Human rights and moral relativism

Most basically, humans want to improve their condition. This natural desire guides existence and impacts decisions. Individuals foresee the effects an action today will leave on their future. Like people, cultures strive to fully comprehend what values define them. People seek solutions to their problems. Maybe a family home is dirty. In response, parents decide that they and their children will spend every other weekend cleaning their respective rooms. Similarly, societies contemplate over questions that affect efficiency and collective satisfaction. Should adults be able to smoke marijuana recreationally? Is the death penalty an acceptable form of punishment? What happens when federal workers collect data from citizens through controversial means? These are queries which consider morality. And as established at international meetings by the United Nations and other organizations, human rights are absolute. When scholars study outside environments they need to consider local customs. However, when debate transitions to the safety and integrity of individual people, these researchers must disregard geography. Each human being deserves liberty regardless of gender and condition. With this said, countries which value freedom – such as the United States – should hold accountable foreign entities which abuse positions of power.

In this short paper I intend to portray what is called “moral relativism” as an illogical foreign policy. Before discussing this, though, I would like to explain the origins of this debate. Moral relativism became prominent as Western countries entered industrialization and began colonizing and pressing influence upon Asia. Ruth Benedict represented a wave of anthropologists in favor of these culture-specific behavioral standards. She found that what are right and wrong depend upon context. She figured that normality is a product of “a particular society.” Overall, she concluded that identifying abnormal and inhumane behavior is more confusing than saying when you see them. This mindset, other theorists felt, with which I agree, breeds ignorance among people.

Take the following example. A warehouse in Southeast Asia employs middle-school-age children to produce smartphones. These gadgets are later distributed to retail stores in cities across the globe. Someone like Ruth Benedict would refrain from declaring this behavior as inexcusable because she lives outside the boundaries of its bearing. Adolescent manual labor, she might conclude, is a common feature of this locality; it builds character and prepares young people for the tough jobs to come later in life. This viewpoint is an easy alternative to admitting that there are problems in this world which require fixing. Problem-solving demands tremendous time-investment and a definitive plan of action. Still, as citizens of systems which guarantee equal protection under law, standing by is not an option. Something this atrocious – corrupt business owners force children to operate dangerous machines and thereby prevent them from receiving an education – requires that leaders move forward and act cooperatively.

Fifteen years after Ruth Benedict published Patterns of Culture in 1934, the United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which formally recognized what thinkers like Thomas Jefferson imprinted into philosophy centuries prior with the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Generations earlier, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote about innate behavior in a broken-down society. When you strip down economic and political frameworks, Hobbes discerned, humans would revert to primitive, war-like states. Simply put, Homo sapiens will protect life above all else. Other thinkers held an entirely distinct understanding of humanity. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke established that people are born with a tabula rasa and learn behavior from experience.

I believe that we are born with phenomenal capacities to grow intelligent and strong. While competitive like Hobbes said, men and women hold themselves to a moral compass. When confronted with ethical dilemmas, while often few will burst out to correct mistreatment, most everyone recognizes a potential interpretation of such. Mary Midgley, an outspoken critic of cultural relativism, understood that there exist absolute rights. To evaluate foreign countries, Western cultures must use their own standards. She dramatized this perspective as “moral isolationism,” and exemplified this belief by alluding to a Japanese cultural tradition. Midgley stood where I stand. “On Trying Out One’s New Sword on a Chance Wayfarer,” she professes that “the moral isolationist’s picture of separate, unmixable cultures is quite unreal” (p. 222).

Before concluding, I want to address a contemporary conflict to analyze the persistence of relativist attitudes in contemporary society. Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia fundamentally restrict women from partaking in greater society. They are expected to fully clothe their bodies. Females routinely are demeaned by their husbands, placed into unfair living arrangements, and denied access to education. Teenage public speaker Malala Yousafzai has become an advocate to change the reality of that final point. Ultimately, because rigid Islamic doctrine defines their system, for whatever reason, members of the International community overlook these blatant human rights violations.

Everyone faces a challenge in confronting viewpoints which intimidate them, ideas that contradict what they once considered true. By allowing cultures to systematically deny liberties, the United States and other democratic polities basically disaffirm their belief in those unalienable rights about which Thomas Jefferson proudly scribed. Tolerance is a drastically different policy message than acceptance. On an individual level, I fear that we fail to acknowledge what atrocious inequality lives next door. Maybe this stems from a larger concern that attending to these social problems would provoke disagreement and bring about physical conflict. If you truly salute loyalty to a flag which values freedom, liberty and education, voice your disapproval of systems that disregard these rights. Empathy demands at least this from us.

#morality #philosophy #humanrights #foreignpolicy #Jefferson