In “Ethical Life”, Harry Gensler argues that cultural relativism is a deep problem. Cultural relativism is something that is good or bad determined by a culture or group. What is moral in some cultures may be deviant in others. Therefore, an opinion about morality is based on the society and what they think. One of the strongest arguments that Gensler cite for cultural relativism being a problem is that basically a culture cannot disagree within its’ own culture and that there are many disagreements. He also cites that cultural relativism does not defend tolerance, is a counsel of conformity, and offers no advice if the norms of the two groups you’re involved in conflict. In my paper, I am going to argue that Gensler is right claiming that …show more content…
cultural relativism is a problem with correctly viewing morality. Gensler says that as long as a society makes moral mistakes, then the approval is less of something that is morally good (Ethical Life).
If someone in a society does something wrong in their culture that their culture disagree with, then it’s wrong just like if they do something right and vice versa. Their culture defines what is right and what is wrong. Other societies have no say so in examples such as Hitler and Nazism or females being circumcised in Africa. Even if someone in that culture disagrees with it, it would not matter because these things are justified within their culture. This is definitely where I agree it is a problem. There is no written rule that cultures have to obey their moral code and if they don’t they are not moral. In cultural relativism it is okay to disagree with your culture. That is a reason why I don’t believe that cultural relativism is relevant. There are a lot of disagreements within a culture which makes cultural relativism non-existent. An objection that can be raised against this though is that cultures have no choice but to obey their moral codes in order to survive. Morality is different in every society and that this behavior is just “socially approved habits.” Its premises will be something like this: (1) Different cultures have different moral beliefs and (2) these differences show that there are no universally correct moral standards therefore, (3) there are no universally correct moral standards but only culturally relative ones ( …show more content…
Eggleston 2002). Hensler argues that cultural relativism gives us no advice at all or conflicting advice when it comes to people who are apart of subcultures in larger social groups (Ethical Life).
I agree here also. Cultural relativism can be really hard to maintain when people’s practices in other cultures becomes a problem within their own. For instance, In France, Islamic women cannot wear head scarfs. To them, not allowing this helps their society preserve equality of the genders and a non- religious society. What does cultural relativism say about that? What does it say they can do resolve the issue if they are in this situation? Nothing at all. It basically ignores this subgroup thing. Cultural relativism has nothing to say about norms between cultures. An objection to this would be that we could consider understanding other cultures from their perspective. If a culture can be wrong then we can learn from their mistakes and correct our own culture’s
norms. Hensler claims that cultural relativism is a poor basis for defending tolerance. As he says, “ If a society favors intolerance, as many societies do, then relativism tells us that intolerance within those societies is a good thing”( qtd in Ethical Life). Cultural relativism definitely excuses cultural practices that we do not agree with and that also violates human rights such as cannibalism or violence. Tolerance will not excuse bad treatment of someone else, but in life, relativism could. All that matters is what’s morally right or wrong in their culture. As cultural relativism goes, if someone in a culture is being intolerant of another, then if they are tolerant to the other then that’s showing immoral behavior. Intolerance being vindicated can be just as easy as tolerance can. If someone rejects cultural relativism and adopt another view such as moral objectivism then that does not involve intolerance. It tells us that we should embrace the standpoint of other cultures’ practices. It also tells us we should not intervene within cultures or get involved with their practices because we might force one’s own ethical standards on them. A question now that appears is should we be tolerant of others’ cultures assuming it should be an objective moral truth or is it just a bit of our cultures own moral code? (Rachel) There is something that I do disagree with here. If the word tolerance is presumed as an objective moral truth, then it is not connected with cultural relativism because cultural relativism says that there is no such thing as objective moral truths. Tolerance cannot be a part of a moral code, and if it was, then the standards of cultural relativism says we don’t have to follow them. It also is confirming that we are stopping ourselves from judging other cultures that are intolerant (Rachel). Overall, if those cultures are abiding by their own moral codes, then the key part of tolerance says to us that we have to tolerate them even if it is a bad act. In conclusion, cultural relativism tends to be very problematic as Gensler argues in his claims and in which I also agree with. This should not be the correct view of seeing morality. If moral standards in people differ from culture to culture, then that itself does not prove that morality is relative to culture.
Throughout his essay, Professor Beckwith critiques the arguments primarily used to support moral relativism from cultural and individual differences. Beckwith states that there are four main problems with moral relativism: relativism does not follow from disagreement, disagreement counts against moral relativism, disagreement is overrated, and absurd consequences follow from moral relativism.
Cultural relativism is defined as the belief that no one culture is superior to another morally, politically, etc., and that all “normal” human behavior is entirely relative, depending on the cultural
In its entirety, moral relativism is comprised of the belief that, as members of various and countless cultures, we cannot judge each other’s morality. If this theory stands true, then “we have no basis for judging other cultures or values,” according to Professor McCombs’ Ethics 2. Our moral theories cannot extend throughout cultures, as we do not all share similar values. For instance, the Catholic tradition believes in the sacrament of Reconciliation. This sacrament holds that confessing one’s sins to a priest and
After analyzing cultural relativism over the semester, I have come to the conclusion that cultural relativism under anthropological analysis defines every single culture with some aspect of worth as viewed by an individual within that society. Franz Boas, termed the “Father of American Anthropology”, first introduced the concept of cultural relativism. He wanted people to understand the way certain cultures conditioned people to interact with the world around them, which created a necessity to understand the culture being studied. In my words, cultural relativism is the concept that cultures should be viewed from the people among that culture. When studied by anthropologists, cultural relativism is employed to give all cultures an equal
Cultural relativism theorizes that the best way for different societies to function together at peace is for them to recognize that each culture must be allowed its own system of beliefs. One individual may believe that his or her culture’s belief system is the one true way. Is there any way to absolutely prove that that person’s morals are not correct? Not in the cultural relativist view. Cultural relativism states that no man from a different background can justifiably say that another society’s beliefs are wrong; that other society may believe that his ideas are wrong. The only way to resolve the matter peaceably, as cultural relativism acknowledges, is for societies to recognize their differences without attempting to force their beliefs upon one another; neither will they try to prove each other wrong. They must simply peacefully coexist without interference generated by belief systems.
