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Understanding Cultural Relativism and Its Importance

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Akeem Marsh, MD, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist who has dedicated his career to working with medically underserved communities.

Bartosz Hadyniak/E+/Getty

Beliefs of Cultural Relativism

• Limitations
• In Mental Health

Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism

• How to Promote

Cultural relativism suggests that ethics, morals, values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors must be understood within the context of the culture from which they arise. It means that all cultures have their own beliefs and that there is no universal or absolute standard to judge those cultural norms. 

"Cultural relativism leads us to accept that cultures are foundationally different, with differing social and ethical norms. This includes understanding that a person’s place of birth, including where or how a patient was raised during their formative years, is the basis of a person’s approach to the world and emotional self," says Anu Raj, PsyD , a clinical psychologist at New York Institute of Technology.

Advocates of cultural relativism suggest that one culture's values, beliefs, and norms should not be judged through the lens of another culture.

It is the opposite of ethnocentrism, which involves judging or understanding cultural beliefs from the perspective of your own. Instead, cultural relativism suggests that observers and researchers should focus on describing those practices without attempting to impose their own biases and judgments upon them.

History of Cultural Relativism

The concept of cultural relativism was introduced by anthropologist Franz Boas in 1887. While he did not coin the term, it later became widely used by his students to describe his anthropological perspective and theories.

Cultural relativism suggests that:

• Different societies have their own moral codes and practices.
• Norms, beliefs, and values must be judged and understood from the context of the culture where they originate.
• No culture is objectively better than others; cultures and their customs and beliefs are not objectively superior or inferior to any other culture.
• Practices and behaviors considered acceptable or unacceptable vary from one culture to the next.
• Cultural relativism aims to help promote acceptance, tolerance, and an appreciation for diverse cultural beliefs and practices.
• No universal ethical or moral truths apply to all people in all situations.
• What is considered right and wrong is determined by society’s moral codes.
• Researchers and observers should strive to observe behavior rather than pass judgments on it based on their own cultural perspective.

Different Types of Cultural Relativism

There are two distinct types of cultural relativism: absolute cultural relativism and critical cultural relativism.

Absolute Cultural Relativism

According to this perspective, outsiders should not question or judge cultural events. Essentially, this point of view proposes that outsiders should not criticize or question the cultural practices of other societies, no matter what they might involve.

Critical Cultural Relativism

Critical cultural relativism suggests that practices should be evaluated in terms of how and why they are adopted. This perspective suggests that cultural practices can be evaluated and understood by looking at factors such as the historical context and social influences.

It also recognizes that all societies experience inequalities and power dynamics that influence how and why certain beliefs are adopted and who adopts them.

Strengths of Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism has a number of benefits that can help people gain greater insight into different cultures. This perspective can help:

• Promote cultural understanding : Because cultural relativism encourages seeing cultures with an open mind, it can foster greater empathy , understanding, and respect for cultures different from ours. 
• Protect cultural respect and autonomy : Cultural relativism recognizes that no culture is superior to any other. Rather than attempting to change other cultures, this perspective encourages people to respect the autonomy and self-determinism of other cultures, which can play an important role in preserving the heritage and traditions of other cultures.
• Foster learning : By embracing cultural relativism, people from different backgrounds are able to communicate effectively and create an open dialogue to foster greater learning for other cultures of the world.

Cultural relativism can also be important in helping mental health professionals deliver culturally competent care to clients of different backgrounds.

"What’s considered “typical and normal versus pathological” depends on cultural norms. It varies between providers and patients; it impacts diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis," Raj explains.

When mental health professionals account for the differences in values, and attitudes towards and of marginalized people (including communities of color and LGBTQ+ communities), providers develop respect for individual patients. Consequently, patients are less likely to be misdiagnosed and more likely to continue treatment.

Limitations of Cultural Relativism

While cultural relativism has strengths, that does not mean it is without limitations.

Failure to Address Human Rights

This perspective has been criticized for failing to address universal rights. Some suggest that this approach may appear to condone cultural practices that constitute human rights violations. It can be challenging to practice non-judgment of other cultures while still protecting people’s right to live free from discrimination and oppression.

Cultural relativism may sometimes hamper progress by inhibiting the examination of practices, norms, and traditions that limit a society’s growth and progress.

Reducing Cultures to Stereotypes

Cultural relativism sometimes falls victim to the tendency to stereotype and simplify cultures. Rather than fully appreciating the full complexity and diversity that may exist within a culture, people may reduce it to a homogenous stereotype. This often prevents outsiders from seeing the many variations that may exist within a society and fully appreciating the way cultures evolve over time.

Individual Rights vs. Cultural Values

This perspective may sometimes lead observers to place a higher priority on a culture’s collective values while dismissing individual variations. This might involve, for example, avoiding criticism of cultures that punish political dissidents who voice opposition to cultural norms, and practices.

Examples of Cultural Relativism

In reality, people make cultural judgments all the time. If you've ever eaten food from another culture and described it as 'gross' or learned about a specific cultural practice and called it 'weird,' you've made a judgment about that culture based on the norms of your own. Because you don't eat those foods or engage in those practices in your culture, you are making culture-biased value judgments.

Cultural differences can affect a wide range of behaviors, including healthcare decisions. For example, research has found that while people from Western cultures prefer to be fully informed in order to make autonomous healthcare conditions, individuals from other cultures prefer varying degrees of truth-telling from medical providers.

An example of using cultural relativism in these cases would be describing the food practices of a different culture and learning more about why certain foods and dishes are important in those societies. Another example would be learning more about different cultural practices and exploring how they originated and the purpose they serve rather than evaluating them from your own cultural background. 

In medical settings, healthcare practitioners must balance the interests and autonomy of their patients with respect and tolerance for multicultural values.

Cultural Relativism in Mental Health

Cultural relativism can also play an important role in the practice and application of mental health. "An individual’s perception of mental health, including stigma, is often influenced by their cultural identity and social values," explains Raj.

People who experience cultural discrimination are also more likely to experience higher stress levels, which can seriously affect mental health. Research has shown that perceived discrimination increases psychological distress and predicts symptoms of anxiety and depression. It also contributes to worse physical health, including a higher risk for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and stroke.

Therapists must strive to understand people from different backgrounds to provide culturally competent care. "Through the lens of cultural competency, providers can educate themselves and elevate the plethora of coping mechanisms that a patient already might possess," says Raj. 

Cultural relativism and ethnocentrism are two contrasting perspectives that can be used to evaluate and understand other cultures.

Ethnocentrism involves judging other cultures based on the standards and values of one's own culture, often leading to a biased or prejudiced perspective .

Where cultural relativism suggests that all cultures are equally valid, ethnocentrism involves seeing your own culture as superior or more correct than others.

Cultural relativism emphasizes the importance of diversity and recognizes that values, beliefs, and behaviors can vary across societies. This can be contrasted with ethnocentrism, which promotes the idea that your own culture is the norm or benchmark against which others should be evaluated. This can limit understanding and decrease tolerance for people of different backgrounds. 

