Justice, Heterogeneity, and Cultural Practices The Culture of Morality – Chapter 8

1. Justice, Heterogeneity, and Cultural PracticesThe Culture of Morality – Chapter 8 Melissa Carruth and Amy Lindsey-Colon

2. The recognition of diversity within different cultures is extremely important in the contemporary world, since we are constantly bombarded by oversimple generalizations about “Western civilization,” “Asian values,” “African cultures,” and so on. -Amartya Sen, Human Rights and Asian Values, 1997

3. March 6, 1999 “Testing the Limits of Tolerance as Cultures Mix: Does Freedom Mean Accepting Rituals that Repel the West?” -rituals -customs -practices -traditions

4. Afghanistan and somaliSomali Families

5. “As cultures mix” Gender roles Polygamy Restrictions on dress Arranged marriages Genital mutilation Lack of education and occupational choices Punishment of wives

6. Morality, Political Arrangements, and Culture Morality – Philosophical approaches that presume morality entail judgments about welfare, justice, and rights; expect disagreements and conflicts over norms and practices within cultures Political Arrangements – “Customs and political arrangements are important causes of women’s misery and death.” (Nussbaum, 1999, p. 32) Culture – Cultural traditions pose obstacles in the pursuit of health and well-being.

7. Nussbaum’s List of 10 Human Capabilities • Life • Bodily Health • Bodily Integrity • Senses, Imagination, and Thought • Emotions • Practical Reason • Affiliation • Other Species • Play • Control Over One’s Environment

8. Social Order and Ambiguities Okin, Nussbaum, and Habermas – each maintain that cultures contain variations, disagreements, and conflicts “Writing against Culture” – Abu-Lughod Generalizations/Stereotypes

9. -People reason about their social experiences and reflect upon the morality of cultural and societal arrangements. -Children reason, too. -Development is a process of changing understandings about the social world and its different components.

10. “ There is much more differentiation, individuation, and autonomy in the putative non-Western self, and much more dependence and interdependence in the putative Western self, than these binary opposite types allow” (Spiro, 1993, p. 117) Is there ? ???????????????????????????