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Is it possible to affirm both cultural relativism and moral truth?
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This seems like a very complex question and also a question of personal opinion. To those who accept the culture and beliefs I assume that morality is inherent in their way of life and customs. Any religious person will most likely tell you that he is being moral by following the law of his religion (and culture).
For an atheist like myself, there is a clear boundary between what is moral and what is customary. My moral truth is derived from my surrounding, my upbringing and seeded by a deep personal decision between good and bad. There are many contradictions that I face and observe in my day to day life between the moral truth (which is a single universal truth) and what my culture adheres to.
Lior, by saying "Moral truth (which is a single universal truth)" you are saying that moral truth trumps cultural relativism. So you are saying the answer to my question is "No."
Is it possible that what is moral in one cultural context is not moral in another. A simple example of that would be pre-marital sex. There are some cultural contexts in which some forms of pre-marital sex are considered fully consistent with morality and other cultural contexts in which pre-marital sex is entirely rejected. Is one culture "right" and the other "wrong" and we need to argue it out to figure out who is right?
I believe there is only one moral truth that may or may not contradict cultural beliefs. People with a certain set of beliefs may think that they are right and won't adhere to something that contradicts them. There will always be a fight between people claiming to be right. I believe that there is only one truth that isn't subject to culture and cannot align according to it.
Lior, I disagree with you. Let's follow up with the pre-marital sex example. I've heard (from Israeli friends and relatives, I myself don't live in Israel) that in a large part of the secular Jewish community in Israel pre-marital sex is accepted, starting about age 17, but under certain conditions: The boy is expected to sleep at the girl's house and the parents, other kids in the house, and the unmarried couple are expected to eat breakfast together in the morning. The unstated cultural message here is, "You can sleep with my daughter, but you'll have to show up for 'inspection' in the morning, willing to look me in the face and prove that you really care about my daughter and aren't just in this for the sex."
Compare that setting with the United States where the general cultural attitude about pre-marital sex is that it is "wrong" but 75% of teens do it. It happens in secret with no parental "inspection" and results in pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases at a higher rate than in Israel.
Or how about in traditional societies where there is absolutely no cultural context for pre-marital sex. It breaks every deeply held taboo.
It seems like the question "Is pre-marital sex morally right or wrong" ends up really depending upon a cultural context.
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