Beyond Culture

Abstract

This article is an assessment of the moral problems that beset cultural relativism, that is, the belief that the nature of human existence and value is strictly dependent on, and therefore autonomously proper to, each particular culture. According to this view, the human experience never transcends its native ground. It is, hence, no use judging one form of the human experience against another since no universal non-local yardstick exists to measure them by. After exposing the flaws and contradictions inherent in this view, the author draws a picture of the consequences of upholding cultural relativism, particularly as it shapes the moral self-understanding of its followers in this instance and, for illustrative purpose, Richard Rorty. Finally, the article sketches an argument for a humanistic understanding of culture, a theory that allows us to hold that human existence does vary according to local and historical communities, and yet holds to a moral centre valid across all human culture.

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References

J.-P. Sartre , Existentialism (Bernard Frechtman, trans.) ( New York: Philosophical Library , 1947), 17-18.

C. Levi-Strauss , Le Regard ÉIoigné ( Paris: Plon , 1983), 80.

E. Levinas , Infinity and Totality: An Essay on Exteriority (Alphonso Linguis, trans.) ( Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press , 1969).

In a related line of thinking, G. Harrison debunks the notion that cultural relativism necessarily breeds tolerance. See ‘Relativism and Tolerance’ , Ethics, 1976, 86, 122-35 .

in turn largely indebted to Martin Buber’s ‘I-Thou’ philosophy. But whereas Buber’s vision drew from religious love, that of his French epigones veers off into idolatry. For Buber, the human relation itself is sacramental; individuals are defined by their ability to encounter one another. In Levinas and Derrida, by contrast, encounter becomes nearly impossible. The ‘other’ is some inscrutable transcendental entity conceived almost independently of experience. How to build a practical human morality on the basis of this inhuman presence is not the business of these theoreticians.

among moral constructivists, R.M. Hare , The Language of Morals ( Oxford: Clarendon Press , 1952).

R. Rorty , ‘The Relativist Menace’ , The Journal of Philosophy, 90(9), 451 .

‘For pragmatists, the question should always be “what use is it?” rather than “Is it real?”’.

In the same piece, Rorty questions that whether a truth ‘is warranted or not is independent of whether the majority of one’s cultural peers would say it is warranted or unwarranted’ (ibid.: 449).

10.

A. de Tocqueville , Democracy in America ( New York: Library of America , 2004)

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T. Nagel , The View from Nowhere ( New York: Oxford University Press , 1986).