75, pp. 215-228). Aristotelian Society, Wiley.

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Cultural Relativism and Women

Author: Zohair Bagheri Noaparast

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