The Ethics Of Cultural Relativism

Each culture has their own unique set of beliefs and morals. What I believe to be ethical might be totally unethical or nonsense to you or even many others. For example, ISIS might believe that it is acceptable for them to behead others and perform terrorist acts in other countries. On the other hand, this would be completely unacceptable and unethical to many others because their cultures are completely different and these activities are not part of their culture. What is morally sound to an individual might not be to another individual. This then ties into cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is basically the idea that there are no universal morals that cultures share since each culture has a different view on what is right and wrong.

Many arguments have been made for cultural relativism such as arguments in cultural differences, tolerance, and lack of objective proof. With the vast variety of cultures in the world, it is obvious that there are numerous differences in beliefs and morals between these cultures. The cultural differences argument acknowledges this and concludes that morality has no objective truth. According to The Elements of Moral Philosophy, Rachels states that cultural relativists often employ this argument by beginning “with facts about culture and end up drawing a conclusion about morality” (17). Basically, cultural relativists would make a statement that compares a belief of one culture to another. They then use the idea that different cultures have different moral codes to conclude that that belief is not right or wrong. An example of this is that Americans use the thumbs-up gesture as a sign of approval, whereas Iranians use the thumbs-up as an insult in which it is equivalent to the middle finger in America. Therefore, the thumbs-up is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong. It is merely a matter of opinion, which varies from culture to culture. Another example is that

The idea of this argument is that the tolerance of someone else’s cultural morals is a good thing to do and ought to be done. Basically, people from different cultures should be tolerant to each other’s culture whenever possible. An example of this can also be seen with the case of Muslims believing that it is wrong to eat with the left hand. Although people from other cultures believe that there is nothing wrong with eating with the left hand, they should still be tolerant to Muslims and likewise, the Muslims should also be tolerant to the others that eat with their left hand. A rebuttal to this is that we cannot always be tolerant to another culture. Sometimes, the things that people within a certain culture do are extreme and should not be tolerated. This can be seen with the activities of ISIS. For a long while, ISIS has been beheading people and posting it on the internet, and performing terrorist acts around the world. Just a few months ago, ISIS carried out a series of terrorist attacks that involved suicide bombing in Paris, which resulted in the death 130 people. With the argument from tolerance, we are supposed to be tolerant of these acts. However, should we really be tolerant and is it good to be tolerant of these acts? The U.S., France, and many other countries do not seem to think so. What would be tolerable to ISIS is completely intolerable to many others because most of us believe that killing is wrong and