Rule-breakers received swift punishment. Deviation from the norm was not tolerated by law or by social convention. Just because a moral standard helps create a stable society does not mean that moral standard is just, good, or right. Finally, the use of coercion itself denotes an unnatural moral standard. It takes relatively little coercion to ensure that most people don't murder or steal. Most children internalize the types of moral standards that Rachels generally accepts as universal. By extension, some moral standards may be universal throughout time.
Rachels indirectly distinguishes between moral relativism and cultural relativism. Moral relativism assumes the total lack of universal ethical truths, the lack of any benchmark to measure right and wrong. Cultural relativism may refer to behaviors, customs and traditions that do not carry any moral stigma. Preferring potatoes over corn, or goat meat over chicken, is one way of describing cultural relativism that is not necessarily moral unless one culture believes it wholly immoral not to eat a certain type of meat. However, the ban on eating cloven-hooved animals in the Old Testament has little rational morality attached to it. As Rachels points out in Chapter 4, "Does Morality Depend on Religion?" The will of God expressed in religious text is not necessarily a sound base for logical moral arguments.
One of Rachels' main criticisms of moral relativism is its unsound logic. Just because a culture believes something to be true does not make it so. It is one thing to respect cultural differences and yet another to assume that the differences preclude value judgments. Moral progress evolves when a society changes its norms from within, to create social values that are rooted more in reason and common sense than in outmoded tradition. As Rachels points out, some societies may cling to the belief that the Earth is flat. Their belief is not morally wrong but it is nevertheless incorrect. To hold cultural relativism as the ultimate standard is to become unintelligent. Morality, like science, can point to proven truths....
But ultimately, in practice, relativism in action is saying that no system of ethics has been valid for all time, and relativism and subjectivism are constantly evolving in creative dialogue with history and other circumstances. For example, perhaps a long time ago, a division of labor between the sexes made sense, when brute force was necessary for survival, to catch game and to defend cities, and when women had
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