ABSTRACT
This chapter examines question of culture—its nature and place in human lives. A culturally sensitive account of persons threatens the conception of persons as responsible agents in two ways. The first involves the familiar issue of cultural or social determinism. The second threat that cultural situatedness poses for the notion of responsible agency is illustrated by postmodern concerns over the dangers of essentialism. Cultural essentialism encourages the view that persons are identical creatures who walk together in lock-step to the dictates of their culture. While cultural essentialism and cultural determinism both threaten the notion of responsible agency, they differ in important ways. Cultural communities are distinguishable from one another because they share differing, and possibly competing and/or conflicting politically salient norm clusters. From a specifically political perspective, the objective and universal feature of moral norms operative within certain actual norm circles does much to drive the problem of pluralism.
