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Arguments Against Cultural Relativism

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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. Moreover, there is no universal truth in ethics, only various cultural codes instead. On the other point of view, it has been suggested that the world should derive an objective truth in every action. This essay will argue against the existence of objective truth in …show more content…

It is an over-optimistic argument as cultural relativism has a more logical way of reasoning, for at least two reasons. First, it reminds us that objective truth does not have a plausible standard in every culture that is peculiar to the society. Furthermore, it shows that every value must be less universal as every society has its own moral code. For example, eating the flesh of our parents is dreadful to a normal person. However, for the Callatian (Blanco, 2013), it is a sign of respect as the person’s spirit will dwell within them. Therefore, different cultures with result in different moral codes. In that case, people should see matters from many aspects instead of having a general truth as the standard. A second reason why cultural relativism has a more logical way of reasoning is because it teaches us to keep in an open mind. This can be seen from the fact that people should respect and tolerate other’s culture since there is no universal truth that holds for all people. Taken together, these two arguments demonstrate the logical way reasoning of cultural relativism and highlight the advantage of the cultural relativism

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The final chapter, chapter 21, of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book, The Fundamentals of Ethics, emphasis is placed on the fact that moral objectivity is not always completely universal but does not mean the idea of moral objectivism has to be rejected. Moral objectivism states that moral standards should be universal but there are some circumstances and exceptions to this claim. Shafer-Landau presents eleven arguments in chapter 21 that some consider challenges to the universality principle of moral objectivity. Not only will moral objectivism be examined in this paper but also another philosophical view known as moral skepticism will be discussed. In addition to the arguments present by Shafter-Landau’s book this paper will include an analysis from

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(Midgley 34). Once an individual acquires enough knowledge on a certain culture, then they can form a logical opinion. Their opinion, either positive or negative, creates a judgement. A person must judge a culture, to some degree, to respect it. A moral isolationist’s idea that we are only allowed to be respectful of foreign cultures is then impossible to uphold.

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Cultural relativism implies the idea that we should try to understand others’ culture instead of judging and interposing it by our own culture. However, the different cultures are the result of communication between people. She states that cultural relativism is dangerous because it advocates “cultural others” and aggravates ethnocentrism and racism (Abu-Lughod 2002, 786), and it is different from respecting difference. “The reason respect for difference should not be confused with cultural relativism is that it does not preclude asking how we, living in this privileged and powerful part of the world, might examine our own responsibilities for the situations in which others in distant places have found themselves. ”(Abu-Lughod 2002, 789)

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Developing from the reasoning of (Russ Shafer-Landau, p.p 13), it is clear that there is a difference between normative ethics and metaethics. Normative ethics are those values that develop from within a personality and are always employed whenever ethics are breached. On the other hand the metaethics is basically the diverse elements that are considered crucial for building positive ethical believes. (Shafer-Landau, p.p 29), also brings forward other moral ethical elements such as the moral error theory, the desire-satisfaction theory, ethical particularism and the doctrine of double effects. All the above elements are crucial for shaping ones ethical perspectives and inclinations leave alone resolving ethical issues within a society.

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Moral Relativism, should it be abandoned or not? This was the original question that came to my mind when starting off reading this excerpt. Mary Midgley, the author of this story, mentioned that now days we as people deny that we will ever be able to understand a culture that is not our own. That got me thinking and as I was thinking I found what she said to be relatively true. I feel as if society has shaped us as young adults to judge our culture as being the best and all other cultures as coming up second best.

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

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Aristotle’s virtue ethics differs from other moral theories. Unlike deontology and consequentialism, virtue ethics emphasizes and describes moral characters (virtues). In my paper, I am going to explore the objection to virtue ethics from a relativist point of view and the responses to this objection that were presented in Nussbaum’s paper “A non-relative approach to virtue ethics.” Furthermore, I am going to present two out of three relativist objections to her responses that she anticipated, and her responses to them.

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In today’s world, many people tend to have a set of ethical principles which is one of the guidelines for them to follow on. The question is how he or she defines ethics? To answer, Ethics is best defined as knowing what is right or wrong in the action based on the moral principles. Moreover, it is also known as the branch of knowledge that deals with ethical issues. In relation, there are some ethical theories which deal with the ethical issues.

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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.

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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 relativism, in its most absolute form, is defined as culture being the “sole source of validity of a moral right or rule” (Donnelly, 1984). Such an extreme notion of cultural relativity may sometimes result in the infringement of individual human rights and fundamental freedoms. On the other hand, absolute universalism holds that culture is irrelevant to the validity of moral rights and rules. According to Article 4 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, cultural diversity presupposes the respect for human rights.

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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.

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827 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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2607 Words | 11 Pages

(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

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As human beings, we generally follow a thinking pattern that first involves developing our own opinions, then relating those opinions to the opinions of others. We often do this subconsciously; conscientious of what others believe, how they define certain actions, traits, and morals, and how their view towards what is just and unjust relates to our own. This fundamental thought process is the foundation of the philosophy of relativism. To the common person, the term relativism encompasses a philosophy that states that what is right and what is wrong is defined based on context, and situation.

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