Answer to Question #106413 in English for La Franz Cabotaje

Question

What is culture? How does culture narrow or widen a person's ethical reasoning?

Answer 1

Culture is a set of customs, knowledge and ideas that describe the social behavior of a particular group of people in society. The knowledge characterizes people regarding how they conceptualize language, art, religion, cuisine and general social interactions in the community.

Culture being a model of social interaction in society, people tend to align their reasoning and behavior to the culturally stipulated moral principles. In doing so, they end up widening or narrowing their ethical reasoning based on the prevailing cultural values. If the current cultural beliefs are punitive and strict, people will always remain adamant to accept new ideas in ethics. Moreover, a person’s ethical reasoning can be widened if his or her culture is not unique in the social space. For instance, if the culture of different social groups in society seem similar, people are more likely to have a more extensive ethical reasoning.