You cite the Scots-Irish values paper as explaining US (particularly Southern US) honour code/zero sum politics. This is commonly done in US economics blogs (e.g. Noahpinion has mentioned this a few times). I find the casual acceptance of the paper quite odd. After all, it seems fairly obvious that neither Scotland nor Ireland reflect the views that the paper tries to explain (and which, presumably, have a somewhat higher proportion of Scots/Irish ancestors and cultural values). Usually there is some vigorous handwaving about the frontier at this stage, but it is also the case that Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had both a frontier environment similar to the US and extensive Scots/Irish immigration. In fact, Scottish immigrants would make up a much larger proportion of New Zealand's migrant base than they would for the US (clue: New Zealand's largest city in the 1860s was named after Edinburgh, but given the Scots-gaelic version of the name - Dunedin as the colonists weren't having any truck with English values). Looking across Australia/Canada/NZ the US southern value system is missing as is the strong US individualist ethic (there are a bunch of papers looking at NZ and Australia focusing on the fact that where US political language in the 19th century tends to focus on liberty, NZ and Australia's tends to focus on "fairness" or "a fair go".
I worry that explanations of the different US value systems tend to look only within the US for evidence...
To be clear, Catholics don't espouse just any moral universalism, but a specific morality that is universal.
Is there a coherent alternative to moral universalism? Some people try to be moral relativists, but it doesn't really make sense.
Obviously some moral issues are context dependent, "relative" in that sense. Politeness means different things in different places. But the deep principles are universal and everyone knows it deep down.
As CS Lewis said, there is no culture where you'd feel proud to have double crossed all those who were nicest to you.
You cite the Scots-Irish values paper as explaining US (particularly Southern US) honour code/zero sum politics. This is commonly done in US economics blogs (e.g. Noahpinion has mentioned this a few times). I find the casual acceptance of the paper quite odd. After all, it seems fairly obvious that neither Scotland nor Ireland reflect the views that the paper tries to explain (and which, presumably, have a somewhat higher proportion of Scots/Irish ancestors and cultural values). Usually there is some vigorous handwaving about the frontier at this stage, but it is also the case that Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had both a frontier environment similar to the US and extensive Scots/Irish immigration. In fact, Scottish immigrants would make up a much larger proportion of New Zealand's migrant base than they would for the US (clue: New Zealand's largest city in the 1860s was named after Edinburgh, but given the Scots-gaelic version of the name - Dunedin as the colonists weren't having any truck with English values). Looking across Australia/Canada/NZ the US southern value system is missing as is the strong US individualist ethic (there are a bunch of papers looking at NZ and Australia focusing on the fact that where US political language in the 19th century tends to focus on liberty, NZ and Australia's tends to focus on "fairness" or "a fair go".
I worry that explanations of the different US value systems tend to look only within the US for evidence...
To be clear, Catholics don't espouse just any moral universalism, but a specific morality that is universal.
Is there a coherent alternative to moral universalism? Some people try to be moral relativists, but it doesn't really make sense.
Obviously some moral issues are context dependent, "relative" in that sense. Politeness means different things in different places. But the deep principles are universal and everyone knows it deep down.
As CS Lewis said, there is no culture where you'd feel proud to have double crossed all those who were nicest to you.