PSYC14H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Ethnocentrism, Meritocracy, Collectivism
PSYC14
Chapter 12 - Morality, Religion, and Justice
Secularization theory: religion declines as science progresses
•But research has shown that religion (esp Christianity and Islam) is growing in the US
Ethnocentrism & Interpreting Cultural Variability
•Ethnocentrism: judging people from other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture
- Barrier to understanding the ways of other cultures, leads people to think their culture is better
•Which culture has the best quality of life? Well depends what you’re measuring (education, lowest
crime rates/suicides rate, number of nobel prizes, surviving offspring)
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
•Level 1: The Preconventional Level
-Actions are good or bad based on whether they satisfy one’s own needs or sometimes the
needs of others
-Behave in a way that gets the best overall return
•Level 2: The Conventional Level
-People identify themselves with a group
-Actions are bad if they break the rules of the group, good if you follow the rules without question
•Level 3: The Postconventional Level
-Moral principles separate from social group (doesn’t matter if anyone agrees with you)
-Good behaviour is consistent with universal ethical principles (justice, individual rights)
Research on Kohlberg’s Model (45 studies in 27 cultural areas)
•All cultural groups had some adults reasoning at conventional levels (none at preconventional)
•Many children at preconventional level
•Some Western samples showed postconventional reasoning, but no one from tribal or village
populations (therefore postconventional not universal)
-Reasoning 1. Traditional societies do not provide the education for postconventional terms
-2. Western and tribal environments are different, people develop moral framework that fits their
environment
Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity (Shweder)
•Everyone has potential to reason any of these ways, but most tend to favour one
Ethic of autonomy:
•Kohlberg’s model
•Morality in terms of individual freedom and rights violations (esp personal choice, individual liberty)
•Immoral: directly hurts another person or infringes on another’s rights and freedoms
•Important in all cultures
Ethic of community:
•Duty is to conform with role in a community (must uphold duties and obligations towards others)
•Actions wrong when fail to perform duties (ex. son not attending parents anniversary because
doesn’t feel like it)
Ethic of divinity:
•God/s created this sacred world and everyone must respect/preserve it
•Immoral: cause impurity or degradation to oneself or others, disrespect God/God’s creations
Ex: cartoon of prophet Muhammad
•Muslim protestors saw from ethic of divinity - defacing Muhammad unacceptable
•Western newspaper editors saw from ethic of autonomy - censoring free speech intolerable
Document Summary
Secularization theory: religion declines as science progresses: but research has shown that religion (esp christianity and islam) is growing in the us. Ethnocentrism & interpreting cultural variability: ethnocentrism: judging people from other cultures by the standards of one"s own culture. Well depends what you"re measuring (education, lowest crime rates/suicides rate, number of nobel prizes, surviving offspring) Kohlberg"s stages of moral development: level 1: the preconventional level. Actions are good or bad based on whether they satisfy one"s own needs or sometimes the needs of others. Behave in a way that gets the best overall return: level 2: the conventional level. Actions are bad if they break the rules of the group, good if you follow the rules without question: level 3: the postconventional level. Moral principles separate from social group (doesn"t matter if anyone agrees with you) Good behaviour is consistent with universal ethical principles (justice, individual rights) Traditional societies do not provide the education for postconventional terms.
