Growing Up In American Culture

Ethics are 100% linked to a person’s individual culture. We don’t always think about it but how we feel about morals has a lot to do with the culture that we grow up in. From birth we are taught things and showed things which all add up into our views on the world. This makes us act the way we do and what makes us know what is morally acceptable. People who grow up in America grow up in completely different lives than those who live in China or any other part of the world. It doesn’t seem like it but these differences go much further than just lifestyle. A culture is much more than just the way someone acts. It includes how someone makes decisions and what their moral beliefs are. It also effects what we view as right and wrong. Cultural relativism

means that ethical values are going to vary amongst different cultures throughout the world (MacKinnon page 21). Now let us look at this a little further.
We are all aware of the multiple cultures around the world but are we aware that what we find morally sound isn’t so sound for others and vice versa?

The answer is no not really. When you go up to anyone who grew up in America and ask about a dog they are going to tell you how its “man’s best friend” and how they grow as a part of the family. According to a Purina pet survey 61 percent of woman talk to their dogs about issues. This outlines how important they are to people in America. Now let us think about Asian countries where they eat such animals. They kill dogs in the streets and even have fairs around the event. Even typing that sentence made my skin crawl and most Americans would feel the same. But why is that? If ethical relativism states that there is a valid difference between morals and that there is no “moral” rather “normal” (Ethics V5 N2 (Summer 1992) for

that culture than why is it so hard to except? It is because of the way we are brought up. It is hard to think that morals can be accepted such as that in other parts of the world but it isn’t so crazy when you think it through. We can even think about how things are done differently in the United States in various states. Let’s use Texas for example. In Texas if someone trespasses onto your property you are allowed to shoot them where they stand due to the 1868 Cattle Ranchers Law in Texas (M.D. Creekmore). Now morally speaking it is wrong to shoot people which can potentially kill them. Yet in Texas it is morally accepted. All of this being said it is interesting to think of how someone’s life is not only different in other parts of the world but also the way they make decisions and feel toward things. I wonder how people across the world think of the decisions that we make here in the United States.
Now for my opinion on this theory.

I can respect that cultures have been doing things in their own accord for many upon many years. I can even accept that things are done differently than I am used to. Yet with that being said I personally believe that there should be a universal set of certain morals which directly goes against ethical relativism. I am a strong animal activist and this is a large reason why this theory doesn’t sit well with me. In Asian countries they overfish, eat animals that aren’t necessary, kill things in inhumane ways and that isn’t moral to me in the slightest. I used Asian countries as an example but I am aware that those things happen in other places as well but for the sake of limiting examples I will use that. Killing people isn’t moral to me either and list can go on from there. These things in my opinion should be viewed as wrong no matter what place you come from. I am willing to accept the fact that I may feel this way as a direct result of being brought up in the United States but regardless it is how I feel. Even within the United States things happen that I think shouldn’t be morally accepted. As my previous example in Texas you can shoot at someone if they are just on your lawn. That in my opinion is not necessary. If they don’t leave call the cops no need to potentially kill them. In Florida you can legally hunt Alligators to consume. I find this morally wrong because we have not a necessity to take them out of the wild to eat. It harms

their population for our selfishness. Now some people find what I am saying silly but I don’t. I respect raising animals on farms to kill them for consumption because it is necessary. Hunting wild animals for sport is the most ridiculous idea in creation but that is a topic for another essay. It just illustrates my point that in my personal opinion morals should be set as right and wrong for certain things no matter what culture you in. As I said in the beginning of this I can respect it but I just don’t agree with the theory.
Concluding everything that I said in this essay I think that differing cultures certainly have much more differences than the typical lifestyle differences. We can all understand that in different cultures we do things that aren’t the same as one another. It isn’t so easy for us to understand that the same can be said for morals. The theory of ethical relativism states that there is not universal set of standards for right and wrong because the way we act changed depending on where we are in the world. I suppose being able to fully respect someone else’s culture is to also respect that their moral beliefs are different then your own. This being said I cannot fully say I respect many cultures in the world.