Synthesized answer
The author critically scrutinizes the anthropological evidence commonly used to support moral relativism [2]. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the relevant anthropological literature, the author dismantles mystical conceptions of culture that underwrite relativism [2]. The author demonstrates that cultures are not hermetically sealed but are products of eclectic mixtures and borrowings, rich with contradictions and possibilities for change [2].
The author also challenges the notion that ethics is methodologically deficient compared to natural science, arguing instead that ethics is an interpretive enterprise, akin to interpretive ethnography [3]. This approach suggests that even serious moral disagreements occur against a background of moral agreement [3].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
Categories: Philosophy Pages: 276 Snippet: Fieldwork in Familiar Places challenges the misconceptions about morality, culture, and objectivity that support these skepticisms, to show that we can take moral disagreement seriously and yet retain our aspirations for moral objectivity.
Title: Fieldwork in Familiar Places by Michele M. Moody-Adams Description: The persistence of deep moral disagreements--across cultures as well as within them--has created widespread skepticism about the objectivity of morality. Moral relativism, moral pessimism, and the denigration of ethics in comparison with science are the results. Fieldwork in Familiar Places challenges the misconceptions about morality, culture, and objectivity that support these skepticisms, to show that we can take moral disagreement seriously and yet retain our aspirations for moral objectivity. Michele Moody-Adams…
not only crucial for cultural survival, but will always thwart relativist efforts to confine moral judgments to a single culture. Fieldwork in Familiar Places will forever change the way we think about relativism: anthropologists, psychologists, historians, and philosophers alike will be forced to reconsider many of their theoretical presuppositions. Moody-Adams also challenges the notion that ethics is methodologically deficient because it does not meet standards set by natural science. She contends that ethics is an interpretive enterprise, not a failed naturalistic one: genuine ethical…