The Culture of Morality

April 1, 2002
Covering the age-old questions of how the self should relate to others is a spate of new books on ethics. Together, they broaden horizons on life, love and happiness. THE CULTURE OF MORALITY: Social
Development, Context, Conflict Elliot Turiel. Cambridge Univ., $32 (344p) ISBN 0-521-80833-2 Drawing on work from diverse cultures, Turiel, an education professor at the University of California at Berkeley, shows that people in positions of lesser power, such as women and minorities, often oppose existing cultural arrangements and work to transform the system. He then asks: Where does morality lie in such situations? With the individual? With the community? With the nation? Turiel also examines conservative claims that the world is in the midst of a serious moral decline, finding that such charges often involve stereotyping, nostalgia for times past and a failure to recognize the moral viewpoints of those who challenge traditions.

March 15, 2002
William Bennett had better beware! The claim that Bennett and other neoconservatives have made so much of--that America is in moral decline--has attracted a relentless new critic. Challenging the key terms in this widely accepted claim, Turiel argues that an authentic morality not only " can" survive breaks with communal traditions but often " demands" such ruptures. Among civil rights leaders of the 1960s and among Arab feminists today, Turiel finds exemplars of pioneers who risk conflict to end cultural practices that lend to oppression the name of morality. Likewise, in the widespread refusal of contemporary Americans to accept inherited patterns for family and personal life, Turiel sees not the selfishness and narcissism lamented by Bennett and his allies but rather a laudable new willingness to consider fresh possibilities for individual autonomy and for social justice. Those who condemn America for its moral decadence--in Turiel's view--simply fail to realize that societies, just like individuals, mature in their moral perspectives. Sure to provoke spirited rejoinders in the ongoing debate over the nation's cultural health.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)