Democracy as Basis for Morality
Oct 10th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 2 Comments |
Reading some blogs recently that discuss “relativism” and “subjectivism,” combined with thinking about cultural sensitivity has lead me to the following conclusion:
Relativism/Subjectivism/Culturalism* is moral democracy taken to the extreme. Everyone gets to vote, but the votes aren’t tallied.**
John Locke based the right to a democratic vote on the claim that everyone has Reason (an idea first touted in Modernity by Descartes). Democracy is a founded idea, not a foundation. You can’t build morality on it. Morality is part of its support.
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*The last of which I will define as the view that what is moral depends on ones cultural context, and that there is no basis for the judging cultural contexts themselves.
**Except, perhaps, in Culturalism, where there have to be a certain number of people who live a certain way for it to count as a legitimate cultural context. But, still, the votes of the people from different cultures aren’t tallied together.
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