ABID, BAI ZAIDA L.

ETHICS 1:00-2:00
Prof. Wrendolf C. Juntilla September 4, 2020

Reaction Paper
Cultural Relativism
Part II

Nowadays, in certain cultures, people think that the earth is flat while in other people,
such as our own, people supposed that the Earth is roughly spherical. Several cultures might only
be erroneous in their views. There is no basis to consider that if the world is round then everyone
should perceive it. Correspondingly, there is no point to believe that if there is moral truth then
everyone must know it since one of the major error in the Cultural Differences Argument is that
it tries to develop a basic assumption about a subject from the simple statement that persons
contradict about it.
One of the consequences of taking cultural relativism seriously is that we could no longer
say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own. The cultural relativism
would prohibit us from attacking others. Assuming a culture paid war on its neighbours for such
intention of taking slaves. Plus presume a culture was brutally anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim and
the person who leads them set forth to put an end to the Jews or the Muslims. Cultural
Relativism might stop us from saying that any of these beliefs was wrong. If we took Cultural
Relativism seriously, we would have to regard slavery, and anti-Semitism or anti-Muslim, and
the like as immune from criticism.
Secondly, we could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by consulting the
standards of our society. Cultural Relativism recommends an unsophisticated investigation for
defining what is right and what is wrong and one just necessarily have to ask just in case the
process is in accordance with the code of his society. The third one is the idea of moral progress
is called into doubt. If Cultural Relativism is accurate, we cannot reasonably consider of this as
improvement. Improvement means changing an approach of doing things with an improved way.
Cultural Relativism’s “magic” as an idea mainly arises from the thought that cultures
vary radically in their visions of right and wrong. If we observe what appears to be a radical
difference, we find that the cultures do not vary closely as much as it seems. Related reasoning
about some values common in every culture, is that it exhibits that these other values must be
more or less general, that is, commonly shared by various cultures. For instance, it is extremely
hard to imagine of a society which places no value at all on truth telling. When one person spoke
to another, there would be no presumption at all that he was telling the truth for he could just as
easily be speaking falsely. Within that society, there would be no reason to pay attention to what
anyone says.
Cultural Relativism signifies treasuring or valuing life which requires the ban of killing.
In such a culture where people were permitted to kill other people at will, and no one believed
there was nothing wrong with it, no one could feel safe and every person would have to be
always worried. Staying away from people as much as possible would become a tool for survival
and this would unavoidably consequence in persons trying to become secluded. The prohibition
on murder, then, is a necessary feature of all societies. The main point is cultures may contrast in
what they view as appropriate exceptions to the rules. For that reason, it is wrong to miscalculate
the extent of variance between cultures because it is not all moral rule can differ from culture to
another culture.