Cultural Relativism And Cultural Imperialism

It holds that, as a matter of fact, moral beliefs and practices vary between cultures (and sometimes between groups within a single society). For instance, some societies condemn homosexuality; others accept it; in some cultures a student who corrects a teacher would be thought to be disrespectful; elsewhere such behavior might be encouraged. The rules, principles and standards that constitute a morality differ in different religions, and cultures, just as they differ historically. The morality of ancient Greece was not the morality of feudal Europe or contemporary American; the morality of the Trobriand Islanders is not the same as the morality of the Kwakiutl Indians (Barnet, 2008). In this paper I intend to argue that moral reasoning

Putnam states that, “reason always results from a balance between immanence to culture and traditions and transcendence to them (Bruce, 2011).”This means that the power of reasoning is the relationship between being a member of a culture and exceeding the culture. Two terms to be aware of for this paper are cultural relativism and cultural imperialism. Cultural relativism is variously represented as the view that "no point of view is more justified or right than any other;" the belief that “reason is whatever the norms of the local culture determine it to be;" and the doctrine that truth should be defined "in terms of the agreement of one 's 'cultural peers.’(Walsh 2010)” It explains the reasons why those from different cultures have a vastly different way of life. On the opposite spectrum is culture imperialism which says ‘there is our way, and the wrong way’. Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting and imposing a culture, usually of politically powerful nations over less potent societies. This can take various forms, such as an attitude, a formal policy, military action, so long as it reinforces hegemony (Mosteller,