Blog Assignment #6

READINGS
Ruggiero: CH 5, Comparing Cultures


ASSIGNMENT
The two questions below are from the title section, at the beginning of chapter five, in the Ruggiero text. Please answer them in prose (written out) form, in your own words, to the best of your ability. Use what you learned from the assigned readings to construct your answers. You must provide at least one full paragraph each, and an example, and then you must put your answer in equation form. I will model both the equation form and the conclusion this time (you choose which conclusion suits your position); you must fill in the premises (as many as you consider enough).

Try to base your conclusion on at least one premise that consists of a moral principle, as in “X should always Y” or “X is good” or “We ought to X”. In other words, “X should always Y” is the symbolic form of a statement like, “We should always tell the truth”. Or the claim, “We should always respect other cultures”. And so on.




QUESTION #1: If an action that is praised in one culture may be condemned in another, would it be correct to say that all moral values are relative to the culture they are found in?

ANSWER 1A:

Yes, I believe that moral values are indeed relative to the cultures they are found in. Moral values differing from culture to culture is called multiculturalism. An interesting display of multiculturalism has the be the Britsh invading India. The British take overtake many areas and turned them into colonies but India was the most recetn to throw off the Imperial crown. While there the British tryed to stop a number of practices they saw as immoral like the practice of thugee or suttee. Thugee is when a group of men would atack the people who would travel through an area and the area would see it as legal since it was the men's area. This is like gangs or the mafia to Americans. Suttee is the practice of a widow to throw herself on the burning funeral pyre of her dead husband. These moral values have some serious flaws when matched to other cultures. These practices hurt others and that is my main basis for the difference in these moral values.
ANSWER 1B:

P: multiculturalism effects the moral values of an area

P: different societies create different value systems

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C: Therefore, it is correct to say that all moral values are relative to the culture they are found in.


QUESTION #2: Isn’t it a mark of ignorance to pass judgments on other cultures or to claim that one culture is better than another?

ANSWER 2A:

This question is a little bit harder to decide. Usually it would be seen as ignorant to make judgments on another culture. However, if a person knows the history and perhaps the reasoning behind certain values then maybe they are not ignorant to pass these judgements. Another way to look at this question would be to see how the other culture intersects with a person's own culture. For instance the Indian practices that I brought up in the last question greatly intersect with our own culture. A widow killing herself out of custom is hard not to judge on. Also the custom of robbing people since they are on your turf is greatly frowned upon in our own culture its no wonder I myself fidn this and the practice of suttee a horrible outdated custom.

ANSWER 2B:

P: The role of some customs in a culture can be greatly out of date

P: People who claim that they're culture is superior are usually ignorant themselves

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C: Therefore, it is a not mark of ignorance to pass judgments on other cultures