How Do You Promote Cultural Relativism?

There are a number of strategies that can help promote cultural relativism. This can be particularly important for mental health professionals and other healthcare practitioners. 

"Therapists must be able to view the world through the eyes of their patients. Most importantly, culturally competent therapists understand their patient’s behavior through the cultural framework in which they live," Raj says.

Promoting cultural relativism involves adopting an open-minded and respectful approach toward other cultures. Some things you can do to foster greater cultural relativism:

• Embrace cultural diversity : Strive to appreciate other cultures, including their unique values, traditions, and perspectives. Remember that diversity enriches our lives, experiences, and world knowledge.
• Learn more about other cultures : Take the time to explore cultures other than your own, including histories, traditions, and beliefs. Resources that can help include books, documentaries, and online resources.
• Practice empathy : Seek to understand others by imagining things from their perspective. Try to understand their experiences, challenges, and aspirations. Cultivate empathy and respect for the differences between people and cultures.
• Seek diversity : Make an active effort to spend more time with people from different walks of life. Talk to people from diverse backgrounds and approach these discussions with an open mind and a desire to learn. Be willing to share your own perspectives and experiences without trying to change others or impose your beliefs on them.
• Challenge biases : Try to become more aware of how your unconscious biases might shape your perceptions and interactions with others. Practicing cultural relativism is an ongoing process. It takes time, open-mindedness , and a willingness to reflect on your biases.

Promoting Cultural Relativism Among Mental Health Professionals

How can therapists apply cultural relativism to ensure they understand other cultural perspectives and avoid unintentional biases in therapy?   

A 2019 study found that the ideal training for therapists included graduate coursework in diversity, supervised clinical experiences working with diverse populations, experiential activities, didactic training, and cultural immersion when possible.

Avoiding Bias in Therapy

Raj suggests that there are important questions that professionals should ask themselves, including:

• How do I identify?
• How does my patient identify? 
• What prejudices or biases am I holding? 
•  Are there biases or stereotypes I hold based on my own upbringing and culture? 

She also suggests that therapists should always be willing to ask about client involvement in treatment planning. She recommends asking questions such as: 

• What approaches have been successful or failed in the past? 
• How does the patient perceive their ailment? 
• What were the results of the patient’s previous coping mechanisms? 
• How does the patient’s culture drive their behavior, coping skills, and outcomes?

By making clients an active part of their treatment and taking steps to understand their background better, therapists can utilize cultural relativism to deliver more sensitive, informed care.

The New Republic. Pioneers of cultural relativism )

Kanarek J. Critiquing cultural relativism . The Intellectual Standard. 2013;2(2):1.

Rosenberg AR, Starks H, Unguru Y, Feudtner C, Diekema D. Truth telling in the setting of cultural differences and incurable pediatric illness: A review . JAMA Pediatr . 2017;171(11):1113-1119. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.2568

Williams DR, Lawrence JA, Davis BA, Vu C. Understanding how discrimination can affect health . Health Serv Res . 2019;54 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):1374-1388. doi:10.1111/1475-6773.13222

Benuto LT, Singer J, Newlands RT, Casas JB. Training culturally competent psychologists: Where are we and where do we need to go ? Training and Education in Professional Psychology . 2019;13(1):56-63. doi:10.1037/tep0000214

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cultural Relativism Essay

Relativism refers to a philosophical theory that explains the subject circumstance of all morals in the world. This entails the principle that knowledge, morality as well as truth occur due to relation in a specific society, historical content or a particular culture which are not absolute. What can be morally right for a specific individual believing in a certain culture, historical content or society is absolutely morally right to another person with a different believe. Therefore, the wrongness or correctness of something depends on what our government, culture or religion indicates to be.

Cultural relativism claims that the society that one lives in determines the moral norms of that particular individual. For example, there exists many traditions which were practiced in past cultures such as foot-binding among the Chinese people where they viewed the tradition as an acceptable as well as a rightful cultural practice (Demuijnck, 2015). However, the western people now view it as sick cultural practice. As according to the relativist aspects of life, since they considered the practice to be right, then they should also consider it to be right in the modern life. These differences therefore give rise to both values as well as limits of relativism.

Cultural relativism fashions learning opportunities upon an individual thus making humanity stronger. When two or more differences associated with cultural practices come together as people, the differences tend to build an individual’s knowledge. Without limiting people to set settle all their personal standards at any level, stronger potential bonds are created assisting to achieve certain knowledge hence becoming more than we previously were before allowing our variances to tutor one another. For example, different philosophers engage in justifying the moral practices as explained in cultural relativism whereby different opinions are generated regarding relativism hence increasing their knowledge about the cultural practices.

However, the practices are either valid or invalid as per each of the philosophers’ cultural practice, society or his/her historical contents. After exploring their best personal thinking without limits at any level, the difference in correctness or wrongness of the action is determined by the societal concept, culture or even the historical value that governs each of the philosophers.

Elimination of the idea of diverse qualities is warranted by cultural relativism but replaced with equal principles between people of diverse cultures. When majority of people share similar principles, they are enabled to create a society that only meets their own needs while in turn neglecting the requirement of other people who pertains a different cultural practice. Therefore, considering cultural relativism tends to bring together people with diverse cultural practices where equal practices pertaining the difference in cultural or societal values are addressed. An example involves philosophical work by Wong (1984: ch. 12) describing the history of civil rights movement that was carried out in United States, through women’s suffrage efforts, and also movements of same sex marriages (Sawrikar, 2016). Cultural relativism therefore would base equality among all these people’s rights thereby diminishing the movements since the separateness has been removed and replaced with equal principles to the diverse cultures.

Cultural relativism therefore forms systems of role expertise towards performing a specific value. This is because people will tend to focus on areas where they are best in rather than trying to improve weakness points. The fact being that someone’s weakness is another’s strength, every individual is geared towards making efforts to obtain the best in area of participation but instead leaves the person’s weakness unsolved. This further encourages the person’s respect unto the fellow community members in which they are in diverse cultural beliefs.

The perspectives in providing humanity by the diverse cultural values ensured through relativism contribute to better good in a specific action thereby basing the foundation of respect as a result of success in that specific area. An example by philosophers entails participation in a particular practice such as religion, straining on the best perspectives to ensure humanity and finally ensuring equality such as in workplace finally results in respect that is founded as a result of ensuring equality practices in the workplace. In such a scenario, philosophers illustrate the respected work of anthropologists who strive to be impartial and at the same time unprejudiced in operation of their anthropolinguistic activities.

However, despite the interpersonal benefits ensured by cultural relativism, it also embraces numerous disadvantages. For example, some actions carried out in particular culture are either defined to be violent, wrong or even unsafe to another cultural value of the involved individual. Philosophers explain this principle when someone tends to perform actions that are considered to be wrong in the society by the majority of people as a result of the freedom in establishing their own moral code of conduct. Such actions disregarded by most community members are like murder, rape, theft or even child abuse. Some cultures values will therefore illustrate these actions to be wrong when another particular culture upholds it to be right.

