The Challenge of Cultural Relativism

The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
- Morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits.
● Different Cultures have Different Moral Codes
- Darius, a king of ancient Persia, was intrigued bt tge varietyof cultures hr met in his
travels.
Ex. In India (Callatians cook and eat the bodies of their dead father) but, for Greeks (they
practice cremation and regarded the funeral pyre as the
proper way to dispose the dead.
- Herodotus illustrates a recurring theme in the literature of social science: Different
cultures have different moral codes.
- What is thought to be right within one group may horify another group and vice versa.
- There are many examples of this. Consider the "Eskimos". Eskimos are the native
people of Alaska, Northern Canada, Greenland and North Eastern Siberia in Asiatic
Russia, but today none of this groups call themselves "eskimos".
- The Eskimos custom of marriage was volatile practice, very unlike our own custom. ( the
men often had more than one wife, and they would share their wives with guests as a
sign of hospitality)
- The Eskimos also seemed to care less about human life. "Infanticide is allowed with no
social stigma attached". ( Infants are left out in the snow to die)
- Herodotus, enlightened observers have known that conceptions of right and wrong differ
from culture to culture.
● Cultural Relativism
- "Different cultures have different moral codes"

- To call a custom "correct" or "incorrect" would imply that we judge it by some
independent or objective standard of right and wrong.
- No "independent" standard exists; every standard is culture-bound.
- "The 'right' way is the way which the ancestors used" William Graham Sumner
(1840-1910)
- Cultural Relativism says, in effect, that there is no such thing as universal truth in
ethics;thre are only the various cultural codes.
- The following claims have all been emphasize by cultural relativists:
1. Different societies have different moral codes.
2. The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society ; so, if a
society says that a certain action is right, tgen that action is right, at least in that
society.
3. There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one society's code as
better than another's. There are no moral truths that hold for all peopleat all
times.
4. The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is but one among
many.
5. It is arrogant for us to judgeother cultures. Weshould always be tolerant of them.
- Cultural Relativism holds that the norms of a culture reign supreme within the bounds of
the culture itself.
● The Cultural Difference Argument
- Cultural Relativism often make a certain type of argument. They begin woth facts about
cultures and wind up drawing a conclusion about morality.
- Some custom of the other culture may be objectively right to them but, it is objectively
wrong to the other. It is merely a matter of opiniom, which varies from culture to culture.
- Therr is no objective truth in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and
opinions vary from culture to culture.
- The sort of conclusion that doesn't follow logically from that sort of premise are means
that the argument is "invalid" in philosophical term.
- Cultural Differences Argument does not prove that a claim is true. Rather, the argument
fails.
● What Follows from Cultural Relativism
- The only measure of right and wrong is tge standards of one's society: "The notion of
right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to
test then. In the folkways, whatever it is, is right" - Willian Graham Sumner
- Three consequences of Cultural Relativism
1. We could no longersay that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to
our own.
2. We could no longer criticize the code of ourown society.
3. The idea of moral progress is called into doubt.
● Why There is Less Disagreement than there seems to be
- Cultural Relativism starts by observing that cultures differ dramatically in their view of
right and wrong.
- We cannot conclude that two societies differ in values just because they differ in
customs.
- Customs may differ for a number of reasons. Thus, there may be less moral
disagreement across cultures that there appears to be.
● Some Values are Shared by All Cultures
- Communication would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, in such a society. And

because societies cannot exist without communication among their members, society
would be impossible. It follows that every society must value truthfulness.
- There are some moral rules that all societies must embrace, because those rules are
necessary for society to exist.
- Cultures may differ in what they regard as legitimate exceptions to the rules, but the
rules themselves are the same.
- Societies will often have the same valuesdue to their shared human nature. There are
some things that in every society, most people want.
● Judging a Cultural Practice to be Undesirable
- There is a big difference between (a) Judging a cultural practice to be deficient and (b)
thinking that our leaders should announce that fact, apply diplomatic pressure, and send
in troops. The first is just a matter of trying to see the world clearly, from a moral point of
view. The second is something else entirely. Sometime it may be right to "do something
avout it" but often it will not be.
- People may be reluctant to judge because they do not want to express contempt for tge
society being criticized. But this is misguided: to condemn a particular custom is not to
condemn an entire culture.
- We should expect this to be true of all human societies all human societies are mixture
of good and bad practice. Excision happens to be one of the bad ones.
● Back to the Five Claims
1. Different societies have different moral codes.

- When customs differ, the underlying reason will often have more to do with the
factual beliefs of the cultures than with their values.
2. The moral code of society determines what is right within that society; so, if a society
says that a certain action is right, then that actiom is right, at least in that society.
- The difference between what society believes about morals and what is really
true. The moral code of a society is closely tied to what people in that society
believe about morals.
3. There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one society's code as better
than another's. There are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times.
- It always matters whether a practice helps or hurts the people who are affected
by it.
4. The moral code of our own society has no special status; it is but one among many.
5. It is arrogant for us to judge other cultures. We should always be tolerant of them.
- We are often arrogant when we criticize the culture s, and tolerance is generally
a good thing.
● What we can Learn from Cultural Relativism
- First, Cultural Relativism warns us, quite rightly, about the danger of assuming that all of
our practices are based on some absolute Rational Standard.
Cultural Relativism begins with the insight that many of our practices are like this- they
are only cultural products.
- Second lesson has to do with keeping an open mind. As we grow up, we develop strong
feelings about things: We learn to see some types of behaviour as acceptable and other
types as outrageous.
Our feelings are not necessarily perceptions of the truth; they may be due to cultural
conditioning and nothing more.

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The Challenge of Cultural Relativism

● Different Cultures have Different Moral Codes

- "Different cultures have different moral codes"

● The Cultural Difference Argument

● What Follows from Cultural Relativism

● Why There is Less Disagreement than there seems to be

● Some Values are Shared by All Cultures

- Communication would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, in such a society. And

● Judging a Cultural Practice to be Undesirable

● Back to the Five Claims

1. Different societies have different moral codes.

● What we can Learn from Cultural Relativism

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