Cultural Relativism

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There are no doubts that different cultures have exhibited differences, often radical differences in their ethical and moral standards on marrying, sex, punishments, rights, and life and death matters. This existence of different cultural norms with different ideologies about certain aspects of life makes cultural relativism relatively flawed and weak. As concluded by Rachels, there is no objective truth in morality in accordance to Cultural Relativism as right and wrong are only matters of opinions which vary from culture to culture. All the examples with different actions and traditions stated above are acceptable in their respective cultures, thus certain practices in one culture could be objectively right and that the one against it was simply mistaken. This is where Cultural Relativism is unsound and weak. It is not a good argument as the conclusion does not follow the premise. The premise is what people believe in some cultures, people believe one thing in one culture and might believe something totally different in the other culture. The conclusion here doesn’t follow as it merely states that both groups disagreed with one another. Can we state a conclusion about infanticide being acceptable in culture and being punishable in the other by merely stating that there is no objective truth to human life? Of course, not, we can never draw a conclusion as members of that particular society were simply wrong.

Consider this matter, some societies believe that the earth is flat and you would fall off if you reached the tip, while in some other societies it is believed that the earth is spherical and you would reach the starting place once you complete a journey in a straight line. Now, does it really follow from the fact that people were merely disagreeing on a certain matter and there is no objective truth to the earth being flat or spherical? Absolutely not, we can simply state that some societies were, in fact, mistaken and wrong as it has scientifically and geographically proven that the earth is spherical and not flat. Cultural Relativism tries to drive a conclusion about a matter from a minuscule fact that people disagree, which is technically impossible and bizarre.

In conclusion, I am in total agreement with Rachels on the absurdity of Cultural Relativism as it tries to defend every cruel and foolish cultural practice, belief, and tradition by denying any objectivity of truth. It tries to make harmony by blinding its followers of the real and moral truth when in fact real explanations and logics are available in favor, and in against of certain cultural ideologies.