Respect different cultures, but don’t give up on morals
Written by Duje Kovacevic
Multiculturalism is one of the biggest fads in the West nowadays. Respecting different, often distant cultures has come to be considered a virtue. A telling example is the vibrant community you and I belong to at Central European University, particularly for which the institution is held in high regard all across Europe and America. CEU’s mission to build a culturally diverse body is evident from the fact that every year the university becomes home to students from more than 100 countries in the world. Variety of languages, customs, religions: these are things our university takes pride in. But not just because it is fashionable. Diverse communities enrich their members, both personally and professionally. On a personal level, it is self-explanatory how valuable it is to meet folks from all around the world, gather experiences, come to know their customs and discuss ideas from different perspectives. The positive influence is indisputably true on a professional level as well. As Julian Baggini says in his 2018 book How the World Thinks? A Global History of Philosophy, several studies from social-psychology have suggested multicultural minds hold many advantages. Does this mean we should be multiculturalists apropos everything?
Clitoridectomy for take-out
Let us consider the following situation. Every year CEU hosts the Intercultural Festival, where students sing, dance, prepare their native dishes and beverages, and dress up in their folk costumes. Most of us genuinely enjoy this event. But if someone from an xy country decided to showcase a somewhat different custom, that they (and many others) think is inherent to their culture – let’s say, perform a ceremonial (female) circumcision on one of the tables – how many of us would enjoy that? This example may be a bit extreme, but it is there to hint at how, intuitively, we might not be unconditional multiculturalists. And that maybe we shouldn’t be.
There are, nonetheless, far less extreme illustrations. So many times in the last few months have I stumbled upon a conversation in which one of the people ended their thoughts with ‘well, that is how they do it in their culture’. While it could have had been a conversation about recipes, in my experience, these figures were more often used as an overarching excuse to release somebody from their (moral) responsibility. For instance, I remember a person arguing that wearing face veils is not as oppressive as the Westerners tend to think of them, but rather just a ‘cultural thing’ or a personal choice. The other person was usually reluctant to accept that as an answer. Now, what do these illustrations show us? I believe they show us that we, intuitively or not, discriminate between certain cultural practices, accepting some as benevolent and even enjoying them, while excluding and scolding people over some others which we find utterly unacceptable. The latter practices are (almost always) those which stand in conflict with our moral deliberations. Does that say that we are right, and they are wrong? Not necessarily. But it does suggest we should ask ourselves at least one thing whenever we decide to declare ourselves as multiculturalists. Namely, what is it that we are multiculturalists about?
‘Nobody is right, but everybody is right’
As the standard literature on ethics suggest, moral or ethical relativism can be understood as a normative claim that there are no universal moral rights and wrongs. Instead, acts and practices should be understood as right in virtue of a certain culture accepting them, and wrong if they are not accepted in that culture. So what is right for one society may be wrong for the other one, and there is no neutral way to compare and evaluate them. The road from benevolent multiculturalism (as seen at CEU) to ethical relativism is not the shortest because most people are not ready to completely give up their ideas of right and wrong in favor of controversial cultural practices. Nevertheless, you may slip very easily into the latter position. Why is that? Well, relativism is appealing on several grounds, and that can sometimes effortlessly conceal severe relativist implications.
There are two, arguably most attractive reasons, for accepting moral relativism which, among others, are present in most of the canonical ethics textbooks. First, this type of relativism is often seen as antithetical to ethnocentrism and imperialism. At the core of imperialism is a constant tendency to ‘educate’ and ‘civilize’ ‘primitive peoples’ whose culture is not on a supposedly appropriate level or whose morals are inadequate. Ethical relativism, in theory, doesn’t allow this, for it renders all the cultures and their ways as equally moral. Since ethnocentrism and imperialism historically led to grave and rather grievous consequences, moral relativists claim that relativism is the only feasible option. The second popular argument for relativism rests on a claim that it is, unlike its competition, a very tolerant theory: by accepting moral relativism, we come to appreciate other cultures and stop striving to affect or change them in any way.
‘Who would oppose such a beautiful theory?’ – someone might ask – as a matter of fact, most philosophers. Under this colorful facade, relativist principles carry unacceptable implications for humanity. The foremost problem is that being a consistent relativist apropos morals necessarily requires individuals to accept horrendous,immoral practices, for they were accepted somewhere by some culture or society. For instance, at some point, majority of Germans supported Hitler, which – in regard to moral relativism – suffices for a claim that Hitler’s actions were morally justified. This latches well unto the next frequent objection, laid out by the famous Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who claimed that relativism implies the paradox of tolerance. For if we tolerate everyone, we come to the point of tolerating the intolerant, that is, exactly those people who threaten tolerance in the first place.
Multiculturalism doesn’t imply moral relativism
Extending multiculturalism to accepting and promoting all cultural practices leads to unacceptable consequences, including but not limited to, justifying nazism and various forms of systematic hatred. Therefore, it is not the best way to go. At least not if we have the slightest sense for morality. This inevitably begs a substantial question: can a multiculturalist choose not to be a relativist? Most certainly they can, for accepting multiculturalism does not imply being a moral relativist. A line has to be drawn somewhere. As with everything, if the question on where should that line be drawn was easy to answer, I wouldn’t be writing this article. Nevertheless, I think it is possible to posit very general (perhaps a bit vague) guidelines that could aid us in thinking about where a line should be drawn in order to avoid relativism. Namely, we can start by distinguishing between two types of practices: those that have no moral weight, from those which carry moral implications. In regard to the latter, we should especially pay attention to practices which almost always impose negative moral implications.
There still remains a question on what standards will we determine something as morally problematic or not (which could also be culture-dependent), but to me it seems there are some foundations of morality on which we can universally agree, regardless of the socio-cultural group we identify with. Namely, morality can be grounded in universal notions of freedom, no harm principle, consent, autonomy, and so on. You can also imagine something akin to John Rawls’ idea about building a just system behind the veil of ignorance. If a certain practice or custom violates some of these (to be) agreed-upon foundations, there is a reason to think before declaring it ‘just another thing that’s ok in a specific culture’.
Most of these disputable practices (e.g. lynching adulteresses and homosexuals legitimately excluded) can be approached in a way that shows respect to the culture it comes from, while simultaneously maintaining uncompromised moral standards. A telling example, at least in my opinion, is the case published in Time in 2010 that made American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) change their stance on female genital cutting. AAP suggested a policy which would allow parents to perform a ceremonial pinprick or a small nick on their female children’s vaginas. They thought that it might be more effective to permit it in that form if it would stop the families from pursuing full circumcision. For anyone who is eager to readily disregard this proposal as atrocious, here’s a quick reminder – in most countries parents are allowed to pierce their children’s ears at a very small age, mainly for cosmetic purposes, and the majority sees nothing wrong with it. If there is an argument against a nick or a pinprick on the vagina, it is most probably also an argument against ear piercing. And for you who are with me on this, take it as an exercise and try to think of all the other cases in which we can ably show our respect for a culture, while not turning into morally indifferent bystanders.