Rachels states that, “cultural relativism would not only forbid us from criticizing the codes of other societies; it would stop us from criticizing our own” (Rachels 700). However, there are some reasons one may accept relativism and it is because it is a comforting position. It relieves individuals of the burden of serious critical reasoning about morality, and it
Viewed from this perspective, the argument for cultural relativism is not valid. For example, the premise could be female circumcision is allowed and moral in Nigeria. Female circumcision is prohibited and immoral in the U.S. Therefore, the conclusion, would be that female circumcision is neither moral nor immoral, objectively. Simply stating, there are some beliefs that are viewed as moral by one culture and immoral by another culture does not prove whether it is objectively right or wrong.
Rachels, J. (1986). The Challenge of Cultural Relativism. The elements of moral philosophy (pp. 20-36). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
The takeaway is that both theories share the guiding principle that morality is based on culture or society. Implicit in the basic formulations of both theories, the moral code of a culture is neither superior nor inferior to any other. The codes of individual cultures are just different and there is no standard or basis upon which to perform any type of comparison. Therefore, under both theories, the lack of standards across cultures implies that attempts to judge relative correctness or incorrectness between them cannot be justified. For Cultural Relativism, it is perfectly normal that something one culture sees as moral, another may see as immoral.
Culture Relativism; what is it? Culture Relativism states that we cannot absolute say what is right and what is wrong because it all depends in the society we live in. James Rachels however, does not believe that we cannot absolute know that there is no right and wrong for the mere reason that cultures are different. Rachels as well believes that “certain basic values are common to all cultures.” I agree with Rachels in that culture relativism cannot assure us that there is no knowledge of what is right or wrong. I believe that different cultures must know what is right and what is wrong to do. Cultures are said to be different but if we look at them closely we can actually find that they are not so much different from one’s own culture. Religion for example is a right given to us and that many cultures around the world practices. Of course there are different types of religion but they all are worshipped and practice among the different culture.
I can’t fathom how cultural relativism is able to bypass logic and remain popular today. We know that some things are wrong. For example, murdering innocent people. Nonetheless, cultural relativists still state that some things are “mostly” wrong or “mostly” right because they believe that a societies beliefs on what is morally right or wrong are neither incorrect or correct. How does that even make sense? How would we know today what is right and wrong if we didn’t criticize not only our own but other societies? For example, Nazis
There are different countries and cultures in the world, and as being claimed by cultural relativists, there is no such thing as “objective truth in morality” (Rachels, 2012). Cultural relativists are the people who believe in the Cultural Ethical Relativism, which declares that different cultures value different thing so common ethical truth does not exist. However, philosopher James Rachels argues against this theory due to its lack of invalidity and soundness. He introduced his Geographical Differences Argument to point out several mistakes in the CER theory. Cultural Ethical Relativism is not totally wrong because it guarantees people not to judge others’ cultures; but, Rachels’ viewpoints make a stronger argument that this theory should not be taken so far even though he does not reject it eventually.
It is flawed in the sense that it underestimates similarities and overestimates differences between cultures that prove that there is a universal standard for ethics among all human beings when we understand context and rules of morality that are consistent through all cultures. We are all able to judge each other’s cultures and our own cultures because that is how moral progress is accomplished. If there is moral progress and a universal standard of ethics than cultural relativism cannot
With cultural relativism, events in our lifetime would be stable and consistent. There would be no room for things to improve due to the fact we may think everything is as it should be. Just as Rachel's had mentioned previously, we can take into account slavery. (Sher, 155) There would be no progression in regards to the abolishment of slavery if we adhered to Cultural Relativism as a set standard. We would accept slavery as the way things are, we would hold this view that we could not voice our own opinion as we should “respect,” other cultures. Rachel’s also makes an important point stating there is actually less disagreement than it seems when it comes to Cultural Relativism. (Sher, 174) In summary, he explains that our disagreement between other cultures needs to be looked more into. The actions of an individual from another culture needs to be looked in at a different perspective. He uses people who refuse to eat cows as an example. Are we judging them because they don’t want to eat an animal? Or do they not want to eat an animal because they believe there is a form of reincarnation involved? Rachels says this is not too far from our beliefs in where for example, some believe in going to heaven. When comparing ourselves to them, we are valuing the same things but show it in different
Many theories attempt to explain ethical standards and how certain cultures perceive these standards or practices. When explaining certain ethical standards Cultural Relativism is an failed illogical theory for many reasons. Cultural Relativism is a theory that attempts to explain an idea that no culture is superior to any other culture and that all people’s perspectives are biased by their own cultural background. Generally, it is the opinion that all cultures are of equal value and equality to each other, therefore, there is no one culture is inferior to any other.