RELATIVISM AND MORALITY

Relativism and Morality



Relativism and Morality

Introduction

The principle of ethical and moral relativism is widely misunderstood within academic, political, and social arenas. In its original sense, the principle of moral relativism is a methodological statement about how morals should be studied. Anthropologists believe individuals' cognitions, motivations, and behaviors are learned morally and can be understood only in terms of the individual's moral context.

Although never specifically used in his writings, the phrase moral relativism is often attributed to the anthropologist Franz Boas. The principle underlying moral relativism is essentially methodological and not based on social or moral dogma. Boas believed, as did many others, that humans are necessarily ethnocentric (i.e., the belief that one's native moral is the standard by which other morals are and should be observed and judged) and that our observations of other morals are necessarily biased in favor of our native moral background.

Discussion

Furthermore, Boas argued that to fully understand a moral; researchers must compile a complete taxonomy of the moral's traditions, religious practices, social mores, sex roles, physical appearance and dress, dietary habits, and communication systems within the context of that particular moral. To accomplish this methodologically, researchers may be required to embed themselves longitudinally in the environment of the moral under study. (Harman, 1996)

This methodology is the basis of ethnographic research, where a researcher may actually live within some moral over time, establish relationships with its inhabitants, learn its systems of traditions and communication, and record its activities. The principle of moral relativism, then, is a methodological principle about how to conduct anthropological research. Because morals vary significantly, conclusions about a particular moral must be made within the context of that moral, that is, relative to that moral.

By the 1950s, the tenets of moral relativism became widespread throughout the field of anthropology and ...