The United States is considered the melting pot of the western world. It boasts many different cultures. People from every part of the world have chosen to live amongst others. They can either assimilate within the cultures; Italian Americans, or maintain their own cultures; Greeks. With such diverse cultures being represented, it is hard to fathom individuals being denied basic human rights. In other areas of the world, humans are being tortured, raped, and killed. These human rights violations are being protected under the muse of tradition, or culture. Cultural rights are being elevated by the notion that only people within that particular society can moderate their own culture. This is called cultural relativism. Although, cultural relativism states cultures cannot be judged by outside societies, individual human rights should outweigh cultural ones.
Cultural relativists promote the rights of cultures to dictate what is morally accepted within one’s own society. Cultural relativism is defined as the view that an action is morally right if one’s culture approves of it (Vaughn). This ideology is formed to prevent ethnocentrism, or the belief that one’s culture is superior to another. Though in theory this sounds plausible, it does little to promote an understanding of different cultures. Since the society makes up the laws that dictates and protects its own people, universal laws of protection may not be applied. Cultural rights are important in that they protect individual cultures against the majority states and communities. (Donnelly 219). If it were not for cultural rights, the smaller cultures would cease existing along with their traditions and beliefs.
Tradition, therefore, may be a front for continued prejudices within...
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...ant, basic human rights are inalienable and universal. These rights cannot be disregarded for traditions or customs.
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Vaughn, Lewis. Doing Ethics. 2nd. Castle House: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 2008.
Since the Renaissance of the 15th century, societal views have evolved drastically. One of the largest changes has been the realization of individualism, along with the recognition of inalienable human rights.(UDHR, A.1) This means that all humans are equal, free, and capable of thought; as such, the rights of one individual cannot infringe on another’s at risk of de-humanizing the infringed upon. The fact that humans have a set of natural rights is not contested in society today; the idea of human rights is a societal construction based on normative ethical codes. Human rights are defined from the hegemonic standpoint, using normative ethical values and their application to the interactions of individuals with each other and state bodies. Human rights laws are legislature put in place by the governing body to regulate these interactions.
Condé, H. Victor. A Handbook on International Human Rights Terminology Human Rights in International Perspective; V. 8 Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Amnesty International USA - Protect Human Rights. 19 May 2009 .
Cultural Relativism is a moral theory which states that due to the vastly differing cultural norms held by people across the globe, morality cannot be judged objectively, and must instead be judged subjectively through the lense of an individuals own cultural norms. Because it is obvious that there are many different beliefs that are held by people around the world, cultural relativism can easily be seen as answer to the question of how to accurately and fairly judge the cultural morality of others, by not doing so at all. However Cultural Relativism is a lazy way to avoid the difficult task of evaluating one’s own values and weighing them against the values of other cultures. Many Cultural Relativist might abstain from making moral judgments about other cultures based on an assumed lack of understanding of other cultures, but I would argue that they do no favors to the cultures of others by assuming them to be so firmly ‘other’ that they would be unable to comprehend their moral decisions. Cultural Relativism as a moral theory fails to allow for critical thoughts on the nature of morality and encourages the stagnation
The Challenge of Culture Relativism written by James Rachels argues the downsides and upsides to the idea of Cultural Relativism. This is the idea of Cultural Relativism: the principle that an individual human 's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual 's own culture. It was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students.
There is such a thing as universality of human rights that is different from cultural relativism, humanity comes before culture and traditions. People are humans first and belong to cultures second (Collaway, Harrelson-Stephens, 2007 p.109), this universality needs to take priority over any cultural views, and any state sovereignty over its residing citizens.
48 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948 UNGA Res 217 A(III) (UDHR), Art 1
Indeed, human right is never just a legal matter as it also involves moral principles to justify its inalienable and non-transferable status. UDHR preamble states that human right is the “recognition of the inherent dignity”. That means we are entitled to human rights because we have inherent values to be pursued and realized. Human rights are originated in ourselves, but not conferred by law or others. If a society does not recognize those aforementioned justifications, human rights would be unsupported and a...
On December 10th in 1948, the general assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration, although not legally binding, created “a common standard of achievement of all people and all nations…to promote respect for those rights and freedoms” (Goodhart, 379). However, many cultures assert that the human rights policies outlined in the declaration undermine cultural beliefs and practices. This assertion makes the search for universal human rights very difficult to achieve. I would like to focus on articles 3, 14 and 25 to address how these articles could be modified to incorporate cultural differences, without completely undermining the search for human rights practices.
Rights have been and continue to be violated across the world on both massive and miniscule scales. With rights violations being a constant issue, it is necessary, although it may be difficult, to determine which violations are human rights violations. Two aspects are crucial in this process: universality and paramountcy. Although practicability is also set forth as a criterion by Maurice Cranston, it is not as crucial when determining which acts violate human rights, or when they came into existence. This is due to the fact that when trying to distinguish between rights and human rights, almost all rights, not just specifically human rights, can, in some way, be practicable. For this reason, practicability, for the purpose of this essay, is
The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background information while supporting my hypothesis that human rights should be based on particular cultural values and finally drawing a conclusion.
While on one hand there is a growing consensus that human rights are universal on the other exist critics who fiercely oppose the idea. Of the many questions posed by critics revolve around the world’s pluri-cultural and multipolarity nature and whether anything in such a situation can be really universal.
Cultural relativism is the term given to the idea that there are no universal moral values that apply to all mankind and that every culture has its own set of moral principles. This set of principles varies from culture to culture, and it is extremely rare, if not totally impossible, to find a moral principle that is followed by all cultures. For example, the idea of arranged marriages, which is the concept of two families marrying their son and daughter even though they don’t particularly know each other, is fairly common in Indian culture but non-existent in American culture. Cultural relativism is the opposite of moral objectivism, which states that there is a set of universal moral values that should be followed by all people of all cultures
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.
…rights which are inherent to the human being ... human rights acknowledges that every single human being is entitled to enjoy his or her human rights without distinction as to race, [color], sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. [To add on, human] rights are legally guaranteed by human rights law, protecting individuals and groups against actions that interfere with fundamental freedoms and human dignity (Human rights for