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    ETHICS Lesson 8 Culture in Moral Behavior

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    Michaella Dometita
    This document discusses culture and its role in moral behavior. It provides several definitions of culture, including that culture consists of patterns of behavior acquired and transmitted through symbols that constitute the distinctive achievements of human groups. Culture includes the traditions, values, and learned behaviors of a group that are passed down between generations. The document states that through social learning and enculturation, individuals acquire the moral values and behaviors of the culture they are raised in. Therefore, culture plays a significant role in shaping one's moral behavior and sense of right and wrong. Cultural relativism is discussed as the view that moral standards are determined by each individual culture and that an act is only right or wrong within the context of that particular culture.

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    ETHICS Lesson 8 Culture in Moral Behavior

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    Michaella Dometita
    187 views41 pages
    This document discusses culture and its role in moral behavior. It provides several definitions of culture, including that culture consists of patterns of behavior acquired and transmitted through symbols that constitute the distinctive achievements of human groups. Culture includes the traditions, values, and learned behaviors of a group that are passed down between generations. The document states that through social learning and enculturation, individuals acquire the moral values and behaviors of the culture they are raised in. Therefore, culture plays a significant role in shaping one's moral behavior and sense of right and wrong. Cultural relativism is discussed as the view that moral standards are determined by each individual culture and that an act is only right or wrong within the context of that particular culture.

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    This document discusses culture and its role in moral behavior. It provides several definitions of culture, including that culture consists of patterns of behavior acquired and transmitted through symbols that constitute the distinctive achievements of human groups. Culture includes the traditions, values, and learned behaviors of a group that are passed down between generations. The document states that through social learning and enculturation, individuals acquire the moral values and behaviors of the culture they are raised in. Therefore, culture plays a significant role in shaping one's moral behavior and sense of right and wrong. Cultural relativism is discussed as the view that moral standards are determined by each individual culture and that an act is only right or wrong within the context of that particular culture.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    187 views41 pages

    ETHICS Lesson 8 Culture in Moral Behavior

    Uploaded by

    Michaella Dometita
    This document discusses culture and its role in moral behavior. It provides several definitions of culture, including that culture consists of patterns of behavior acquired and transmitted through symbols that constitute the distinctive achievements of human groups. Culture includes the traditions, values, and learned behaviors of a group that are passed down between generations. The document states that through social learning and enculturation, individuals acquire the moral values and behaviors of the culture they are raised in. Therefore, culture plays a significant role in shaping one's moral behavior and sense of right and wrong. Cultural relativism is discussed as the view that moral standards are determined by each individual culture and that an act is only right or wrong within the context of that particular culture.

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    Culture in Moral Behavior

    1. Culture: Some Definitions


    *It is commonly said that culture
    is all around us. Practically, culture
    appears to be an actual part of our
    social life as well as our personality.
    *For some, culture is a quality
    that some people have more than
    others: how ‘cultured’ somebody is
    depends on some factors like
    status, class, education, taste in
    music or film, and speech habits.
    The term ‘culture’ is so complex
    that it is not easy to define.
    *In one sense, culture is used to
    denote that which is related to the arts
    and humanities. But in a broader
    sense, culture denotes the practices,
    beliefs and perceptions of a given
    society.
    *Culture consists of patterns, explicit
    and implicit, of and for behavior
    acquired and transmitted by symbols,
    constituting the distinctive
    achievement of human groups,
    including their embodiments in
    artifacts.
    The essential core of culture
    consists of traditional ideas and
    especially their attached values.
    Culture systems may, on one hand,
    be considered as products of action,
    on the other hand, as conditioning
    influences upon further action.
    *Culture is the sum total of the
    learned behavior of a group of people
    that are generally considered to be the
    tradition of that people and are
    transmitted from generation to
    generation.
    *Defined broadly therefore, culture
    includes all the things individuals learn
    while growing up among particular
    group.
    Attitudes, standards of morality,
    rules of etiquette, perceptions of
    reality, language, notions about the
    proper way to live, beliefs about
    how females and males should
    interact, ideas about how the
    world works and so forth are all
    the learnings we get from we call
    ‘cultural knowledge’.
    2. Culture’s Role in Moral Behavior
    Based on the definitions of culture,
    it is not hard to pinpoint the role of
    culture in one’s moral behavior.
    A culture is a ‘way of life’ of a
    group of people and this so-called
    ‘way of life’ actually includes moral
    values and behaviors, along with
    knowledge, beliefs, symbols that
    they accept.
    Many aspects of morality are taught.
    People learn moral and aspects of
    right or wrong from transmitters of
    culture.
    Observing or watching, say,
    parents, teachers, novels, films, and
    television, from them, people
    develop a set of idea of what is right
    and wrong, and what is acceptable
    and what is not.
    *Even experientially, it is
    improbable, if not impossible, to
    live in a society without being
    affected by its culture.
    *It follows too that it is hard to
    grow up in a particular culture
    without being impacted by how it
    views morality or what is ethically
    right or wrong.
    *Moreover, “individuals are a
    product of their culture”.
    *“Learning a culture is an essential
    part of human development”.
    Therefore, we can now understand
    that, social learning is the process by
    which individuals acquire knowledge
    from others in the groups to which
    they belong, as a normal part of
    childhood.
    The process by which infants
    and children socially learn the
    culture, including morality, of
    those around them is called
    enculturation or socialization.
    3. Cultural Relativism in Ethics
    Cultural relativism is perhaps the most
    famous form of moral relativism, a
    theory in ethics which holds that ethical
    judgments have their origins either in
    individual or cultural standards.
    Moral relativism fundamentally
    believes that no act is good or bad
    objectively, and there is no single
    objective universal standard
    through which we can evaluate the
    truth of moral judgments.
    Moral relativism submits that
    different moral principles apply to
    different persons or group of
    individuals. Claiming that various
    cultures have distinct standards of
    right and wrong, it maintains too,
    that moral standards change over
    time even in the same culture.
    Cultural relativism, the most
    dominant form of moral
    relativism, defines ‘moral’ as
    what is ‘socially approved’ by
    the majority in a particular
    culture.
    It maintains that an act is ethical
    in a culture that approves of it, but
    immoral in one that disapproves
    of it.
    Cultural relativists base their moral theory on
    the observation that societies fundamentally
    disagree about ethical issues. What is deemed
    moral within one group may be totally
    despicable to the members of another group,
    and vice versa. It is thus concluded that
    morality differs in every society as concepts of
    right and wrong vary from culture to culture.
    Defining morality as a product of
    culture, the theory submits that there are
    no objective values and ethics is merely a
    matter of societal convention. Advocates
    see themselves as open-minded as they
    consider other cultures, not as ‘wrong’,
    but simply as ‘different’.
    For instance, concerning fixed marriage,
    male circumcision and excision, cultural
    relativism would say that it is mere
    arrogance for us to try to judge the
    conduct of the peoples practicing them.
    Relativists thus suggest that we should
    adopt instead an attitude of tolerance
    toward any of the practices of other
    cultures.
    END

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