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Radical Cultural Relativism

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Culture is often defined as a group’s ‘set of contested signs and practices that are historically and socially situated” (Nagengast 1997: 400) or as a “shared system of values, and symbols” that are passed on from one generation to another. (Stavenhagen 2001:89) It is, for anthropology, “a total way of life”, defining the social boundaries that distinguish one group member from another (Stavenhagen 2001:90). Every individual is born into a culture, and participation in cultural life is considered a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 22 of UDHR (UDHR) also states that cultural rights are indispensible to human dignity. At the same time, the diversity of cultural practices has been traditionally seen as …show more content…

At its extreme ends, radical cultural relativism states that rights are sourced from culture, while radical universalism holds that rights are universally applicable to everyone regardless of culture (Donnelly, 1984: 400). Relativism argues that differences in cultures cannot be judged by an external standard such as human rights, and that each society carries within it internal rules and values (Zechenter, 1997: 324). The American Anthropology Association (AAA) released a statement 1947 that promoted a relativist position when it rejected the notion of a rights system claiming ‘world-wide applicability’. For the AAA, a universal system based on Western values renders all other cultures inferior, and that a universal notion of rights should be based instead on the rights of people to live ‘in terms of their own traditions’ (AAA, …show more content…

It can also transform the standards and practice of human rights, as well as function as a lens to see how this happens, or fails to do so. Zwart (2012) states that local mechanisms can act as receptors that connect to human rights standards. Messer (1997) advocates looking for cross-cultural precedents and approaches to human rights, emphasizing similarities of human rights concepts across cultures. These approaches assume that aside from the Western liberal tradition, other cultures have local mechanisms that are similar to and can be merged with international human rights

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Culture. One of, if not the most, important aspects in creating diversity in a society. Differences in culture can be easily distinguished within a community. For example, one can effortlessly experience different cultures just by going to different food markets in the community. There are food markets that are “common” to the general public of the community while there are others that are specific to a certain cultural population within the community.

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To many, violation of human rights is a serious issue. This shows that for every negative force, there is always someone who recognizes the wrong and seeks to correct

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Chapter 2 begins with a story of a Persian king named Darius. Darius was profound and amazed at all the different cultures he found in the world during his travels. In his travels, he discovered that different cultures have different moral codes specific to their community. Furthermore, a societal difference that intrigued Darius was the way the Callatians and the Greeks treated the dead. The Callatians, believed in eating the bodies of their dead fathers while on the other hand, the Greeks practiced cremation.

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James Rachels has a better argument than Ruth Benedict in defending Moral or Cultural relativism. Rachel agreed that the fact supporting the proposition for Cultural Relativism does not support the argument. Benedict argues from a functionality standpoint, where she used certain human traits to support her argument as being abhorrent in some society but being adequately functional in another society. Though Rachel and Benedict still drew the same analogy of using Homosexuality as an example of abhorrence in one society as being acceptable in another, Rachel argues that it is a matter of moral relativism and cannot be right or wrong, rather it depends on the society one is drawing his or her moral codes from, but Benedict is arguing from the

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Piedad Molina Professor Ana Hernandez LIT 2480 October 7, 2015 Culture is the set of traditions, beliefs, and values, which are characteristic of a certain population. Each country or region has different parameters to determine their culture. The predominant values in the population, the language spoken, religious beliefs, and the way they dress; all these manners influence in the creation of a culture and what is autonomous of its region. Within a country we can find different cultures or ethnicities, social status, education and region make a population differ from another. The exchange of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values with the youngest members of the community make it possible for a culture to survive and to keep the legacy.

