LESSON 7

CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 REPORTERS

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INTRODUCTION
After studying the meaning of culture, how it
is learned and how it is shapes moral
behavior, Let us focus on Cultural Relativism,
its meaning and its strength and weaknesses.

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 “ What you believe, value or
“What is true for you is
practice depends on your culture
true for you, and what is while what I believe , value or
true for me is true for me. practice depends on my culture.
WHAT IS CULTURAL
RELATIVISM?

Is the idea that a

person’s beliefs, values,
and practices should be
understood based on
that person’s own
culture,rather than be
judged against the
criteria of another.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
IS THE VIEW THAT MORAL OR
ETHICAL SYSTEMS, WHICH
VARY FROM CULTURE TO
CULTURE, ARE ALL EQUALLY
VALID AND NO ONE SYSTEM IS
REALLY “BETTER” THAT ANY
OTHER.
 CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
Is a standpoint or viewpoint of something. Cultural Perspective is
viewing of situation or concept through the eyes of an
individual's native environmental and social influence.
 If we hold on strict cultural relativism, It is not possible to
say that human sacrifice is “wrong”, or that respect for the
elderly is “ right”. After all, those are products of the culture.
This takes any talk of morality right over the cliff, and into
meaningless gibberish.
-Mckinnon,et al., 2015
 CULTURAL RELATIVISM
In general breaks down when examined from a purely logical
perspective , absolutely Relativism is contradictory and impossible.
 STATED IN ANOTHER WAY:

TOLERANCE

Is certainly a Virtue… If morality is simply relatve to

each culture then if the culture does not have a
principle of tolerance, its member have no obligation
to be tolerant… from a relativistic point of view, there
is no more reason to be tolerant that to be intolerant
and neither stance is objectively morally better that the
other.
 STATED IN ANOTHER WAY:

Adolf Hitler’s
genocidal actions
So long as they are culturally accepted , are as morally legitimate as
Mother Theresa’s works of Mercy. If Conventional Relativism is
accepted, racism, genocide of unpopular minorities, oppression of the
poor, slavery and even the advocacy of war for its own sake are as
equally moral as their opposites. And if a subculture decided that
starting a nuclear war was somehow morally acceptable, we could not
morally cricize these people. (Mckinnon, et al.,2015)
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Thank you for listening!