Perfection principles upon individuals of a particular culture are created, this contradicts the fact that human beings are fond of making mistakes. This is too way far from the truth since human actions aren’t perfect, that finally leads to personal bias. In this scenario, personal bias is met as a result of shifting group responsibility outlooks to an individual based strategy in order to ensure perfect humanity. Martha Nussbaum (1993) with clear orientation to Aristotle contends that individual consideration of human decent is the measure of perfection hence making people across different cultures to transform group orientated functions to be individual targets of life which first forces people to step down in order to raise the others.

Also, elimination of the impression that personal change or reform is a good thing is enabled. Most of greatest philosophers as well as teachers end up being considered as wrong by the system of cultural relativism. If they would have known to finally be wrong therefore founds the ideas that their change towards exploring their actions was wrong since everyone’s hearts and minds is tied their own standards (Velleman, 2015). These conflicting ideas are explained by Isaiah Berlin (1998) by arguing that even there exists some universal moral standards, there are still many conflicting objective values which are incommensurable with each other.

Bernard Williams (1981 and 1985: ch. 9) proposes an argument on notional confrontation about impropriation to describe a specific outlook pertaing a specific culture, society or historical consent to be just or unjust. However, cultural relativism communicates about broad-mindedness in an individual but its theory is founded on the awareness that all human actions are perfect. It is yet for human actions to be right, maybe it may help in the future but not today. This becomes the potential harm for the idea since only God is perfect, and neither human knowledge nor actions are superior than His deeds.

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Cultural Relativism: Definition & Examples

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

Undergraduate at Harvard University

Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.

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On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• Cultural Relativism is the claim that ethical practices differ among cultures, and what is considered right in one culture may be considered wrong in another. The implication of cultural relativism is that no one society is superior to another; they are merely different.
• This claim comes with several corollaries; namely, that different societies have different moral codes, there is no objective standard to judge how good or bad these moral codes are, and that the job of those who study cultures is not to compare these customs to their own, but to describe them.
• Moral relativism claims that what is customary in a culture is absolutely right in that culture. Cultural relativism is not as strong, sometimes asserting that there is no real way to measure right or wrong.
• Cultural relativism is contrary to ethnocentrism, which encourages people to look at the world from the perspective of their own culture.
• While cultural relativism has been the subject of controversy — especially from philosophers — anthropological and sociological studies have led to a widespread consensus among social scientists that cultural relativism is true.

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself.

It states that there are no universal beliefs, and each culture must be understood in its own terms because cultures cannot be translated into terms that are accessible everywhere.

The principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research and to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism.

Cultural Relativism refers to the ability to understand a culture on its own terms and consequently not make judgments based on the standards of one’s own culture.

Implications

From the cultural relativist perspective, no culture is superior to another when comparing their systems of morality, law, politics, etc.

This is because cultural norms and values, according to cultural relativism, derive their meaning within a specific social context.

Cultural relativism is also based on the idea that there is no absolute standard of good or evil. Thus, every decision and judgment of what is right or wrong is individually decided in each society.

As a result, any opinion on ethics is subject to the perspective of each person within their particular culture.

In practice, cultural relativists try to promote the understanding of cultural practices that are unfamiliar to other cultures, such as eating insects and sacrificial killing.

There are two different categories of cultural relativism: absolute and critical. Absolute cultural relativists believe that outsiders must and should not question everything that happens within a culture.

Meanwhile, critical cultural relativism questions cultural practices regarding who is accepting them and why, as well as recognizing power relationships.

Cultural relativism challenges beliefs about the objectivity and universality of moral truth.

In effect, cultural relativism says that there is no such thing as universal truth and ethics; there are only various cultural codes. Moreover, the code of one culture has no special status but is merely one among many.

Assumptions

Cultural relativism has several different elements, and there is some disagreement as to what claims are true and pertinent to cultural relativism and which are not. Some claims include that:

Different societies have different moral codes;

There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code as better than another;

The moral code of one’s own society has no special status but is merely one among many;

There is no “universal truth” in ethics, meaning that there are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times;

The moral code of a society determines what is right and wrong within that society; that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that action is right, at least within that society and;

It is arrogant for people to attempt to judge the conduct of other people. Instead, researchers should adopt an attitude of tolerance toward the practices of other cultures.

Illustrative Examples

Food choices.

Cultural relativism does not merely relate to morality and ethics. Cultural relativism, for example, explains why certain cultures eat different foods at different meals.

For example, traditionally, breakfast in the United States is markedly different from breakfast in Japan or Colombia. While one may consist of scrambled eggs and pancakes and the other rice and soup or white cheese on a corn arepa, cultural relativists seek to understand these differences, not in terms of any perceived superiority or inferiority but in description (Bian & Markman, 2020).

Mental Illness

One of the biggest controversies concerning classification and diagnosis is that the ICD (the manuals of mental disorders) are culturally biased because they are drawn up and used by white, middle-class men. This means they tend to use definitions of abnormality that are irrelevant to all cultures.

For example, Davison & Neale (1994) explain that in Asian cultures, a person experiencing some emotional turmoil is praised & rewarded if they show no expression of their emotions.

In certain Arabic cultures, however, the outpouring of public emotion is understood and often encouraged. Without this knowledge, an individual displaying overt emotional behavior may be regarded as abnormal when in fact, it is not.

Cross-cultural misunderstandings are common and may contribute to unfair and discriminatory treatment of minorities by the majority, e.g., the high diagnosis rate of schizophrenia amongst non-white British people.

Cochrane (1977) reported that the incidence of schizophrenia in the West Indies and the UK is 1 %, but that people of Afro-Caribbean origin are seven times more likely to be diagnosed as schizophrenic when living in the UK.

Hygienic Rituals

Another phenomenon explained by cultural relativism is hygienic rituals. Different cultures may use different modes or methods of disposing of waste and cleaning up afterward.

Ritualized ablution, or washing, also differs across cultures. Catholics may dip their fingers into blessed water and anoint themselves at church, and Jewish people may pour water over their hands in a specific way during Shabbat.

Although toilet and washing practices vary drastically across cultures, cultural relativists seek to describe these differences, noting that what is customary to culture is not necessarily “right” or “wrong.”

Cultural vs. Moral Relativism

Cultural relativism is a claim that anthropologists can make when describing how ethical practices differ across cultures; as a result, the truth or falsity of cultural relativism can be determined by how anthropologists and anthropologists study the world.

Many sociologists and anthropologists have conducted such studies, leading to widespread consensus among social scientists that cultural relativism is an actual phenomenon (Bowie, 2015).

Moral relativism, meanwhile, is a claim that what is really right or wrong is what that culture says is right or wrong. While moral relativists believe that cultural relativism is true, they extend their claims much further.

Moral relativists believe that if a culture sincerely and reflectively adopts some basic moral principle, then it is morally obligatory for members of that culture to act according to that principle (Bowie, 2015).

