Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad.

• Author: Kirkham, Christopher Wyeth

How does one make moral judgments across cultural boundaries? Are such judgments truly moral, or are they merely reflections of unenlightened tendencies toward cultural imperialism? In recent decades, critical theorists have left Western moral philosophy less certain of the answers to these questions by deconstructing many traditional moral criticisms. Caning in Singapore, amputation in Iraq, the status of women in Arab countries and the suppression of student activities in China are all criticized by Westeners. However, critical theorists claim that one's relative cultural perspective contains so many inherent assumptions that the projection of judgments outside of one's cultural sphere renders them meaningless. In contrast to these views of modem critical theory, there stands a long tradition of essentialist" moral thinkers (philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Plato) adhering to claims of universality. These theorists believe that moral judgments must be based on universal moral truths, which are therefore applicable to all human beings. In Thick and Thin, Michael Walzer attempts to resolve this dilemma by positing a solution to explain the world's numerous and diverse expressions of ethics as well as how to make moral judgments across cultural boundaries. Walzer's solution is a two-tiered ethical structure, dividing the thin," global level of universal human morality from the thick," local level, where ethics are expressed in intricate depth.

Walzer begins his argument with a discussion of what he calls "thin" moral minimalism, which is contrasted with "thick" moral maximalism. The latter refers to the local, complex moral codes found in every society, intertwined with particular values, traditions and beliefs. Maximalism is not expressed as a single specific morality, nor is there a hierarchy to the numerous maximalist systems. Thick maximalism is found in the detailed moral code of any culture. But Walzer is not specific about the scope of a given maximalist morality. As a result, it is unclear whether such a system is highly local or whether all of America, or all of the West, is contained in a more general form of maximalism. This distinction, however, is not crucial to his argument. Maximalism is before our eyes; the new concept Walzer presents is "moral minimalism."

Moral minimalism is the abstract level at which Walzer claims one can understand fundamental moral issues across cultural borders. He uses examples such as the...