Objecting to Human Rights –

Relativism
Spring 2013
 Cultural Relativism/ Moral
Relativism
• Cultural relativism: patterns of conduct are
relative to cultures

• Moral relativism: underlying values are relative

to cultures
Cultural relativism does not entail moral
relativism:

often differences in behavior due to

differences in circumstances
Cultural Relativism
 Relativism: the Attractions
• easily motivated: “different peoples live according to
different norms; when in Rome do as the Romans do”

• “the aims that guide the life of every people are self-
evident in their significance to that people” (AAA, p 542)

• “What is held to be a human right in one society may be

regarded as anti-social by another people” (p 542)

• “who is to judge:” enlightened, appropriately modest

 American Anthropological Association
(1947)
• Principle 3: Standards and values are
relative to the culture from which they
derive so that any attempt to formulate
postulates that grow out of the beliefs or
moral codes of one culture must to that
extent detract from the applicability of any
Declaration of Human Rights to mankind
as a whole. (p 542)
And: relativity of simultaneity
 Relativism: Intuitive Problems
• cannot bring up any moral criticism of
other cultures or even assess changes
within our own

• Could assess what is right or wrong just by

consulting standards of “moral network”

• Connection to tolerance tenuous

Just a minority losing out?
Nothing right or wrong here?
Remember
 Reductio ad absurdum?

(a)There are no universal principles.

(b) One ought to act in accordance with the principles of

one’s own group.

(c) Principle (b) is a universal moral principle

 Reductio ad absurdum?
No incoherence emerging here because no
commitment to (b) is required. Instead:

(a) There are no universal principles.

(b*) People think they ought to act in
accordance with the principles of their own
group.
 Goal now:
• To formulate different responses to advocates of
view that cultural relativism implies specifically
the impossibility of universal human rights

• responses will not show that all particular rights

on UDHR should be accepted – instead address
concern that there could not be universal rights
to begin with
 Response 1: Cultural Differences and
the distinctively human existence
• persons across cultures share vulnerabilities:
suffer from physical pain, require food/water to
survive, are susceptible to disease, malnutrition

• common goods: bodily health; bodily integrity;

desire to be treated with some respect in one’s
affiliations

• not culture-bound: distinctively human existence

 Moral engagement across cultures: often
possible
Two points come together powerfully, as critical tools:

(a) common vulnerabilities and common goods

(b) reasoning that categorically restricts scope of fundamental

moral values, or range of what is morally important, to
particular cultures or circles inevitably draws on reasoning that
is hard to defend

explains why most cultures generate forms of universalist

thinking, although it may not be dominant
 Too Western?
• particular human rights discourse is Western in origin

• But concerns about protection of individuals against the

state (and other powerful entities) are very common

• Often conflict between rights and common good is

overstated to draw contrast between “the West and the
rest”

• Cultural traditions of course are inherently diverse

 Response 2: Cultural differences –
look who’s talking

• Those who speak of “value imperialism” and in

support of relativism are often those in power

• Those who reject moral relativism generally

focus on standpoint of victims

• In light of victims’ standpoint, moral relativism

looks much less plausible
“We do things differently around here”

• argument often rests on attribution of unanimity

that does not exist

• In case of egregious human right violations: no

“we” on whose behalf anybody could speak

• victims have complaints that are intelligible to us

and on whose behalf we can speak up
 What if “victims” agree with the
practices? – Scanlon
• “But even if the victims did take the view that they have
no rights against what is is done to them (…) couldn’t
they be wrong in thinking this?”

• “[W]hich is the more objectionable form of cultural

superiority, to refuse to aid a victim on the ground that
“they live like that – they don’t recognize rights as we
know them,” or to attempt to protect the defenseless
even when they themselves feel that suffering is their lot
and they have no basis to complain of it?” (P 119)
 Which is more objectionable form
of cultural superiority?
(1) to refuse to aid a victim on the ground that “they live like
that – they don’t recognize rights as we know them,”

(2) or to attempt to protect the defenseless even when they

themselves feel that suffering is their lot and they have
no basis to complain of it?

Often aid: (2) is more problematic, whereas (1) seems like

an enlightened attitude

But: (1) can easily be the more objectionable form of cultural

superiority – because people can be brainwashed
Must apply with extreme caution
• False consciousness: people have been
persuaded to support a regime that is to
somebody else’s benefit

• Brain washing -- severe Manipulation

• Population itself, once through the

transition, would presumably approve
 But if this applies…
• Then this indeed is the more troublesome
attitude of cultural superiority:

to refuse to aid a victim on the ground that

“they live like that – they don’t recognize
rights as we know them”
 Response 3:
Interconnectedness
• question of how we ought to live together
and what we ought to do vis-à-vis each
other simply does arise for us

• cannot help be negotiate common

arrangements, at least to some extent

• have irreversibly “encountered each other”

We do not live like
this (any more)
But like this:
Connected to them
And to them
And to them as well
 Remember:
• Now, Therefore THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF
HUMAN RIGHTS as a common
standard of achievement for all
peoples and all nations, to the end
that every individual and every
organ of society, keeping this
Declaration constantly in mind,
shall strive by teaching and
education to promote respect for
these rights and freedoms and by
progressive measures, national
and international, to secure their
universal and effective recognition
and observance, both among the
peoples of Member States
themselves and among the
peoples of territories under their
jurisdiction.