What moral imperative rules against procrastination?

Can we judge works of literature by our own personal values? Or must we judge them by the values of the characters or perhaps the original author in order to appreciate them in the way their originator intended? I posit that these questions are all questions that must be answered for oneself, that there is no true to value to the interpretation of literature, or in fact any art,

We encountered a cultural clash when reading Things Fall Apart. When Okonkwo kills his foster son and discusses the village practice of killing infant twins, we are inclined to judge him by our own values and say that these things are wrong. The same goes when he beats his wife and forlornly wishes that his able-ist daughter had been born his son. But while it is our natural inclination to feel this way, cultural relativism and years of literature-interpretation conditioning say that we ought only judge Okonkwo by his own culture. And in his own culture all these things were just or, failing that, forgivable. What would make him a villain in our culture merely makes him a man in his own.

According to James Rachels' “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, this cultural relativism is a widely held theory. He finds it to be logically flawed to follow cultural relativism to the conclusion that there is no inherent truths, but at the same time suggests that using its premises to question assumed moral truths would be wise. He says that just because there might be moral truths doesn't mean they necessarily lie with your culture and that it is always best to question such thins. He doesn't put any of this in the context of interpreting literature, but we all be so high minded in our contemplations, now can we?

I agree with Rachels' assertion that it is always good to question our own culture. I agree with him that there are facts – the world is certainly spherical and not flat. But I don't see how that carries on to the idea that there are true moral facts. I think at its heart morals are what they are because there isn't any sort of truth behind them besides a communal trust. If they were inherent truths that trust would not be needed and the power people put behind morals would be much diminished. But that is the real world: in literature I feel that I ought be able to interpret however I wish. So I pick and I choose and I look at books both ways. From the perspective of the characters, to get a feel for their values, and from my own perspective, to know where I draw the line. Some lines are drawn out quite clearly and others just inferred. Luckily there's no moral imperative against being indecisive.