The article “The Cultural Defense” is a prime example of how cultural rights and cultural relativity interplay with one another. Cultural relativism is the position that the values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect (page 30). In the article, the author explains how a man burned himself alive to bring attention to the oppression of Buddhism in Vietnam. His friends recorded it and they were charged with second-degree manslaughter. The author uses an unbiased tone to explain why they did what they did. The author tried to understand the social norm of the other culture without using his or her morals or social norms of their culture. It was clear, the men didn 't think they did anything wrong. It is a common practice from where
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one 's own culture as the best and judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one’s standards (page 30). “Virginity Testing in Turkey” illustrates ethnocentrism. In Turkey, they have a tradition where, on the day after the wedding night, the bloody sheet hangs out the window to show the purity of the new wife. Some believe it 's barbaric and degrading to women. Western advocates also protest the forced virginity testing on hospital patients, students, and applicants for government jobs. Are these really human rights violations? Or is this Americans comparing other cultures to their norms. Anthropologist Carol Delaney uses cultural relativism when searching for the answers. The Turkish people believe that the seed of a man, seamen, can grow at any time in a woman. For example, if a woman has sex two years prior to marriage, the seed from that man can grow at any point in time there forth. Because status, land, and riches pass father to child, it must be in absolute certainty that the child is his. The bloody sheet helps prove that the husband can only be the father of the child. In the context of Turkish beliefs about procreation, virginity testing may make
It 's a realm of justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions (page 31).The article “a rite of torture for girls”, illustrates the push of human rights on different cultures. In Africa and East Asia, several societies practice female genital mutilation (FGM). The text states the girls, sometimes as young as ten years old, genitals are carved out including the clitoris and labia, and then everything is sown up with only a little hole for urine and menstrual blood. Often, this procedure is done with no anesthetic. Human rights advocates rally that it 's against the basic rights as a human being. For over forty years weathers have advocated against FGM with no success. Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism come into play when advocating against other cultures traditions and beliefs. Western societies compare their own culture to the groups in Africa and East Asia. In order to see why these people are cutting their girls, one must look from their point of view. Many participate in gentian cutting to ensure that the virtue of the girl is still intact. Like in Turkish society, possessions and power are handed down through the male lineage. Cutting girls ensured there is no question of who the father of the child is. Using these four concepts interplay when viewed in
Female genital mutilation is mostly practiced in Islamic and African cultures, claiming young girls as t...
Despite its popularity in Africa, FGM is under scrutiny by members of the international human rights community. In 1993, female circumcision was deemed harmful by the international Human Rights Conference in Vienna . The World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the UN Population Fund have planned programs designed to “completely eliminate [female genital mutilation] within three generations” , on the basis that FGM is a human rights violation. This gives rise to the obvious question as to whether human rights activists and organizations should be sensitive to the cultural practices of the people of Africa. Some human rights activists have even professed FGM as a “knock-down counterargument to cultural relativism”, and use the practice as an example of how hum...
Cultural relativism is a theory, which entails what a culture, believes is what is correct for that particular culture, each culture has different views on moral issues. For example, abortion is permissible by American culture and is tolerated by the majority of the culture. While, Catholic culture is against abortion, and is not tolerated by those who belong to the culture. Cultural relativism is a theory a lot of individuals obey when it comes to making moral decisions. What their culture believes is instilled over generations, and frequently has an enormous influence since their families with those cultural beliefs have raised them. With these beliefs, certain cultures have different answers for different moral dilemmas and at times, it is difficult to decide on a specific moral issue because the individual may belong to multiple
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
Female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, is a practice that involves the removal of part or all of the female external genitalia. It occurs throughout the world, but most commonly in Africa where they say that it is a tradition and social custom to keep a young girl pure and a married woman faithful. But to some Westerners, the practice is viewed as being primitive and barbaric. We react with disgust and find it nearly incomprehensible that female genital mutilation can occur in the world today
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.
For example: So euthanasia is right for person A if he approves of it, but wrong for person B if she disapproves of it, and the same would go for cultures with similarly diverging views on the subject (13). Cultural relativism seems to many to be a much more plausible doctrine. To many people this is true; supported as it is by a convincing argument and the common conviction that is admirably consistent with social tolerance and understanding in a pluralistic world (Vaughn 15). However, cultural relativism is not the most satisfactory moral theory. ‘“Cultural relativism implies that another common place of moral life illusion moral disagreement, and such inconsistencies hint that there may be something amiss with relativism. It seems it conflicts violently with common sense realities of the moral life. The doctrine implies that each person is morally infallible”’ (Vaughn 14). 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
Moral practices are different in many cultures. There are cultural practices that you would expect to be immoral all over the world, but it is not. For example, I do not understand how anyone would feel it is normal to eat love ones who have died. In some cultures, this is normal behavior. It is normal for others to burn the dead. In my culture, we bury the dead. Because I feel it is inhuman for someone to eat their loves after they have died does not give me the right to tell them they are wrong and I am right. This is the means behind ethical relativism. T...
In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is a weak argument. Cultural relativism is the theory that all ethical and moral claims are relative to culture and custom (Rachels, 56). Pertaining to that definition, I will present the idea that cultural relativism is flawed in the sense that it states that there is no universal standard of moral and ethical values. First, I will suggest that cultural relativism underestimates similarities between cultures. Second, I will use the overestimating differences perspective to explain the importance of understanding context, intention and purpose behind an act. Finally, referring to James Rachels’ “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” I will solidify my argument further using his theory that
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits. The takeaway is that both theories share the guiding principle that morality is bounded by culture or society.
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.
Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize
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.
Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.
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.