(Relativism Theory)
Another premiere challenge in metaethics is relativism, and
unless we deal with it
philosophically, the future of the news media is limited
(see Christians, 2009).
Relativism is a longstanding problem since Friedrich
Nietzsche made it inescapable.
However, in this first decade of the twenty-first century,
relativism has reached
maturity, and has taken on a comprehensiveness that
threatens our conceptual
progress in media ethics.
Friedrich Nietzsche [1] Obviously relativism has been a
prominent issue since the nineteenth century’s Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).
In his terms, in a world where God has died and everything lacks meaning,
morality makes no sense. We live in an era beyond good and evil ([1886]1966).
Since there is no transcendent answer to the why of human existence, we face
the demise of moral interpretation altogether. For Nietzsche, morality had
reached the end of the line. In its contemporary version, defending a good
beyond the senses is not beneficent, but imperialism over the moral judgments
of diverse communities.
For relativists in the Nietzschean tradition, the right and valid are only
known in
local space and native languages. Judgments of right and wrong are accepted
as
such by their adherents’ internal criteria. Therefore, these concepts and
propositions
are considered to have no validity elsewhere. For cultural relativism,
morality
is a social product. Whatever the majority in a given culture approve is a
social
good. Since all cultures are presumed to be equal in principle, all value
systems are
equally valid. Cultural relativity now typically means moral relativism.
Contrary to
an ethnocentrism of judging other groups against a dominant Western model
other
cultures are not considered inferior only different.
All forms of public communication tend to exacerbate the problem of
relativism – journalism’s emphasis on particulars, for instance. Reporters
work at
the juncture of globalization and local identities – both of them happening
simultaneously.
They are caught in the contradictory trends of cultural homogeneity
and resistance. The integration of globalization and ethnic
self-consciousness is a
major necessity. The news media’s penchant for everyday affairs makes
integration
difficult. In their passion for ethnography, for diversity, for the local –
media
academics and practitioners typically allow cultural relativity to slide
into philosophical
relativism.
The preoccupation in communication studies with narrative usually leaves
relativism
unattended. Through stories we constitute ways of living in common. Moral
commitments are embedded in the practices of particular social groups and
they
are communicated through a community’s stories. However, narrative ethics
is
conflicted in its own terms about which value-driven stories ought to be
valued.
What in narrative itself distinguishes good stories from destructive ones?
On what
grounds precisely does narrative require fundamental changes in existing
cultural
and political practices? Because some customs are relative, it does not
follow that
all are relative. While there are disagreements over details, policies, and
interpretations,
these differences do not themselves mean that no moral judgments can be
made about major historical events – The Holocaust, Stalinism, genital
mutilation,
the slave trade, apartheid in South Africa, and so forth. The challenge for
journalism
ethics in a global age is honoring cultural diversity, while simultaneously
rejecting moral relativism.
When cultural pluralism slides into moral relativism, we usually have not
faced
up to the pernicious politics that insists on the prerogatives of a nation,
caste, religion
or tribe. Cultural relativism turned into a moral claim is disingenuous. If
we
argue that moral action depends on a society’s norms, then “one must obey
the
norms of one’s society and to diverge from those norms is to act immorally
… Such
a view promotes conformity and leaves no room for moral reform or
improvement”
(Velasquez et al., 2009). Ordinarily social consensus does not indicate the
wrongness of a society’s practices and beliefs. While continuing to
critique relativism
on its own terms, another need in metaethics is defending the credibility
of
realism. A valid realism is the antidote to philosophical relativism, and
the next
section establishes its possibility.Our creative ability works within the
limits of a given animate order, creativity within a shared cosmos. People
shape their own view of reality. This fact however, does not presume that
reality as a whole is inherently formless until it is defined by
human language. A natural world that exists as a given totality is the
presupposition
of historical existence. Reality is not merely raw material, but is ordered
vertically
and through an internal ordering among its parts. Some kinds are
hierarchical,
subspecies within species, and species within genus; but relations among
humans
are horizontal, that is, no inferior race to serve a superior one. This
coherent whole
is history’s source, an intelligible order that makes history itself
intelligible. From
a realist perspective, we discover truths about the world that exist within
it.
This is ontological realism, inscribed in our very humanness. It does not
appeal
to an objective sphere outside our subjectivity. Among human beings are
common
understandings entailed by their creatureliness as lingual beings. All
human languages
are intertranslatable. In fact, some human beings in all languages are
bilingual.
All languages enable their users to make abstractions, draw inferences,
deduce
and induce when solving problems. All human languages serve cultural
formation,
not merely social function. All humans know the distinction between raw
food and
cooked. Of major importance in our philosophical work is a legitimate
realism on
this side of Einstein, Freud, and Darwin, and realism grounded in human
language
qualifies.
In terms of ontological realism, norms can be embedded successfully within
culture and history, East and West. As an indicator of its distinctiveness,
the
sociologist Robert Wuthnow (1987)[2] argues
that as the human species generates
symbolic systems it maintains boundaries between moral norms and actual
behavior.
Through natural language, homo sapiens establishes the differences and
similarities
of people’s worldviews. In an ironic twist on conventional skepticism,
normative
claims that presume realism are not a medieval remnant but the catalyst for
innovation. Given the ambiguities within relativism itself, and the
possibility of a
constructive response through realism, theorizing in media ethics can move
forward
constructively.
[1] Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche (/ˈniːtʃə/[1] or /ˈniːtʃi/; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːt͡sʃə];
15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic,
poet, composer and Latin and Greek scholar. He wrote several critical texts on
religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a
fondness for metaphor and irony.
Nietzsche's key ideas include perspectivism, the will to power, the death
of God, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his
philosophy is "life-affirmation", which embraces the realities of the
world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond. It further champions
the creative powers of the individual to strive beyond social, cultural, and
moral contexts.Nietzsche's attitude towards religion and morality was marked
with atheism, psychologism and historism; he considered them to be human
creations loaded with the error of confusing cause and effect.His radical
questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of
extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, especially in
schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and
post-structuralism. His ideas of individual overcoming and transcendence beyond
structure and context have had a profound impact on late-twentieth and
early-twenty-first century thinkers, who have used these concepts as points of
departure in the development of their philosophies
[2] Robert J. Wuthnow
(born 1946) is an American sociologist who is widely known for his work in the
sociology of religion. He is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor of Sociology at
Princeton University, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Sociology
and Director of the Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion
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