Blackwell Reference Online

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Many pressing issues upon which religious ethicists reflect involve disagreements or conflicts among competing social groups that hold and act upon disparate worldviews and values (see chapter 49). Such conflicts occur not only between groups that hold opposing worldviews and values, but also within groups where there may be disagreement about the meaning of shared beliefs and values or about priorities among them. The concept of culture is an inevitable part of efforts to understand such conflicts, just as it must be an inevitable part of efforts to find possible resolutions to them. Likewise, the social-historical reality of “cultural pluralism” is the inevitable context for religious and moral reflection in this era of globalization, with its unprecedented degree of interaction between the diverse peoples and cultures of the world. In this chapter I will briefly discuss the concept of culture and its significance for religious ethics.There are many excellent accounts of the origins and development of the concept of culture (see Eagleton 2000; Lincoln 2000; Masuzawa 1998; Tanner 1997; Williams 1981). Scholars typically remind us that “culture” was initially a noun of process, having to do with the cultivation and tending of crops, the rearing and breeding of animals, and the active culture or cultivation of the human mind. In the eighteenth century, “culture” became a more general ... log in or subscribe to read full text