Today, you can observe someone and see how much of their cultural background influences them when deciding or they are acting on morals. Culture is made up of many aspects such as knowledge, beliefs, morals, law and habit. Culture is not an innate ability rather, it’s something people learned. In “Being Weird: How Culture Shapes the Mind” Ethan Watters explores a work of an anthropologist Joe Henrich, who uses a game called “ultimatum game” with small communities to tell whether they have the same universal human behavior. The way people learn their culture is through observing. Culture defines people’s world, it is how they should act, guide their behavior and perceptions throughout their lives. In the world, we have many cultures
Culture expresses itself in many ways, shapes, and forms. Many of these are interconnected to everyday life, and just as many are unnoticeable if one does not know where to look. Each culture has their own deeply ingrained set of rules and social requirements; this includes a moral code. The Dou Donggo people are an example of separate morality in motion – existing side by side with an outsider legal system, with a different standard of morality, and different standard of ideals to go with it.
Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. Second Edition, Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001
Culture has a huge impact on our environment. Humans learn to be ethical through culture and family. For example, the racism culture has been brought up through many generations. If our parents or grandparents have a certain belief towards different kinds of people and you are accustomed to that
Culture often means an appreciation of the finer things in life; however, culture brings members of a society together. We have a sense of belonging because we share similar beliefs, values, and attitudes about what’s right and wrong. As a result, culture changes as people adapt to their surroundings. According to Bishop Donald, “let it begin with me and my children and grandchildren” (211). Among other things, culture influences what you eat; how you were raised and will raise your own children? If, when, and whom you will marry; how you make and spend money. Truth is culture is adaptive and always changing over time because
Culture defines people’s values, beliefs, and personal interests. Culture is important because it allows people to maintain a unique identity society. Many cultures have common interests, while others may have customs that differ greatly from that of another. Technology has had a huge impact on present day cultures. Many culture have been altered including my own, and some have been created due to the rise of technology. Cultures differ so greatly that someone belonging to one culture may not agree with the values of another, which then causes social and ethical issues. My culture shares many similarities with others around the world; most of which have connected more people in recent years than ever before. Cultural gaps, and lack of understanding for peoples’ values and beliefs are significant reasons why cultures fail to understand one another.
Whether you belong to a certain race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, geographical region or you identify with a certain sex you belong to a particular culture. Culture as define by Shiraev and Levy (2013), “Is a set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols shared by a large group of people and usually communicated from one generation to the next” (p. ). In other words, we are a product of what has been handed down to us from the generations before. However, culture is evolving and it changes all the time. Hence the reason, no one group has a unique culture, since we are all influenced by each other’s way of life. As a result of this influence, we form relationships with people we know little about and share our values and beliefs with each other. Thereby creating a cross-cultural mix.
Every individual is taught what is right and what is wrong from a young age. It becomes innate of people to know how to react in situations of killings, injuries, sicknesses, and more. Humans have naturally developed a sense of morality, the “beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character,” (Vaughn 123). There are general issues such as genocide, which is deemed immoral by all; however, there are other issues as simple as etiquette, which are seen as right by one culture, but wrong and offense by another. Thus, morals and ethics can vary among regions and cultures known as cultural relativism.
In the book “primitive culture” by Edward Burnett Tylor, he states that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. " I believe to a certain extent what he has to say. Yes, in some cultures that is what it involves, but in this century, in most cultures, all those factors are independent of culture. Culture is the social behaviour of a particular group. Ethics might not define our culture, but sometimes we base some rules around ethics.
Nearly all of mankind, at one point or another, spends a lot of time focusing on the question of how one can live a good human life. This question is approached in various ways and a variety of perspectives rise as a result. There are various ways to actually seek the necessary elements of a good human life. Some seek it through the reading of classic, contemporary, theological and philosophical texts while others seek it through experiences and lessons passed down from generations. As a result of this, beliefs on what is morally right and wrong, and if they have some impact on human flourishing, are quite debatable and subjective to ones own perspective. This makes determining morally significant practices or activities actually very difficult.
Cultural relativism is the idea that moral and ethical systems varying from culture to culture, are all equally credible and no one system is morally greater than any other. Cultural relativism is based on the concept that there is no “ultimate” standard of good and evil, so the judgement of what is seen as moral, or immoral, is simply a product of one’s society and/or culture. The general consensus of this view is that there is no ethical position that may be considered “right” or “wrong” in terms of society and culture (Cultural Relativism). In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is not an adequate view of morality by providing evidence of its most common logical problems and faulty reasoning.
Psychology is the study of different behaviors and acts of each individual based on the way they are raised and brought up. Cultural psychology is specified as the study of behaviors and actions based on different cultures and traditions. The world is full of cultures. Each culture attempts to have its own psychological belief when it comes to different matters and events. Some cultures agree on some matters; while they disagree on others. Almost every culture view things differently. Yet sometimes they decide to accept these differences, and sometimes they do not. Also, some cultures view some psychological matters at the same level unexpectedly.
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
Debates of the nature of the mind have long been central to psychology. The encyclopaedia Britannica defines the mind as the source of “such occurrences as sensations, perceptions, emotions, memory, desires, various types of reasoning, motives, choices, traits of personality, and the unconscious” (Mind, n.d.)
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits. The takeaway is that both theories share the guiding principle that morality is bounded by culture or society.
Morality. Is it the same for you and me? Is it the same across the world as it is here? Does culture affect morality? Specifically looking at the play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, you find many examples of exactly this.