Lesson 2 - The Moral Agent - Culture in Human Behaviour
Lesson 2 - The Moral Agent - Culture in Human Behaviour
Lesson 2 - The Moral Agent - Culture in Human Behaviour
⮚ Characteristics of Culture
(1) Learned
(2) Shared
(3) Transmitted
(4) Changing
Learned because it is acquired through education, training and most
especially experience. On the other hand, all traits, altitudes, knowledge and any
material objects, like TV’s and cellphones is actually shared by members of
society. Now, if culture is shared it is also being transmitted. One learned new
fashion and how to move in society and how to behave in a particular social
situation. Lastly, Changing, one cannot define that culture never remain static
but changing. As one philosopher says, “The only thing in the world that is
constant is change” -Heraclitus. It is changing in every society but with different
speed and causes.
⮚ Moral Behavior
Moral behavior is a term used to refer to behaviors that are include moral
domain. It is concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and
goodness or badness of human character and to act according to one’s moral values
and standards.
Many aspects of morality are taught. People learn moral and aspects of right
or wrong from transmitter of culture: respective parents, teachers, novels, films, and
Page 4 of 23 television. Observing or watching them, people develop a set idea of
what is right and wrong, and what is acceptable and what is not.
Even experientially, it is improbable, if not impossible, to live in a society
without being affected by its culture. It follows too that it is hard to grow up in a
particular culture without being impacted by how it views morality or what is ethically
right or wrong. Anthropologically speaking, culture—including moral values, beliefs,
and behaviour—is learned from other people while growing up in a particular society
or group; is widely shared by the members of that society or group that individuals
are a product of their culture” and “learning a culture is an essential part of human
development”.
Social learning is the process by which individuals acquire knowledge from
others in the groups to which they belong, as a normal part of childhood. The
process by which infants and children socially learn the culture, including morality, of
those around them is called enculturation or socialization.
To sum up, the role of culture in one’s behavior are; it shapes our moral
behavior. It is influenced our perception of what is right and wrong. It gives unity to
the people and society.
● Culture shapes our moral behavior- Culture plays a role in determining how an
individual behaves in any given environment. For example, some places, baring
the breasts is seen as normal, while in some places it is forbidden. Some places
allow males and females to mingle freely in public places: others do not.
● Culture influences our perception of what is right and wrong. For instance,
some schools of thoughts believe that everyone has their own ethics. This means
what is considered right and wrong depends on the time, place, and even the
particular preferences or practices of a group of people or individual person.
● Culture gives unity to the people in the society. For instance, India is a land
of unity in diversity where people of different sects, caste and religion live
together. India is also called the land of unity in diversity as different groups of
people co- operate with each other to live in a single society. Unity in diversity
has also become strength of India.
Republic of the Philippines
MARINDUQUE STATE COLLEGE
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT
Tanza, Boac, Marinduque
⮚ The philosopher C. S. Lewis offers two reasons for saying that morality
belongs to the same class as mathematics (Lewis, 1943, p. 28-31):
● Although there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country
and those of another the differences are not really very great. Nations or cultures
only have slightly different moralities but not quite different ones. Essentially, we
can recognize the same moral law running through them all (more of this under
the section 'Universal Values'). It is thus conclude that morality law is not among
the class of mere convention---for convention, like the rule of the road or the kind
of clothes people wear, are observed to be differing almost completely.
● We affirm that the morality of one people is better or worse than that of another,
which means that there is a moral standard or rule by which we measure both
moralities and that standard is real. For instance, New Testament's morality can
be said to be far better than Nazi morality. In fact, one aspect of the National
Socialist (Nazi) reign was the systematic cold-blooded murder of between 5.6
million and 5.9 million European How's ("National Socialism, ‘2008)
Moreover, changes in people's morality have been deemed as
improvements; because if not, then there could never be any so-called moral
progress. Progress means positive development or development toward
Republic of the Philippines
MARINDUQUE STATE COLLEGE
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT
Tanza, Boac, Marinduque
society, those who opted to go against the societal norms are even considered
as social reformer and moral model.
In a micro level, one's peer may condition a person to engage in, say, pre-
marital sex, as everyone else in the group may be doing it anyway. But deep
within a person, there is usually the feeling that that the action is morally wrong,
and he/she is thus morally obliged to disobey his/her peer's insinuation. The
so-called sense of moral obligation therefore, cannot be squarely explained by
social conditioning
We do not submit, nonetheless, that social conditioning does not in any
way affect our ethical knowledge. As a matter of fact, we indeed learn plenty or
moral things from our society through our parents, teachers, religious leaders,
and the like. But it is basically our 'intellect' which is nurtured by the teachings of
moral authorities. The intellect remembers that actions are moral and what are
not, at least as prescribed by the society. Therefore, it is this intellect which can
be molded or socially conditioned, not the sense of moral obligation nor the
so-called conscience per se.
The role played by our intellect in our moral decisions explains how social
conditioning somehow affects one's concept of morality. Ultimately nonetheless,
ethical decisions are supposed to be made in relation to something not itself due
to social conditioning but due to some sort of moral law that presses down on
every person.
Cultural relativists base their moral theory on the observation that societies
fundamentally disagree about ethical issues. What is deemed moral within one
group may be totally despicable to the members of another group, and vice versa. It
is this concluded that morality differs in every society as a concepts of right and
wrong vary from culture to culture.
Defining morality as a product of culture, the theory submits that there are no
objective values and ethics is merely a matter of societal convention. Advocates see
themselves as open-minded as they consider other cultures, not as 'wrong’, but
simply as 'different.' For them, the moral code of our own society has no special
status; it is merely one among many.