The implication of moral relativism is that it is absolutely necessary for someone to act according to the norms of the culture in which they are located.

For example, when asking whether or not it is ethical to bribe government bureaucrats, a moral relativist would look for the answer in the norms of how people within their country deal with bureaucracy.

If people bribe government officials, then the moral relativist would consider bribery not to be wrong in that country.

However, if people do not normally bribe bureaucrats, offering them a bribe would be considered morally wrong.

A cultural relativist would posit that while bribery is an ethical norm in the cultures where it is practiced, it is not necessarily morally right or wrong in that culture (Bowie, 2015).

Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world largely from the perspective of one’s own culture.

This may be motivated, for example, by the belief that one’s own race, ethnic, or cultural group is the most important or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups.

Ethnocentrism can often lead to incorrect assumptions about others’ behavior based on one’s own norms, values, and beliefs (Worthy, Lavigne, & Romero, 2021a).

Cultural relativism, meanwhile, is principled in regarding and valuing the practices of a culture from the point of view of that culture and avoiding making judgments stemming from one’s own assumptions.

Cultural relativism attempts to counter ethnocentrism by promoting the understanding of cultural practices unfamiliar to other cultures. For example, it is a common practice for friends of the same sex in India to hold hands while walking in public.

In the United Kingdom, holding hands is largely limited to romantically involved couples and often suggests a sexual relationship.

Someone holding an extreme ethnocentrist view may see their own understanding of hand-holding as superior and consider the foreign practice to be immoral (Worthy, Lavigne, & Romero; 2021a).

Controversy

Cultural Relativism has been criticized for numerous reasons, both theoretical and practical.

According to Karanack (2013), cultural relativism attempts to integrate knowledge between one’s own culture-bound reality. The premise that cultural relativism is based on that all cultures are valid in their customs is vague in Karanack’s view.

Karanack also criticizes cultural relativism from a theoretical perspective for having contradictory logic, asserting that cultural relativism often asserts that social facts are true and untrue, depending on the culture in which one is situated.

Nonetheless, cultural relativism also has several advantages. Firstly, it is a system that promotes cooperation. Each individual has a different perspective that is based on their upbringing, experiences, and personal thoughts, and by embracing the many differences that people have, cooperation creates the potential for a stronger society.

Each individual definition of success allows people to pursue stronger bonds with one another and potentially achieve more because there are no limitations on a group level about what can or cannot be accomplished (Karanack, 2013).

Secondly, cultural relativism envisions a society where equality across cultures is possible. Cultural relativism does so by allowing individuals to define their moral code without defining that of others. As each person can set their own standards of success and behavior, cultural relativism creates equality (Karanack, 2013).

Additionally, Cultural relativism can preserve cultures and allow people to create personal moral codes based on societal standards without precisely consulting what is “right” or “wrong.”

However, it can do so while also excluding moral relativism. This means that the moral code of a culture can be defined and an expectation implemented that people follow it, even as people devise goals and values that are particularly relevant to them.

Lastly, cultural relativism has been praised for stopping cultural conditions — the adoption of people to adapt their attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs to the people they are with on a regular basis (Karanack, 2013).

Despite these advantages, cultural relativism has been criticized for creating a system fuelled by personal bias. As people tend to prefer to be with others who have similar thoughts, feelings, and ideas, they tend to separate themselves into neighborhoods, communities, and social groups that share specific perspectives.

When people are given the power to define their own moral code, they do so based on personal bias, causing some people to follow their own code at the expense of others (Karanack, 2013).

Nonetheless, cultural relativism promotes understanding cultures outside of one’s own, enabling people to build relationships with other cultures that acknowledge and respect each other’s diverse lives.

With cultural relativism comes the ability to understand a culture on its own terms without making judgments based on one’s own cultural standards. In this way, sociologists and anthropologists can draw more accurate conclusions about outside cultures (Worthy, Lavigne, & Romero, 2020).

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Definition of Cultural Relativism in Sociology

How Breakfast Foods and Rules About Nudity Help Explain It

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• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• News & Issues
• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Recommended Reading
• Archaeology
• Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• M.A., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• B.A., Sociology, Pomona College

Cultural relativism refers to the idea that the values, knowledge, and behavior of people must be understood within their own cultural context. This is one of the most fundamental concepts in sociology , as it recognizes and affirms the connections between the greater social structure and trends and the everyday lives of individual people.

Origins and Overview

The concept of cultural relativism as we know and use it today was established as an analytic tool by German-American  anthropologist Franz Boas in the early 20th century. In the context of early social science, cultural relativism became an important tool for pushing back on the ethnocentrism that often tarnished research at that time, which was mostly conducted by white, wealthy, Western men, and often focused on people of color, foreign indigenous populations, and persons of lower economic class than the researcher.

Ethnocentrism is the practice of viewing and judging someone else's culture based on the values and beliefs of one's own. From this standpoint, we might frame other cultures as weird, exotic, intriguing, and even as problems to be solved. In contrast, when we recognize that the many cultures of the world have their own beliefs, values, and practices that have developed in particular historical, political, social, material, and ecological contexts and that it makes sense that they would differ from our own and that none are necessarily right or wrong or good or bad, then we are engaging the concept of cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism explains why, for example, what constitutes breakfast varies widely from place to place. What is considered a typical breakfast in Turkey, as illustrated in the above image, is quite different from what is considered a typical breakfast in the U.S. or Japan. While it might seem strange to eat fish soup or stewed vegetables for breakfast in the U.S., in other places, this is perfectly normal. Conversely, our tendency toward sugary cereals and milk or preference for egg sandwiches loaded with bacon and cheese would seem quite bizarre to other cultures.

Similarly, but perhaps of more consequence, rules that regulate nudity in public vary widely around the world. In the U.S., we tend to frame nudity in general as an inherently sexual thing, and so when people are nude in public, people may interpret this as a sexual signal. But in many other places around the world, being nude or partially nude in public is a normal part of life, be it at swimming pools, beaches, in parks, or even throughout the course of daily life (see many indigenous cultures around the world).

In these cases, being nude or partially nude is not framed as sexual but as the appropriate bodily state for engaging in a given activity. In other cases, like many cultures where Islam is the predominant faith, a more thorough coverage of the body is expected than in other cultures. Due in large part to ethnocentrism, this has become a highly politicized and volatile practice in today's world.

Why Recognizing Cultural Relativism Matters

By acknowledging cultural relativism, we can recognize that our culture shapes what we consider to be beautiful, ugly, appealing, disgusting, virtuous, funny, and abhorrent. It shapes what we consider to be good and bad art, music, and film, as well as what we consider to be tasteful or tacky consumer goods. The work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu features ample discussion of these phenomena, and the consequences of them. This varies not just in terms of national cultures but within a large society like the U.S. and also by cultures and subcultures organized by class, race, sexuality, region, religion, and ethnicity, among others.

