Cultural Relativism: A Critical Examination

Seungbae’s essay on cultural relativism argues that every moral decision one makes is only relevant within the sense of right and wrong depending on their cultural standards. He makes comparisons with cultural ethics as with the laws of motion but does not seem to necessarily relate today’s use of cultural relativism, and it also becomes a sort of backwards continuum in which the relativism that he argues for turns into an absolutist point of view, therefore turning his philosophy into what he is arguing against. He also states that there is a correspondence between Einstein’s laws of relativity with that of an ethical standpoint of relativity. His ideas on what is morally equivalent to right and wrong gives us a standpoint for a relativist view on the nature of reality and the placement of ethics within it. He argues that the ideas of Hitler’s Nazi regime was just as ethical as Mother Teresa’s sermons on peace. This is where his argument begins to fall apart. He argues that Hitler 's Nazi regime was morally correct for his time, but only regards importance of moralistic qualities to the people in

This displaces what it means to have culture directly influence your ideals of right and wrong. In his essay, he uses Einstein’s theory of relativity to discuss this point. He argues “ In response, a cultural relativist would again ask us to imagine that a car is travelling at 50km/h with respect to the ground but it is at rest with respect to the passenger. Of the ground and the passenger, which object do we choose as a frame of reference? The answer is obvious. We can choose whatever object we like as long as it suits our need.” This thought that the world and moral reflections of relevance to our lives may as well just be idealism in the sense off our moral obligations of right and