Cultural Relativism Objections cont.

6) What counts as a "culture?" social class, economic class, religion, politics, chosen subculture.
*Any way of drawing the line between cultural groups seem arbitrary.

7) Professed or actual morality? Ideals or behavior? e.g. Adultery

-If its possible to have false beliefs about Math, Science, History etc. isn't it possible to have them about Ethics?
OBJECTION: Not everyone agrees about ethics.
REPLY: Not everyone agrees on science, history, even math.
OBJECTION: You can't prove ethical statements.
REPLY: Maybe we can prove them by intuition.

a priori-apart from experience
a posteriori-based on experience.

Certain about the following:
-Torturing babies for fun is wrong
-1+1=2

Diversity thesis: different cultures believe different things about ethics. (empirical claim-a posteriori).

Dependency thesis: Morality depends on and is defined by each cultures majority belief.

absolutism does not equal eurocentrism.

"conventionalism"=cultural relativism

INTERESTING BOOK TO READ:
Cows, Pigs, Witches, and Wars
By: Harris
(Anthropology)