• Sociological Xenocentrism
• Franz Boas, Father of American Anthropology
• An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• Definition of the Sociological Imagination and Overview of the Book
• What Is Cultural Capital? Do I Have It?
• What Is Ethnomusicology? Definition, History, and Methods
• So What Is Culture, Exactly?
• The Challenges of Ethical Living in a Consumer Society
• How Different Cultural Groups Become More Alike
• Definition of Cultural Materialism
• An Introduction to Medical Anthropology
• The Sociology of Consumption
• What Is Pluralism? Definition and Examples
• What Is the 'American Melting Pot?'
• Introduction to Discourse in Sociology
• What Is the Meaning of Globalization in Sociology?

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define the concept of relativism and explain why this term is so important to the study of anthropology.
• Distinguish relativism from the “anything goes” approach to culture.
• Describe how relativism can enlighten our approach to social problems.

Recall our earlier discussion of cultural styles of clothing. American clothing style is related to American values. Ghanaian clothing style is related to Ghanaian values. We have seen how different realms of culture are interrelated, fitting together to form distinctive wholes. Anthropologists use the term cultural relativism to describe how every element of culture must be understood within the broader whole of that culture. Relativism highlights how each belief or practice is related to all of the other beliefs and practices in a culture. The anthropological commitment to relativism means that anthropologists do not judge the merits of particular beliefs and practices but rather seek to understand the wider contexts that produce and reinforce those elements of culture. Even when studying controversial topics such as piracy and guerilla warfare, anthropologists set aside their personal convictions in order to explore the complex web of cultural forces that determine why we do the things we do.

Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

Critics of the notion of relativism, believing so strongly in their own cultural norms that they cannot set them aside, even temporarily. They argue that relativism is amoral, a refusal to condemn aspects of culture considered to be wrong and harmful. For them, relativism means “anything goes.”

For anthropologists, cultural relativism is a rigorous mode of holistic analysis requiring the temporary suspension of judgment for the purposes of exploration and analysis. Anthropologists do not think that violent or exploitative cultural practices are just fine, but they do think that the reasons for those practices are a lot more complex than we might imagine. And frequently, we find that the judgmental interventions of ethnocentric outsiders can do more harm than good.

Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

A striking example of the application of cultural relativism in anthropology is the controversy surrounding female genital cutting (FGC) , sometimes called female genital mutilation. FGC is a cultural practice in which an elder cuts a younger woman’s genitalia, removing all or part of the clitoris and labia. The practice is common in parts of Africa and the Middle East. FGC is not only extremely painful; it can also lead to infection, urination problems, infertility, and complications in childbirth.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations condemn the practice as a form of violence against children, a danger to women’s health, and a violation of basic human rights. These organizations view FGC as a form of discrimination against women, enforcing extreme inequality among the sexes. Efforts to ban FGC have focused on educating parents and children about the medical harms associated with the practice. Local governments are encouraged to enact laws banning FGC and impose criminal penalties against the elders who perform it.

Despite decades of campaigning against FGC, however, the practice remains widespread. If condemning FGC has not been effective in reducing it, then what can be done? Anthropologist Bettina Shell-Duncan has taken a more relativist approach, attempting to understand the larger cultural norms and values that make FGC such an enduring practice. Setting aside her personal opinions, Shell-Duncan spent long periods in African communities where FGC is practiced, talking to people about why FGC is important to them. She learned that FGC has different functions in different sociocultural contexts. Among the Rendille people of northern Kenya, many people believe that men’s and women’s bodies are naturally androgynous, a mix of masculine and feminine parts. In order for a girl to become a woman, it is necessary to remove the parts of female genitalia that resemble a man’s penis. Likewise, in order for a boy to become a man, the foreskin must be removed because it resembles the folds of female genitalia.

Other societies value FGC for different reasons. Some Muslim societies consider FGC a form of hygiene, making a girl clean so that she can pray to Allah. Some communities see FGC as a way of limiting premarital sex and discouraging extramarital affairs. In the colonial period, when FGC was banned by the colonial government, some Kenyan girls practiced FGC on themselves as a form of resistance to colonial authority. As FGC is promoted and carried out by senior women in most contexts, the practice becomes a way for senior women to solidify power and exert influence in the community.

People in communities practicing FGC are often aware of the efforts of outside groups to ban the practice. They know about medical complications such as the risk of infection. But the denunciations of outsiders often seem unconvincing to them, as those denunciations tend to ignore the cultural reasons for the endurance of FGC. People who practice FGC do not do it because they despise women or want to harm children. Shell-Duncan argues that parents weigh the risks and benefits of FGC, often deciding that the procedure is in the best interest of their child’s future.

Personally, Shell-Duncan remains critical of FGC and works on a project with the Population Council designed to dramatically reduce the practice. Cultural relativism does not mean permanently abandoning our own value systems. Instead, it asks us to set aside the norms and values of our own culture for a while in order to fully understand controversial practices in other cultures. By suspending judgment, Shell-Duncan was able to learn two important things. First, while campaigns to eradicate FGC frequently target mothers, providing them with educational material about the medical risks involved, Shell-Duncan learned that the decision to go ahead with the procedure is not made by parents alone. A large network of relatives and friends may pressure a girl’s parents to arrange for the cutting in order to ensure the girl’s chastity, marriageability, and fertility. Secondly, Shell-Duncan learned that people who practice FGC do it because they want the best for their girls. They want their girls to be respected and admired, considered clean and beautiful, fit for marriage and childbearing.

Shell-Duncan argues that outside organizations should reconsider their efforts, focusing more on communities than on individual parents. Awareness campaigns will be more effective if they resonate with local norms and values rather than dismissively condemning them as part of the whole culture of FGC. Some researchers urge anti-FGC activists to connect with local feminists and women’s groups in an effort to empower local women and localize the movement against FCG. Some alternative approaches press for more incremental forms of change, such as moving the practice to more sanitary conditions in clinics and hospitals and reducing the severity of the procedure to smaller cuts or more symbolic nicks.

As this example illustrates, cultural relativism is not an amoral “anything goes” approach but rather a strategy for forming cross-cultural relationships and gaining deeper understanding. Once this foundation has been established, anthropologists are often able to revise their activist goals and more effectively work together with people from another culture in pursuit of common interests.

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4.1.4: Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

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CULTURAL RELATIVISM

The guiding philosophy of modern anthropology is cultural relativism —the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our own. Anthropologists do not judge other cultures based on their values nor view other cultural ways of doing things as inferior. Instead, anthropologists seek to understand people’s beliefs within the system they have for explaining things.

Definition: cultural relativism

The idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our own.

Cultural relativism is an important methodological consideration when conducting research. In the field, anthropologists must temporarily suspend their own value, moral, and esthetic judgments and seek to understand and respect the values, morals, and esthetics of the other culture on their terms. This can be a challenging task, particularly when a culture is significantly different from the one in which they were raised.

