Moral relativism attracts and repels. What is defensible in it
and what is to be rejected? Do we as human beings have no shared
standards by which we can understand one another? Can we abstain
from judging one another's practices? Do we truly have divergent
views about what constitutes good and evil, virtue and vice, harm
and welfare, dignity and humiliation, or is there some underlying
commonality that trumps it all?
These questions turn up everywhere, from Montaigne's essay on
cannibals, to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to the debate
over female genital mutilation. They become ever more urgent with
the growth of mass immigration, the rise of religious extremism,
the challenges of Islamist terrorism, the rise of identity
politics, and the resentment at colonialism and the massive
disparities of wealth and power between North and South. Are human
rights and humanitarian interventions just the latest form of
cultural imperialism? By what right do we judge particular
practices as barbaric? Who are the real barbarians?
In this provocative new book, the distinguished social theorist
Steven Lukes takes an incisive and enlightening look at these and
other challenging questions and considers the very foundations of
what we believe, why we believe it, and whether there is a profound
discord between "us" and "them."
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