Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism

Introduction

Cultural Relativism holds the opinion that moral and ethical systems are different in cultures and there is no one system which could be considered better than any other. Thus, the decisions related with good or evil are judged from the society. The opinions of morality and ethics are according to the cultural perspectives of an individual, therefore, in a given system one thing can be considered best or worst and that cannot be termed as right or wrong. The notion of Cultural Relativism is a widely believed concept in the modern world and thus, it includes the ideas such as 'tolerance', 'acceptance' that justify almost anything on the grounds of relativism.

Discussion

The Relativism holds many ideas that include uncertainty and instability into those places which were previously considered as settled. It is important to understand these perspectives to understand history, psychology and politics of today. The understanding of certain actions that are considered right and wrong in a given culture gives an idea of a society and its norms. For instance, dyeing or tattooing in an ancient society might be a great offense which would be punished. Today, most of the modern societies will find this difficult to comprehend. We can further understand the cultural perspective of dyeing color which was related with prostitution and thus, we understand that it is not the hair color but association with prostitution that it was considered wrong. The issue that lies in moving from a cultural perspective to a cultural relativism is that it erases the reasons for its causes because it does not say that we need to understand the morals in a given culture but that we cannot judge the morals of other cultures. Therefore, it makes nothing right or wrong in a given culture. The arguments against cultural ...