Chapter 1

Cultural Relativism

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:
1. Relate with the issue of ethnocentrism and cultural assimilation;
2. Comprehend the distinction between universal standards and
culturally-relative standards of morality;
3. Discuss the basic idea of cultural relativism and the defenses made
in its favor;
4. Comment on the problem of the negative practices of one’s own
culture;
5. Formulate reasoned judgments about the weaknesses of cultural
relativism; and
6. Theorize about how moral progress in one’s society may be
achieved.

The Mangyan Resettlement Case

The Spanish government during its colonization of the Philippines had
implemented a policy of transforming the “indios” (natives) into the
“poblaciones” (communities). It took place primarily by compelling the native
communities to live together in designated places called “reducciones”
organized around the twin institutions of church and state. The purpose of
this policy was in order that the “indios may be instructed in the Sacred
Catholic Faith and the evangelical law, and in order that they may forget “the
blunders of their ancient rites and ceremonies to the end that they may live
in harmony and in a civilized manner” (Rubi v. Provincial Board of Mindoro,
1919).
Upon the succession of the Americans in the occupation of the
Philippines, the policy of creating these communities for purposes of

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transforming the natives into civilized subjects had not ceased but was in fact
adopted by the American colonial government.
Thus, in 1917, under the authority of the Philippine Bill of 1902 which
provided the organic law of the American government in the Philippines and
later of the Jones Law of 1916 which created the Philippine Legislature, the
provincial board of Mindoro adopted a resolution for the resettlement of the
members of the Mangyan tribe into a reservation located in Tigbao, Mindoro.
Under this resolution, the Mangyans who were scattered in the
different forest and agricultural areas in Mindoro were all mandated to live in
a reservation area in Tigbao in order to make a permanent settlement there.
The purpose of creating this reservation is to pursue efforts at educating the
Mangyans who were considered as “uncivilized” and “lacking intelligence” –
characteristics which prevented them from becoming productive citizens of
the country.
The American government described their level of civilization in this
way:
The Manguianes are very low in culture. They have considerable
Negrito blood and have not advanced beyond the Negritos in
civilization. They are a peaceful, timid, primitive, semi-nomadic
people. They number approximately 15,000. The Manguianes
have shown no desire for community life, and, as indicated in the
preamble to Act No. 547, have not progressed sufficiently in
civilization to make it practicable to bring them under any form of
municipal government.
Failure of a Mangyan to obey this mandate or to escape from the
reservation will be meted with a penalty of imprisonment of up to two
months. The American government justified this deprivation of the Mangyans
to live in their ancestral domains as part of the earnest efforts of the colonial
government to “protect” these people from their own ignorance.
To permit them to live a way-faring life will ultimately result in a
burden to the state and on account of their ignorance, they will
commit crimes and make depredations, or if not they will be
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 subject to involuntary servitude by those who may want to abuse
them.
What spurred the legal controversy of this State-level cultural
assimilation was when a certain Mangyan under the last name of Rubi and his
other companions were incarcerated for refusing to live in the reservation.
Rubi, et. al. challenged their incarceration as a form of illegal detention. They
alleged that there was no legal ground for them to be imprisoned because the
law mandating their resettlement was unconstitutional for it deprived them
of their right to liberty and due process and for discriminating them on the
basis of their tribal affiliation.
However, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the law as well as
the legality of their incarceration as a valid excise of the police power of the
State. Rather than depriving the Mangyans of their ancestral lands and
culture, the Court ruled that the measure was a form of protection of these
people. As Justice Malcolm puts it:
In so far as the Manguianes themselves are concerned, the
purpose of the Government is evident. Here, we have on the
Island of Mindoro, the Manguianes, leading a nomadic life,
making depredations on their more fortunate neighbors,
uneducated in the ways of civilization, and doing nothing for the
advancement of the Philippine Islands. What the Government
wished to do by bringing them into a reservation was to gather
together the children for educational purposes, and to improve
the health and morals — was in fine, to begin the process of
civilization. This method was termed in Spanish times, "bringing
under the bells." The same idea adapted to the existing situation,
has been followed with reference to the Manguianes and other
peoples of the same class, because it required, if they are to be
improved, that they be gathered together. On these few
reservations there live under restraint in some cases, and in other
instances voluntarily, a few thousands of the uncivilized people.
Segregation really constitutes protection for the Manguianes.

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 Legal issues aside, the question of to what extent is it justified for
members of the dominant culture to force the minority culture to adopt the
former’s own practices and beliefs is a moral controversy. Is it right to assert
that a certain culture’s beliefs are not only backward and obsolete but also
bad for the people of such culture? How do we know that the cultural beliefs
and practices we impose on others are more correct? Or are we not rather
simply imposing our own standards of what is right and wrong, proper or
improper, which are as good as the standards of the culture we believed to
be less civilized?
Indeed, our culture shapes our sense of morality. “Culture gives us a
basic pattern of life and guides us into that pattern to show us how human
life should be lived” (Moga, 2007, p. 7). And as culture is diverse, so too are
the ways of how to live. For proponents of cultural relativism, no one culture
can assert its own standards and norms as equally applicable to other
cultures. They believe that each culture has its own notion of morality and
such notion is as good as anybody else’s. Therefore, one’s moral belief may
not necessarily be true for another.
What is the main tenet of cultural relativism? What are its implications
to moral thinking?

