Culture: How it Defines

Human Behavior
 Culture
• Is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior.
• According to the Magisterium of the church, culture is the set of means
used by mankind to become more virtuous and reasonable in order to
become fully human.
 Culture
Sociologist categorize culture into material and non-material
culture:
• Nonmaterial culture consist of language, values, rules,
knowledge, and meanings shared by members of society.
• Material culture is the physical object that a society
produces tools.
• Culture is passed to the next generation by learning not
through the genes or heredity. Culture includes all human
phenomena which are not purely results of human
genetics.
Enculturation, Inculturation,
and Acculturation

• Enculturation refers to the process

through which we learn about the culture
we live in. Through enculturation, we
learn what behaviors, values, language,
and morals are acceptable in our society.
We learn by observing other members of
our society, including our parents, friends,
teachers, and mentors. Enculturation
provides a means for us to become
functional members of our society.
 Enculturation, Inculturation, and
Acculturation
• Inculturation is a term used in Christianity, especially in the Roman
Catholic Church, referring to the adaptation of the way Church teachings
are presented to non-Christian cultures, and to the influence of those
cultures on the evolution of these teachings.
 Enculturation, Inculturation, and
Acculturation
• Acculturation is the cultural modification of an individual, group, or
people by adapting to a borrow traits from another culture. It is also
explained as the merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact.
 Cultural relativism
• Cultural relativism is the idea that a person’s beliefs, values, and practices
should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than be
judges against the criteria of another.
• The danger of cultural relativism is the idea of relativism itself. Whether
an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in
which it is practiced. What is good depends on what society’s culture
considered good. What is bad likewise depends on what society’s culture
considered bad.
 Morality
• Morality is relative to the norms of one’s culture. That is, whether an
action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in
which it practiced. The same action may not be morally right in one
society but be morally wrong in another.
 Cultural perspective
• Cultural perspective is to understand people’s beliefs, values, and
practices in the context of their culture. Having a perspective of one’s
culture, is needed to understand people. But it does not follow that
morality must be based on said culture.