Arguments Against Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism has a variety of definitions, but the main idea is that a universal code of ethics does not exist--it varies culture to culture. Rachel’s examines cultural relativism in “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” and argues that there are commonalities of ethics throughout every culture. Rachels sections off his argument to better explain what they believe. In this piece, they argue that cultural relativism is not a proper theory. They argue that it has many major flaws, but they acknowledge that parts of theory have some truth to it. Throughout this essay, cultural relativism will be questioned, but also supported in some ways.

Therefore, cultural relativism is imperfect. Gensler’s argument against cultural relativism is flawed because although moral views are inconsistent, local standards still determine even the most basic moral principles, so hurting others would be appropriate if the community approved of it. This flaw is damaging to Gensler’s argument because cultural relativism claims that anything that is socially approved must be good, and clearly a number of things would not be considered moral by most people. Hobbes’ Argument for Leaving the State of Nature (Hobbes, pp. 105)

This is because of moral relativism’s take on ethical dilemmas, and the view that there are a number of disagreements among people as to the nature of morality. An act can

Although cultures throughout the world are distinct from one another, along with their own unique customs, there are set moral rules that every culture follows which plays a big role, in order for society to continue forward. Cultures are very different as described by James Rachels in “Morality Is Not Relative”. Cultural Relativism means that there are no set moral codes due to the fact that distinct cultures have distinct ideas when it comes to morals. For example, Rachel's supports his argument, by using multiple ways different people lived. Rachel’s points out a rarely discussed situation about Eskimos practicing infanticide.

Cultural relativism is the understanding of other cultures in their own terms. To achieve the understanding of the rituals used in the cultures of another, one must be able to look at them from an emic (insider) perspective. One must also be able to look at his own culture from an etic (outsider) perspective. The ability to look at one’s culture from the etic point of view will make it easier to explain the rituals to someone from a different culture, for example, rites of passage. Rites of passage are used to mark a life stage and are celebrated by tradition or religion, meant to separate a specific group. These differ in every culture and some may even appear brutal or abusive to many outsiders, an example would be a Maasai warrior must kill a lion single handedly, tattoos and mutilation after a certain milestone in age. The ones that are more familiar to all would include the courtship, wedding or funeral. According to our text, “ceremonies such as christening, puberty rituals, marriage and funerals, which we hold whenever a member of society undergoes an important change status, within the lifecycle of the group, are considered rites of passage.” (Crapo, 2013 para. 2) Rites of passage are an important part of tradition that often symbolizes a transition from childhood to teenager to adulthood and they even give off a sense of manhood to their family as well as their community. This paper will dig into the rites of passage we call marriage in the American culture, from

In other words, “right” or “wrong” are culture specific, what is considered moral in one society may be considered immoral in another, and, since no universal standard of morality that exist, no one has the right to judge another societies custom (Ess, 2009). Cultural Relativism is closely related to ethical relativism, which views truth as variable and not absolute. What makes up right and wrong is determined solely by individual or the society (Ess, 2009). Since the truth is not object, there can be no standards which applies to all cultures.

For example schools in western culture affects how people learn. They learn how to count differently than the Indians like Wind-Wolf learn how to count they use rocks and sort them for medicine instead of using building blocks to build shapes like said in paragraph ten. In western culture, it's seen as wrong to learn your counting by having to sort for medicine or religious economies but it's seen as wrong to learn how to count for no real reason within the tribe's culture. Both these cultures think they are doing the right thing in teaching kids how to count and the other is wrong that's how the culture affects your moral sense since both cultures feel that they are doing the right thing. "Yesterday for the third time in two weeks, he came home crying and said he wanted to have his haircut," that was said in paragraph fourteen.

”(p.19) This shows that in the study of ethics, the study of moral relativism to be more specific, the idea of universal truth does not exist. That is to say what is perceived as “good” or “right” can vary form culture to culture, so there is no way to have one universal truth. Two major examples of cultural differences that are often cited in Support

Do you agree or disagree with conventional ethical relativism that there are no objective moral principles, but that all valid moral principles are justified by virtue of their cultural acceptance? Explain your answer and why you agree or disagree. I agree with conventional ethical relativism that there are no objective moral principles other than justified by the virtue of cultural acceptance. In regard to the dependency thesis as it relates to conventional ethical relativism, right or wrong acts of individuals depend on the nature of the society that molds them. Until recently cultures have developed independently with their own history, beliefs, and subcultures intrinsic of their specific moral principles.

Cultures create their own theories of morality and teach their members to believe in it. Cultures can be death accepting, hedonistic, pessimistic,

(Luco, Week 3 Notes, p.9) Cultural Relativism is simply a combination of the following three theses: 1. The only criterion of moral truth or falsehood is the moral code of a cultural group. 2. A moral claim is true, relative to a culture’s moral code, if and only if the claim is generally accepted within that cultural

Goals or needs can play an intense role in the different views of culturally motivated reasoning. We often have or mind set in stuff that benefit us or are that are in our favor. If we have a certain idea or mindset we can go out of our way to make that idea true and conclusive. This not only includes personal point of views to keep ourselves from believing things we don’t want, but views that can be altered by others to keep us from seeing things they don’t want us to see. This is often common in the political world where information is shared a certain way so that we can see what they want us to see and not what it really is.

The concept of ethics entails systemizing, justifying, and recommending right and wrong conduct. It involves in practical reasoning: good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, rationality, and choice. Humanity has questioned this concept of ethics and ‘good’ for as long as it has survived, as it deals with real-life issues such as “what is morally right and wrong?” and “how do people ought to act?”

To better explain, moral relativism states that moral judgments are true or false, but “only relative to some particular standpoint

If we take a look at the different cultures in the world, we will see that the idea of what is ethically acceptable is vastly different. When the United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they had attempted to provide the world with a guideline of how we should ethically treat people. In many cases this declaration did not succeed and different cultures have their own ethical guidelines which go against this declaration. These culture specific ethics are defined as cultural relativism (Brusseau, 2012). Cultural relativism is the belief that ethics are not the result of universal reason; they are solely based on the individual cultures history (Brusseau, 2012).