Lesson 5

CULTURE: HOW IT DEFINES MORAL BEHAVIOR

Intended Learning Outcomes:
1. Articulate what culture, enculturation, inculturation and acculturation mean
2. Attribute facets of personal behavior to culture
3. Explain how culture shapes the moral agent

Introduction
 There is no such thing as absolute freedom.
 You were not free to choose whose parents you will be born, what language
you will hear and learn first and the culture where you were born to.

Motivating Activity:
1. When you hear the word "culture" what comes to your mind at once?
2. Any idea about your culture?
LESSON PROPER
What is Culture?
Taylor, 1997
 It is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors.
 This consists of language, ideas, customs, morals, laws, taboos, institutions,
tools, techniques, and works of art, rituals and other capacities and habits
acquired by a person as a member of society."

Brinkerhoff, 1989
 Is passed on to the next generation by learning not through the genes or
heredity.
 Culture is categorized into material and non-material culture.
a. Nonmaterial culture - consists of language, values, rules, knowledge,
and meanings shared by members of society.
b. Material culture - is the physical object that a society produces: tools,
streets, homes and toys, to name a few."

Kroeber, 1952
1) Includes all human phenomena which are not purely results of human
genetics.

The Human Person and Culture

 As a moral agent you are born into a culture, a factual reality you have not
chosen.
 You are not born nothing.
 The Aristotelico-Thomistic culture is a Greco-Roman culture, which has
influenced and shaped the moral life of those who have been exposed to it.
 Those who were born into this culture, educated under this culture, are
persuaded that there is one God, and later on introduced Jesus as the Son of
God.
 Others with different cultures have with their own different views of reality and
God.
o Hindus believe in so many gods.
o Muslims believe in Allah and the beauty of having many wives.
o Buddhists believe in re-incarnation.
Enculturation, Inculturation and Acculturation
 Cultures change or evolve by enculturation, by inculturation and by
acculturation.

Enculturation
J.M. Herskovits Margaret Mead
 It is the process of learning a culture in all its uniqueness and particularity.
 It is a process of learning from infancy till death, the components of life in
one’s culture which include both the material and non-material culture.
 This learning takes place through example, direct teaching and in patterns of
behavior. What is learned becomes one’s cognitive map, term of reference
that directs one’s behavior.
Examples:
 African men (South of the Sahara) grew up learning that they can marry
more than one woman while women cannot.
 African women grew up learning that they cannot share their love with
other men, while men can.
 Women in India and Muslim countries grew up learning that they can
be sold to other men.
Inculturation
Umoren, U.E. (1992)
 refers to the "missiological process in which the Gospel is rooted in a
particular culture and the latter is transformed by its introduction to
Christianity."
 Is not an action but a process that unfolds over time, one that is active and
based on mutual recognition and dialogue, a critical mind and insight,
faithfulness and conversion, transformation and growth, renewal and
innovation.

Pope John Paul II, 1985 (Redemptoris Mission, n. 52)

 It is the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their
integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various
human cultures."
Acculturation
 It is the "cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting
to or borrowing traits from another culture".
 It is also explained as the merging of cultures as a result of prolonged
contact".
Examples:
 Immigrants to the United States of America become acculturated to
American life.
 Refugees and indigenous peoples (LP) likewise adapt to the culture of
the dominant majority.
 There are cultural practices that should be stopped because of the painful
harm they do.
Examples:
 Human sacrifice among the Aztecs in ancient Mexico.
 Circumcision of women in Africa and India.
 Cannibalism in Papua New Guinea.

Filipino Immigrants in America adopts the American Culture

How Culture Shapes the Moral Agent
 Culture definitely affects the way we evaluate and judge things.
 Culture has a very long lasting hold on an individual.
Examples:
 African women not as privileged as the African men, but it is alright for
them.
 In ancient times, human sacrifice was not wrong; today it is a criminal
act.
 In some culture like Islamic culture, and African culture (South of
Sahara) having several wives is allowed. In other cultures, it's
concubinage or adultery.
 It is alright for other tribes to avenged their harmed of murdered family
members. In Christianity, killing is a mortal sin.

REFERENCE:
Corpuz, R., Corpuz, B. (2020). Ethics . Manila, Philippines. LORIMAR Publishing.