Cultural Relativism

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The Challenge of Cultural Relativism Argument 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. This idea talks about the different cultures three in particular; Greeks, Callatians, and the Eskimos. These three cultures are completely different from each other, the Greeks are very family oriented and believe that loved ones after …show more content…

The greatest thing about living in America is that we are free to have our own ideas so Cultural Relativism would never exist in America. Rachels says “1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own” (699) The Hitler regime would be a perfect example of how Cultural Relativism is not one hundred percent great. If we decided Cultural Relativism was the proper theory of ethical behavior then we could not have an opinion on Hitler’s diabolical plan to torcher the Jews and minorities. That in a society that the United States built will never happen, because we do not like sending our troops to war but we also do not like bullies. Vladimir Putin being a bully to its surrounding nations is not acceptable to the United States population, but under the idea of Cultural Relativism we could not have an opinion on whether that is right or wrong we should just accept …show more content…

This idea is so far-fetched that it is unbelievable that they would even think this would be possible. Christians believe in One God which is to come back someday to take his people with him. Muslims Believe there is one God as well who sent prophets to tell his people how to act. Some extreme radical Islamic groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda believe that they are to die for the idea of Islamic beliefs to be shown throughout the world. These two groups are Muslim groups, extreme Muslim groups, meaning not normal everyday Muslims are intended on killing others for their religion. Both of these groups have killed many people around the world, if the Theory of Cultural Relativism was followed then every Nation that has a problem with them killing their people, every other religion that has a problem with ISIS, and the group call “Anonymous” would not be able to react the way that they are towards ISIS, they would all need to accept what they are doing because that is their Cultural

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