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Rationality, Culture, and the Construction of “Ethical Discourse”: A Comparative Perspective
Author(s) -
EDWARDS CAROLYN POPE
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.1985.13.4.02a00020
Subject(s) - lawrence kohlberg's stages of moral development , rationality , sociology , haven , philosophy , epistemology , moral reasoning , mathematics , combinatorics
The problem of ethical relativism has never been resolved or laid to rest. It turns out to be a complicated set of problems, involving many philosophical issues of meaning (Brandt 1954; Ladd 1957). For example, how should we define morality and ethics? How should we define the problem of ethical relativism? How does the problem of ethical relativism relate to the problem of cultural relativism? One question that is part of this package is a scientific one and concerns whether there are even aspects of moral values and ethical discourse that can be validly abstracted from their cultural context and compared cross-culturally. This is the problem of "descriptive ethical relativism" (Ladd 1957; Spiro 1984). Obviously, if there are no such aspects, then we have good reason to embrace an extreme doctrine of descriptive ethical relativism. On the other hand, if scientific research indicates that there are comparable aspects, then we can go on to ask a second, primarily philosophical question.