A Young Anthropologist's Experience

Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College

During my first field experience in Brazil, I learned firsthand how challenging cultural relativism could be. Preferences for physical proximity and comfort talking about one’s body are among the first differences likely to be noticed by U.S. visitors to Brazil. Compared to Americans, Brazilians generally are much more comfortable standing close, touching, holding hands, and even smelling one another and often discuss each other’s bodies. Children and adults commonly refer to each other using playful nicknames that refer to their body size, body shape, or skin color. Neighbors and even strangers frequently stopped me on the street to comment on the color of my skin (It concerned some as being overly pale or pink—Was I ill? Was I sunburned?), the texture of my hair (How did I get it so smooth? Did I straighten my hair?), and my body size and shape (“You have a nice bust, but if you lost a little weight around the middle you would be even more attractive!”).

During my first few months in Brazil, I had to remind myself constantly that these comments were not rude, disrespectful, or inappropriate as I would have perceived them to be in the United States. On the contrary, it was one of the ways that people showed affection toward me. From a culturally relativistic perspective, the comments demonstrated that they cared about me, were concerned with my well-being, and wanted me to be part of the community. Had I not taken a culturally relativistic view at the outset and instead judged the actions based on my cultural perspective, I would have been continually frustrated and likely would have confused and offended people in the community. And offending your informants and the rest of the community certainly is not conducive to completing high-quality ethnography! Had I not fully understood the importance of body contact and physical proximity in communication in Brazil, I would have missed an important component of the culture.

ETHNOCENTRISM

Another perspective that has been rejected by anthropologists is ethnocentrism —the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as a stick by which to measure all other cultures. People who are ethnocentric view their own cultures as central and normal and reject all other cultures as inferior and morally suspect. As it turns out, many people and cultures are ethnocentric to some degree; ethnocentrism is a common human experience. Why do we respond the way we do? Why do we behave the way we do? Why do we believe what we believe? Most people find these kinds of questions difficult to answer. Often the answer is simply “because that is how it is done.” They believe what they believe because that is what one normally believes and doing things any other way seems wrong.

Definition: ethnocentrism

The tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as a stick by which to measure all other cultures.

Ethnocentrism is not a useful perspective in contexts in which people from different cultural backgrounds come into close contact with one another, as is the case in many cities and communities throughout the world. People increasingly find that they must adopt culturally relativistic perspectives in governing communities and as a guide for their interactions with members of the community. For anthropologists in the field, cultural relativism is especially important. We must set aside our innate ethnocentrisms and let cultural relativism guide our inquiries and interactions with others so that our observations are not biased. Cultural relativism is at the core of the discipline of anthropology.

Cultural Relativism and Fieldwork

Objectivity and Activist Anthropology

Despite the importance of cultural relativism, it is not always possible and at times is inappropriate to maintain complete objectivity in the field. Researchers may encounter cultural practices that are an affront to strongly held moral values or that violate the human rights of a segment of a population. In other cases, they may be conducting research in part to advocate for a particular issue or for the rights of a marginalized group.

Take, for example, the practice of female genital cutting (FGC), also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that is common in various regions of the world, especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Such practices involving modification of female genitals for non-medical and cultural reasons range from clitoridectomy (partial or full removal of the clitoris) to infibulation, which involves removal of the clitoris and the inner and outer labia and suturing to narrow the vaginal opening, leaving only a small hole for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid Anthropologists working in regions where such practices are common often understandably have a strong negative opinion, viewing the practice as unnecessary medically and posing a risk of serious infection, infertility, and complications from childbirth. They may also be opposed to it because they feel that it violates the right of women to experience sexual pleasure, something they likely view as a fundamental human right. Should the anthropologist intervene to prevent girls and women from being subjected to this practice?

Anthropologist Janice Boddy studied FGC/FGM in rural northern Sudan and sought to explain it from a culturally relativistic perspective. She found that the practice persists, in part, because it is believed to preserve a woman’s chastity and curb her sexual desire, making her less likely to have affairs once she is married. Boddy’s research showed how the practice makes sense in the context of a culture in which a woman’s sexual conduct is a symbol of her family’s honor, which is important culturally. [5]

Boddy’s relativistic explanation helps make the practice comprehensible and allows cultural outsiders to understand how it is internally culturally coherent. But the question remains. Once anthropologists understand why people practice FGC/FGM, should they accept it? Because they uncover the cultural meaning of a practice, must they maintain a neutral stance or should they fight a practice viewed as an injustice? How does an anthropologist know what is right?

Unfortunately, answers to these questions are rarely simple, and anthropologists as a group do not always agree on an appropriate professional stance and responsibility. Nevertheless, examining practices such as FGC/FGM can help us understand the debate over objectivity versus “activism” in anthropology more clearly. Some anthropologists feel that striving for objectivity in ethnography is paramount. That even if objectivity cannot be completely achieved, anthropologists’ ethnography should be free from as much subjective opinion as possible. Others take the opposite stance and produce anthropological research and writing as a means of fighting for equality and justice for disempowered or voiceless groups. The debate over how much (if any) activism is acceptable is ongoing. What is clear is that anthropologists are continuing to grapple with the contentious relationship between objectivity and activism in ethnographic research.

5. Janice Bodd, Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). ↵

Adapted From

"Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology" by Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College. In Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology , 2nd Edition, Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges, 2020, under CC BY-NC 4.0 .

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Module 3: Culture

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, learning outcomes.

• Describe and give examples of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism

Despite how much humans have in common, cultural differences are far more prevalent than cultural universals. For example, while all cultures have language, analysis of particular language structures and conversational etiquette reveal tremendous differences. In some Middle Eastern cultures, it is common to stand close to others in conversation. North Americans keep more distance and maintain a larger “personal space.” Even something as simple as eating and drinking varies greatly from culture to culture. If your professor comes into an early morning class holding a mug of liquid, what do you assume she is drinking? In the United States, the mug is most likely filled with coffee, not Earl Grey tea, a favorite in England, or Yak Butter tea, a staple in Tibet.

The way cuisines vary across cultures fascinates many people. Some travelers pride themselves on their willingness to try unfamiliar foods, like celebrated food writer Anthony Bourdain, while others return home expressing gratitude for their native culture’s fare. Often, people in the United States express disgust at other cultures’ cuisine and think that it’s gross to eat meat from a dog or guinea pig, for example, while they don’t question their own habit of eating cows or pigs. Such attitudes are an example of  ethnocentrism , or evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s own cultural norms. Ethnocentrism, as sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906) described the term, involves a belief or attitude that one’s own culture is better than all others,  and should therefore serve as the standard frame of reference.   Almost everyone is a little bit ethnocentric. For example, Americans tend to say that people from England drive on the “wrong” side of the road, rather than on the “other” side. Someone from a country where dog meat is standard fare might find it off-putting to see a dog in a French restaurant—not on the menu, but as a pet and fellow patron’s companion. A good example of ethnocentrism is referring to parts of Asia as the “Far East.” One might question, “Far east of where?”

