The Challenge Of Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the idea that moral and ethical systems varying from culture to culture, are all equally credible and no one system is morally greater than any other. Cultural relativism is based on the concept that there is no “ultimate” standard of good and evil, so the judgement of what is seen as moral, or immoral, is simply a product of one’s society and/or culture. The general consensus of this view is that there is no ethical position that may be considered “right” or “wrong” in terms of society and culture (Cultural Relativism). In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is not an adequate view of morality by providing evidence of its most common logical problems and faulty reasoning. The first problem of cultural relativism

If under the system of cultural relativism, some of the greatest teachers and philosophers followed throughout history, would be considered wrong. This reason being that there would be no need to change minds because everyone would hold and be stuck in their own standards of what they believe to be “right” or “wrong." There is not a single society in the world we live in where “popular norms” cannot be improved in some sort of way, yet with cultural relativism, we cannot question, seek to improve the status quo, or look to other cultures to provide us with better alternatives, because no one cultural practice, or moral code, is better than another. It could even be said that the central assertion of cultural relativism, that universal morals do not exist, is not true (@Vision_Launch). There are many practices that can be found across the history of humans and in every society, but while these cultures may have slight variations to these, the same overall ideas tackle each custom. For example, the age in which a child is considered to be an adult. Because of these assertions, cultural relativists must concede to there being some sort of independent and objective standard after all