What is culture?

Culture is a complex phenomenon. It contains nearly all aspects of

shared human experiences.
How does culture affect human behavior? Since human beings are
naturally social creatures, we as people, are also naturally drawn
to participate in culture.
Being part of a social group not only feeds our need to be
accepted, it also increases the human being’s chances to survive.
Thus, because of the safety in numbers that being pat of a group
provides, human beings learned to modify behaviors to match
that which their cultural group deem acceptable.
 Elements of Culture
1. Symbols
2. Language
3. Beliefs
4. Values
5. Norms
Advantages of Cultural relativism
1. It warns us from assuming that our
preferences are absolute rational
standard
2. It teaches us to keep an open mind
and to be more amenable in discovering
the truth.
 Dangers of Cultural relativism
1. We cannot call out societal practices
that promote harm.
2. We cannot justifiably criticize our own
culture’s harmful practices.
3. The idea of social progress becomes
doubtful.
But should there be Universal Values?
There are some moral rules that all
societies will have in common, because
these rules are necessary for society to
survive (Rachels, 2004)
1. Caring for the young
2. Murder is wrong
3. Tell the Truth
How about the Filipino
Culture?