A high level of appreciation for one’s own culture can be healthy; a shared sense of community pride, for example, connects people in a society. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures and could cause misunderstanding and conflict. People with the best intentions sometimes travel to a society to “help” its people, because they see them as uneducated or backward—essentially inferior. In reality, these travelers are guilty of  cultural imperialism , the deliberate imposition of one’s own ostensibly advanced cultural values on another culture. Europe’s colonial expansion, begun in the sixteenth century, was often accompanied by a severe cultural imperialism. European colonizers often viewed the people in the lands they colonized as uncultured savages who were in need of European governance, dress, religion, and other cultural practices.

A more modern example of cultural imperialism may include the work of international aid agencies who introduce agricultural methods and plant species from developed countries while overlooking indigenous varieties and agricultural approaches that are better suited to a particular region. Another example would be the deforestation of the Amazon Basin as indigenous cultures lose land to timber corporations.

Figure 1 . Experiencing an entirely new practice may lead to a high degree of interest or a level of criticism. The Indegenous people of Sagada, in the Philippines, have for thousands of years placed the bodies of deceased people into coffins hung on the cliffs near their villages. Some visitors may find this practice admirable, while others may think it’s inappropriate. (Credit: Arian Zwegers/flickr) Sagada, Echo Valley, hanging coffins.

Ethnocentrism can be so strong that when confronted with all of the differences of a new culture, one may experience disorientation and frustration. In sociology, we call this  culture shock . A traveler from Chicago might find the nightly silence of rural Montana unsettling, not peaceful. An exchange student from China might be annoyed by the constant interruptions in class as other students ask questions—a practice that is considered rude in China. Perhaps the Chicago traveler was initially captivated by Montana’s quiet beauty and the Chinese student was originally excited to see a U.S.-style classroom firsthand. But as they experience unanticipated differences from their own culture, their excitement gives way to discomfort and doubts about how to behave appropriately in the new situation. Eventually, as people learn more about a culture and adapt to its norms, they recover from culture shock.

Culture shock may appear because people aren’t always expecting cultural differences. Anthropologist Ken Barger (1971) discovered this when he conducted a participatory observation in an Inuit community in the Canadian Arctic. Originally from Indiana, Barger hesitated when invited to join a local snowshoe race. He knew he’d never hold his own against these experts. Sure enough, he finished last, to his mortification. But the tribal members congratulated him, saying, “You really tried!” In Barger’s own culture, he had learned to value victory. To the Inuit people, winning was enjoyable, but their culture valued survival skills essential to their environment: how hard someone tried could mean the difference between life and death. Over the course of his stay, Barger participated in caribou hunts, learned how to take shelter in winter storms, and sometimes went days with little or no food to share among tribal members. Trying hard and working together, two nonmaterial values, were indeed much more important than winning.

During his time with the Inuit tribe, Barger learned to engage in cultural relativism.  Cultural relativism  is the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one’s own culture. Practicing cultural relativism requires an open mind and a willingness to consider, and even adapt to, new values and norms. However, indiscriminately embracing everything about a new culture is not always possible. Even the most culturally relativist people from egalitarian societies—ones in which women have political rights and control over their own bodies—would question whether the widespread practice of female genital mutilation in countries such as Ethiopia and Sudan should be accepted as a part of cultural tradition. Sociologists attempting to engage in cultural relativism, then, may struggle to reconcile aspects of their own culture with aspects of a culture they are studying.

Sometimes when people attempt to rectify feelings of ethnocentrism and to practice cultural relativism, they swing too far to the other end of the spectrum.  Xenocentrism   is the opposite of ethnocentrism, and refers to the belief that another culture is superior to one’s own. (The Greek root word xeno , pronounced “ZEE-no,” means “stranger” or “foreign guest.”) An exchange student who goes home after a semester abroad or a sociologist who returns from the field may find it difficult to associate with the values of their own culture after having experienced what they deem a more upright or nobler way of living.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for sociologists studying different cultures is the matter of keeping a perspective. It is impossible for anyone to keep all cultural biases at bay; the best we can do is strive to be aware of them. Pride in one’s own culture doesn’t have to lead to imposing its values on others. And an appreciation for another culture shouldn’t preclude individuals from studying it with a critical eye.

Overcoming Culture Shock

Figure 2. Experiencing new cultures offers an opportunity to practice cultural relativism. (Photo courtesy of OledSidorenko/flickr)

During her summer vacation, Caitlin flew from Chicago to Madrid to visit Maria, the exchange student she’d befriended the previous semester. In the airport, she heard rapid, musical Spanish being spoken all around her. Exciting as it was, she felt isolated and disconnected. Maria’s mother kissed Caitlin on both cheeks when she greeted her. Her imposing father kept his distance. Caitlin was half asleep by the time supper was served—at 10 p.m.! Maria’s family sat at the table for hours, speaking loudly, gesturing, and arguing about politics, a taboo dinner subject in Caitlin’s house. They served wine and toasted their honored guest. Caitlin had trouble interpreting her hosts’ facial expressions, and didn’t realize she should make the next toast. That night, Caitlin crawled into a strange bed, wishing she hadn’t come. She missed her home and felt overwhelmed by the new customs, language, and surroundings. She’d studied Spanish in school for years—why hadn’t it prepared her for this?

What Caitlin hadn’t realized was that people depend not only on spoken words but also on subtle cues like gestures and facial expressions, to communicate. Cultural norms accompany even the smallest nonverbal signals (DuBois 1951). They help people know when to shake hands, where to sit, how to converse, and even when to laugh. We relate to others through a shared set of cultural norms, and ordinarily, we take them for granted.

For this reason, culture shock is often associated with traveling abroad, although it can happen in one’s own country, state, or even hometown. Anthropologist Kalervo Oberg (1960) is credited with first coining the term “culture shock.” In his studies, Oberg found that most people found encountering a new culture to be exciting at first. But bit by bit, they became stressed by interacting with people from a different culture who spoke another language and used different regional expressions. There was new food to digest, new daily schedules to follow, and new rules of etiquette to learn. Living with these constant adaptive challenges can make people feel incompetent and insecure. People react to frustration in a new culture, Oberg found, by initially rejecting it and glorifying one’s own culture. An American visiting Italy might long for a “real” pizza or complain about the unsafe driving habits of Italians compared to people in the United States.

It helps to remember that culture is learned. Everyone is ethnocentric to an extent, and identifying with one’s own country is natural.

Caitlin’s shock was minor compared to that of her friends Dayar and Mahlika, a Turkish couple living in married student housing on campus. And it was nothing like that of her classmate Sanai. Sanai had been forced to flee war-torn Bosnia with her family when she was fifteen. After two weeks in Spain, Caitlin had developed a bit more compassion and understanding for what those people had gone through. She understood that adjusting to a new culture takes time. It can take weeks or months to recover from culture shock, and it can take years to fully adjust to living in a new culture.

By the end of Caitlin’s trip, she’d made new lifelong friends. She’d stepped out of her comfort zone. She’d learned a lot about Spain, but she’d also discovered a lot about herself and her own culture.

Further Research

In January 2011, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America presented evidence indicating that the hormone oxytocin could regulate and manage instances of ethnocentrism. Read the full article “Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism” here .