Excerpts from The Elements of Moral Philosophy (2018) by Rachels & Rachels:
What is Cultural Relativism?
Darius, a king of ancient Persia (present-day Iran), was intrigued by the
variety of cultures he met in his travels. In India, for example, he had
encountered a group of people known as the Callatians who cooked and ate
the bodies of their dead fathers. The Greeks, of course, did not do that—they
practiced cremation and regarded the funeral pyre as the proper way to
dispose of the dead. Darius thought that an enlightened outlook should
appreciate such differences. One day, to teach this lesson, he summoned
some Greeks who were at his court and asked them what it would take for
them to eat their dead fathers’ bodies. The Greeks were shocked, as Darius
knew they would be. No amount of money, they said, could possibly get them
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to do such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians and, while the Greeks
listened, asked if they would be willing to burn their dead fathers’ bodies. The
Callatians were horrified and told Darius not to speak of such things.
This story, recounted by Herodotus in his History, illustrates a recurring
theme in the literature of social science: Different cultures have different
moral codes. What is thought to be right within one group may horrify
another group, and vice versa. Should we eat the bodies of our dead or burn
them? If you were Greek, one answer would seem obviously correct; but if
you were Callatian, then the other answer would seem certain.
To many people, this observation— “Different cultures have different
moral codes”—seems like the key to understanding morality. There are no
universal moral truths, they say; the customs of different societies are all that
exist. To call a custom “correct” or “incorrect” would imply that we can judge
it by some independent or objective standard of right and wrong. But, in fact,
we would merely be judging it by the standards of our own culture. No
independent standard exists; every standard is culture-bound.
This line of thought, more than any other, has persuaded people to be
skeptical about ethics. Cultural Relativism says, in effect, that there is no such
thing as universal truth in ethics; there are only the various cultural codes.
Cultural Relativism challenges our belief in the objectivity and legitimacy of
moral judgments.

Objections to Cultural Relativism

If Cultural Relativism were true, then what would follow from it?
According to Cultural Relativism, the only measure of right and wrong is the
standards of one’s society: “The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not
outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to test them. In the
folkways, whatever is, is right.” Suppose we took this seriously. What would
be some of the undesirable consequences?
1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally
inferior to our own. This is one of the main points stressed by Cultural
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Relativism—that we should never condemn a society merely because it is
“different.” This attitude seems enlightened, especially when we concentrate
on examples like the funerary practices of the Greeks and Callatians.
However, if Cultural Relativism were true, then we would also be barred
from criticizing other, more harmful practices. For example, the Chinese
government has a long history of repressing political dissent within its own
borders. At any given time, thousands of prisoners in China are doing hard
labor on account of their political views Cultural Relativism would prevent us
from saying that the Chinese government’s policies of oppression are wrong.
We could not even say that respect for free speech is better than the Chinese
practice, for that too would imply a universal or objective standard of
comparison. However, refusing to condemn these practices does not seem
enlightened; on the contrary, political oppression seems wrong wherever it
occurs. Yet if we accept Cultural Relativism, then we have to regard such
practices as immune from criticism.
2. We could no longer criticize the code of our own society. Cultural
Relativism suggests a simple test for determining what is right and what is
wrong: All we need to do is ask whether the action is in line with the code of
the society in which it occurs. Suppose a resident of India wonders whether
her country’s caste system—a system of rigid social hierarchy—is morally
correct. All she has to do is ask whether this system conforms to her society’s
moral code. If it does, then there is no way it can be wrong.
This implication of Cultural Relativism is disturbing because few of us
think that our society’s code is perfect. Rather, we can think of ways in which
it might be improved. We can also think of ways in which we might learn from
other cultures. Yet Cultural Relativism stops us from criticizing our own
society’s code, and it bars us from seeing ways in which other cultures might
be better. After all, if right and wrong are relative to culture, this must be true
for our own culture, just as it is for other cultures.
3. The idea of moral progress is called into doubt. We think that at least
some social changes are for the better. For example, throughout most of
human history, the place of women in society was narrowly defined. Women
could not own property; they could not vote or hold political office; and they
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were under the almost absolute control of their husbands or fathers.
Recently, much of this has changed, and most of us think of this as progress.
But if Cultural Relativism is correct, can we legitimately view this as
progress? Progress means replacing the old ways with new and improved
ways. But by what standard can a Cultural Relativist judge the new ways as
better? If the old ways conformed to the standards of their time, then Cultural
Relativists could not condemn them. After all, those old ways or traditions
“had their own time and place,” and we should not judge them by our
standards. Sexist 19th-century society was a different society from the one
we now inhabit. Thus, a Cultural Relativist could not regard the progress that
women have made over the centuries as being (real) progress—after all, to
speak of “real progress” is to make just the sort of transcultural judgment that
Cultural Relativism forbids.

Questions for Discussion

1. Do you think that the American colonial government is justified in
compelling the Mangyan population (and other indigenous tribes) to
live in reservation areas for the purpose of transforming into civilized
peoples? Do you believe that certain cultures have standards that are
better than those of other cultures? In your opinion, should morality
rely of culturally-specific standards?
2. What is the main idea of cultural relativism? Why does it reject the
notion of a universal or objective standard of morality? Can the concept
of a universal truth in ethics be defended without breaking away from
the fundamental insight of cultural relativism that people make moral
judgments based on the standards of their own culture? May a culture
be transformed to adopt better perspectives of morality?
3. What are the negative implications of cultural relativism? What do they
show about the plausibility of cultural relativism as a theory of
morality? Is it always a good thing to refuse to make judgments about
other cultures’ practices? Is it necessary to critically reflect our own

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cultural practices? How do we achieve moral progress in our society?
Give examples.