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With experiencing a different upbringing, people across cultures tend to have contrasting views when it comes to morality. James Rachel’s is a philosopher who wrote an article on Ethical relativism and defined the term as, “The doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society” (Rachels, 2). Ethical relativism deals with three main concerns when evaluating a certain situation, the individual, the society in which they live in, and the historical time period. However, shouldn’t the whole general idea about ethics be a critical attempt towards finding reasonable, similar grounds of moral beliefs regardless of what cultural background someone is from? In the textbook The Moral of the Story, Anthropologist Ruth Benedict, declared that, “Cultures around the world should not be judged and that moral standards are not universal” (The Moral of the Story, 123).

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Culture refers to the social heritage of a people- those learned patterns for thinking, feeling, and acting that are transmitted from one generation to the next, including the embodiment of these patterns in material items. Culture provides the meanings that enable human beings to interpret their experiences and guide their actions (Hughes and Kroehler, 2013). The African culture have played a role in our society for many years. America is known for its diversity and is called the melting pot.

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Summary This article illustrates the importance of culture which Peter Vaill (1989) defines it as "a system of attitudes, actions, and artifacts that endures over time and operates to produce among its members a relatively unique common psychology" (p.147). In summary of this article, it emphasis the importance of accepting different cultures then ones own. Culture is an underlying construct of the way we express ourselves through interaction, performance, and on a social basis.

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In this paper, I will argue that ethical relativism is false because there must be a standard higher than culture to judge the rightness or wrongness of an action. I understand that we have to respect other cultures, but I think it is important to bring up that some cultures can violate human rights. I wanted to bring to your attention that it’s happening every day all around the world. Argument: 1.

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1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background of the Study Culture consists of the overarching values, motives and moral ethical rules and meanings that are part of the system (Harris, 1999). Culture is the whole way of life, material and non-material of human society (Shorter, 1998). People think that culture as fine and performing arts, to dance, music, theatre and the means of disseminating arts and communication industry (Souza, 1993). One should imagine culture as being self contained, super organic reality with forces and purposes of its own (Geertz, 1973). Westerners used to think that their culture was a unitary phenomenon and that their western culture was perfect and most developed but 20th century proved them wrong (Shorter, 1998).

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Culture is what is brought up into society, but as time progresses, the more we restrain from it. Hence, it only exists in our minds. It is still being held up today but not as quite the same as the primitive days. It is the non-materialistic, materialistic and diversity that forms a people’s way of life.

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In this prompt the argument that Morality exists is irrelevant, contrary to our thoughts and beliefs. Everyone follows a set of moral rules. Ethical relativists disagree with this belief because, they believe that morals are distinctive from each individual culture. These relativists as described are mixing up moral and cultural distinctions, or are simply not willing to completely understanding the cultures they are standing up for. There are two different types of relativism Ethical, and Cultural, that rely upon the argument of cultural differences, which have flaws that make the argument unsound.

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Every society has its own unique cultures in which people will have different ideas of moral codes. The diversity of these cultures cannot be said to be correct or incorrect. Every society has independent standards of ethic within their society and these standards are culture-bound. Cultural Relativism has a perception in which rightness or wrongness of an action depends entirely within the bounds of the culture. This theory opposes the belief in the objectivity of moral truth.

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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.

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“Cultural Relativist and Feminist Critique of International Human Rights- Friends or Foes?” The journal, “Cultural Relativist and Feminist Critique of International Human Rights- Friends or Foes?” by Oonagh Reitman have the aim to know deeper about the two critiques towards the universal Human Rights by the two major theory, which are the Cultural Relativism and Feminism, how they see the universal Human Rights theory. The Journal address for the workshop discussion matter regarding to the similarities on critique of International human rights that made by the Cultural relativist and the feminist. “ Human Rights is the right that given and held by human simply because they are human, and it does not classified nor held by certain groups or not the subject to variation in culture”(Donnelly 1989: 109-110) From the introduction in the journal, the writer defines how the feminist and the cultural relativist express their idea of Universal human rights. The idea of Universal human rights from Donnelly were being reserve by Relativist, they argue that the human rights itself root from culture and due to the variation of culture, making the human rights not universal.

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