Virtue Ethics and Cultural Relativism

On page 228, Hursthouse defends virtue theory against the criticism that we cannot know what character traits are virtues because of cultural relativism. This criticism maintains that some character traits can be reasonably rejected as virtues and that some cultures exist where these traits are rejected. Hursthouse argues that this type of criticism based upon cultural relativism is not necessarily a criticism of virtue theory as it is also applicable to rule deontology. Furthermore, Hursthouse says that both theories simply have to stick out their neck and say that the cultures "are in error" sometimes. I want to argue that virtue theory only has to do this with sufficiently extreme cultural character traits and that this is fairly easy provided the virtue theorist lean on universal applicability. I would also like to offer a possible way for virtue theory to maintain that the Aristotelian character traits (or the modern day versions of them) are universal virtues despite cultural differences.

It seems to me that the purpose of character traits in virtue theory is that they are universally applicable or, in other words, that they are necessary for any rational, social being to flourish. If this is true, this statement does not seem to discount that other cultures could have separate beliefs as virtues. As long as the culture holds the character traits in the virtue theory list as virtues, it is not contradictory to also hold some other ones as additional virtues (though the additional virtues do not really add to the flourishing of life as the cultural thinks). On the other hand, it also seems possible (as Hursthouse points out) that the culture is promoting a character trait that is not virtuous and should not be. One example I stumbled upon was that of the Spartans who killed their malformed babies as they would not make fit Spartan soldiers. This trait seems sufficiently out of line for all rational social beings to require in order to flourish and subsequently it is very easy for a virtue theorist to simply "stick out its neck," as Hursthouse would say, and say that this is cultural error. If a culture specifically rejects a specific character trait/virtue on the virtue theory list, the easiest defense of virtue theory is that either this culture is not flourishing to the full extent it could be or that it merely appears to be flourishing.

An additional rejoinder I would like to offer is that cultural relativists who state that certain character traits are not virtues in certain cultures could simply be looking at the expression of these traits in the wrong way. My argument here is drawn from the second reading in our class, that is, the "Ethical Relativism" piece in the Part I: Metaethical Issues reading. On page 14 (8 in the PDF) of that reading, the author uses a sports analogy to support his claim that, "Despite the very real diversity of moral codes found in different cultures, there may nonetheless be a common underlying basis for all of these different specific codes...". The point he is making is that there are underlying commonalities between cultures that correspond to specific moral agreements. I want to apply this to virtue theory to cause further trouble to the cultural relativist criticism of virtue theory. Following this sports analogy model, all virtues in virtue theory are common to all rational social beings such that some specific cultural character traits held up to be virtues are actually more in line with the virtues upheld by virtue theorists than as presented by cultural relativists.

While I have tried to argue that virtue theorists have a rejoinder for cultural relativists, I have not found any empirical evidence in the form of articles where cultural relativists discuss virtue theory and thus it is hard to prove that cultural relativists often look too much at the individuality of cultural virtues and not the commonalities. Ultimately, I believe that Hursthouse's argument and my argument in the second paragraph are the strongest responses to cultural relativism, but my latter argument could be a stronger rejoinder given more evidence.