Making Sense of People (Joanne Romanovich's Library) by Samuel Barondes

Author:Samuel Barondes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FT Press
Published: 2012-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

The Power of Culture-Based Values

To study differences in culture-based values, Richard Shweder, an anthropologist, divided the moral order of each culture into three categories that resemble those Cloninger used to describe individuals. Shweder calls his categories ethics of autonomy, which resembles self-directedness; ethics of community, which resembles cooperativeness; and ethics of divinity, which resembles self-transcendence.16

The first of Shweder’s categories, the ethics of autonomy, views each person as a free agent. Its main focus is maximizing the rights of the individual and achieving personal excellence. But the ethics of autonomy also balances the individual’s right to self-fulfillment with a commitment to equal autonomy for all. It is the predominant moral view in many contemporary secular cultures.

The ethics of community turns this around by sacrificing some autonomy for the benefits of having a defined place in an organized group. It views the family and the community as the most important entities, whose moral integrity and reputation must be protected by each of its members. It also views each person primarily in terms of social roles and obligations rather than individual rights. Its main moral themes—duty, hierarchy, and interdependence—have a central place in traditional cultures.

The third category, the ethics of divinity, permeates the traditional cultures in which religion plays a major role. It views each person as a manifestation of a grand universal design that transcends individuals and provides a spiritual basis for moral behavior. In some versions, each person is seen as a responsible bearer and representative of a holy legacy rather than as a mundane practitioner of reciprocal altruism.

Breaking down a moral system into these three categories is not just an abstract exercise. It can also help us recognize how our own culture shapes our personal moral judgments. Consider, for example, something as seemingly trivial as the proper way to address your father. To most contemporary Americans, who are largely governed by the ethics of autonomy, it is acceptable to use his first name. But in the traditional Hindu society that Shweder studied in India, it is considered extremely disrespectful, a violation of both family hierarchy (community) and the sacred natural order (divinity).

The same approach can also help us understand the basis for the passionate disagreement about the morality of abortion by two groups of Americans who are each convinced that they are right. In this case, the pro-choice group belongs to a subculture that emphasizes a version of the ethics of autonomy that gives priority to the individual woman’s right to protect herself from what she considers a very harmful outcome and downplays the right to life of the unborn fetus. In contrast, the pro-life group belongs to a subculture that emphasizes a version of the ethics of divinity that gives priority to the sanctity of all human souls.17

When considered in terms of the values of their cultures, it becomes easy to see how two people who are equally endowed with moral instincts and emotions can fervently defend such different positions. In judging the character of an individual, it is

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