Moral Free Space

1. Moral Free Space THE TERM MORAL FREE SPACE IMPLIES THAT IT IS RIGHT AND PROPER FOR COMMUNITIES TO SELF-DEFINE SIGNIFICANT ASCEPTS OF THEIR BUSINESS MORALITY. * CULTURAL DIVERSITY IS EMPHASISED AND ANY SUCH THING AS 'HUMAN ESSENCE' IS REJECTED.

2. HYPERNORMS: • HYPERNORMS ARE SECOND-ORDER MORAL CONCEPTS. THEY REPRESENT NORMS SUFFICIENTLY FUNDAMENTAL TO SERVE AS A SOURCE OF EVALUATION AND CRITICISM OF COMMUNITY-GENERETED NORMS.

3. On the other side there is the cosmopolitans, who defend the universal character of human experience.

4. Our aim here is to show by recognizing the diverse communities and de- recognizing the fact that one -size -fit-all suit of clothes ,one can evolve a universal principles and values that is common to all people that is based on a reflection on the deepest sources of human ethical experience.

5. CONSENSUS MORALITY • This comes to limit relativism by placing restraints based on internationally or universally accepted ethical rights. The United Nations, public opinion in the democratic states and the decisions of area blocs attempt to impose such limits.

6. Civil rights, the environment and child protection are some of the areas in which much good has been done by such consensus morality.

7. RELATIVISM IS NOT THE ANSWER • One answer to this question is as old as philosophical discussion, and as old as Sophistry. Its label is “cultural relativism” and it is a view that holds that no culture has a better ethics than any other, and that, in turn, there are no international “rights” and “wrongs”.

8. If Thailand tolerates the bribery of public officials, then Thai tolerance is no worse than Japanese or German intolerance. If Switzerland fails to find insider trading morally repugnant, then Swiss liberality is no worse than U.S. fair-mindedness.

9. The concept of cultural relativism is fairly simple to grasp, and unfortunately, fairly tempting when business opportunities are at stake.

10. In the final analysis, relativism must be rejected. Perhaps its main problem is that not all cultural differences lie at the fairly inconsequential level of insider trading or petty bribery.

11. If one seriously maintains the view of cultural relativism, one must be prepared to tolerate all cultural differences. If one state endorses piracy (as some in history have), then one must grant piracy the same moral status as a doctrine of anti-piracy. Or consider the dramatic example of crime prevention in ancient Rome.

12. There it was the practice to kill all the slaves in a household even when one slave murdered the master. All slaves were lined up and summarily executed withouttrial.

13. They were executed whether they were young or old, male or female, and whether or not they were involved in, or had any knowledge about, the murder. In some instances involving large households, the practice resulted in the execution of three and four hundred innocent persons.

14. While the practice was justified on the grounds that it deterred future plots against the master, few of us today could embrace such reasoning. And in the light of heinous practices such as this, few us can cling to theoretical relativism that would tolerate these or even worse practices.

15. Hence, if we reject relativism in the extreme instances, then morality in the international sphere must be something more than an unprincipled, “do-what-the-native-do” undertaking.

16. It does not follow that all questions of moral differences among cultures can be solved by measuring them against a rigid, universal yardstick. But it means that morality has some, albeit imperfect, relevance to transcultural contexts.