Think It Over

• Do you feel that feelings of ethnocentricity or xenocentricity are more prevalent in U.S. culture? Why do you believe this? What issues or events might inform this?

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Cultural Relativism | The Ethics of Understanding Others

• June 7, 2023 March 31, 2024

Media and Communication have become an essential part of our daily lives. It is through media that we learn about different cultures and lifestyles. Cultural Relativism is a theory that plays a crucial role in understanding the media’s impact on society.

It is the belief that cultural practices and beliefs should be understood within the context of the culture in which they occur. In this article, we discuss Cultural Relativism, its importance, and how it can be applied to media and communication.

What is Cultural Relativism?

The theory of Cultural Relativism suggests that we should evaluate cultural beliefs and practices in the context of the culture in which they occur. According to the theory, there is no universal standard for morality or ethics that can be applied to all cultures. Therefore, each culture has its own set of values and beliefs. These are shaped by its history, traditions, and social norms. Therefore, the practices and beliefs of one culture cannot be judged by the standards of another culture.

The Importance of Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism is an essential theory that helps us understand and respect cultural differences. Thus, it acknowledges that each culture is unique and should be respected in its own right. In addition, it helps us to avoid imposing our beliefs and values on other cultures and promotes tolerance and understanding. However, without the theory, it is easy to fall into the trap of ethnocentrism. This is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to others. As a result, this can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and even violence.

Cultural Relativism & Media

The media is a powerful tool that shapes our perceptions of the world. It is through the media that we learn about different cultures, lifestyles, and values. However, the media can also perpetuate stereotypes and biases that can lead to misunderstandings and intolerance. Cultural Relativism can help us understand how the media portrays different cultures. Also, how we can avoid falling into the trap of ethnocentrism.

Cultural Relativism in media is about acknowledging that the media is not a neutral entity. It is influenced by cultural biases, political agendas, and economic interests. Therefore, we need to critically evaluate the media’s representation of different cultures. Also, ask questions such as: Who is represented in the media? How are they represented? What values and beliefs are being promoted? Are there any stereotypes being perpetuated?

For example, the media often portrays Muslim women as oppressed and submissive. This stereotype is not representative of all Muslim women and can lead to misunderstandings and intolerance. Cultural Relativism helps us to understand that the media’s portrayal of Muslim women is influenced by cultural biases. Therefore, we should not judge Muslim women based on this stereotype.

While Cultural Relativism is a valuable theory for promoting tolerance and understanding, it is not without its criticisms. One of the main criticisms of the theory is that it can be used to justify human rights abuses. For example, some cultures practice Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is a violation of human rights. The theory also suggests that we should not judge this practice based on our own cultural standards. Instead, view it within the context of the culture in which it occurs. However, this argument can be used to justify practices that violate human rights.

Another criticism of Cultural Relativism is that it can lead to Moral relativism. This is the belief that there are no objective moral standards. If we accept that each culture has its own set of values and beliefs, then it follows that there are no universal standards for morality or ethics. This can lead to the belief that all moral judgments are relative. This can be problematic when it comes to issues such as human rights and social justice.

Furthermore, the theory can be used to justify Cultural Imperialism . This is the belief that one culture is superior to others and should be imposed on other cultures. This is because Cultural Relativism can be interpreted to mean that we should not criticise other cultures. This can lead to a reluctance to promote universal human rights or challenge oppressive cultural practices.

Cultural Relativism is an important theory that helps us to understand and respect cultural differences. It is especially important in the field of media and communication, where the media can perpetuate stereotypes and biases. By applying the principles of Cultural Relativism, we can then critically evaluate the media’s representation of different cultures. Also, promote tolerance and understanding. Finally, it is essential that we acknowledge that each culture is unique and should be respected in its own right.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values . Sage.

Kottak, C. P. (2007). Mirror for Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology . McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Rachels, J. (1993). The Elements of Moral Philosophy . McGraw-Hill.

Shweder, R. A. (1991). Cultural Psychology: What is it? In Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 1-43). Cambridge University Press.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one’s own culture. Part of ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own race, ethnic or cultural group is the most important or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Some people will simply call it cultural ignorance.

Ethnocentrism often leads to incorrect assumptions about others’ behavior based on your own norms, values, and beliefs. In extreme cases, a group of individuals may see another culture as wrong or immoral and because of this may try to convert, sometimes forcibly, the group to their own ways of living. War and genocide could be the devastating result if a group is unwilling to change their ways of living or cultural practices.

Ethnocentrism may not, in some circumstances, be avoidable. We often have involuntary reactions toward another person or culture’s practices or beliefs but these reactions do not have to result in horrible events such as genocide or war. In order to avoid conflict over culture practices and beliefs, we must all try to be more culturally relative.

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding and valuing the practices of a culture from the point of view of that culture and to avoid making hasty judgments. Cultural relativism tries to counter ethnocentrism by promoting the understanding of cultural practices that are unfamiliar to other cultures such as eating insects, genocides or genital cutting. Take for example, the common practice of same-sex friends in India walking in public while holding hands. This is a common behavior and a sign of connectedness between two people. In England, by contrast, holding hands is largely limited to romantically involved couples, and often suggests a sexual relationship. These are simply two different ways of understanding the meaning of holding hands. Someone who does not take a relativistic view might be tempted to see their own understanding of this behavior as superior and, perhaps, the foreign practice as being immoral.

D espite the fact that cultural relativism promotes the appreciation for cultural differences, it can also be problematic. At its most extreme, cultural relativism leaves no room for criticism of other cultures, even if certain cultural practices are horrific or harmful. Many practices have drawn criticism over the years. In Madagascar, for example, the famahidana funeral tradition includes bringing bodies out from tombs once every seven years, wrapping them in cloth, and dancing with them. Some people view this practice disrespectful to the body of the deceased person. Today, a debate rages about the ritual cutting of genitals of girls in several Middle Eastern and African cultures. To a lesser extent, this same debate arises around the circumcision of baby boys in Western hospitals. When considering harmful cultural traditions, it can be patronizing to use cultural relativism as an excuse for avoiding debate. To assume that people from other cultures are neither mature enough nor responsible enough to consider criticism from the outside is demeaning.

The concept of cross-cultural relationship is the idea that people from different cultures can have relationships that acknowledge, respect and begin to understand each other’s diverse lives. People with different backgrounds can help each other see possibilities that they never thought were there because of limitations, or cultural proscriptions, posed by their own traditions. Becoming aware of these new possibilities will ultimately change the people who are exposed to the new ideas. This cross-cultural relationship provides hope that new opportunities will be discovered, but at the same time it is threatening. The threat is that once the relationship occurs, one can no longer claim that any single culture is the absolute truth.

Culture and Psychology Copyright © 2020 by L D Worthy; T Lavigne; and F Romero is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Cultural Relativism and Ethics: Ethical Issues and Context Essay

Cultural relativism theory, the cultural differences argument, the criticisms of the cultural difference argument.

Cultural relativism theory is the view that moral and ethical structures which differ from culture to culture are similarly effective. This denotes that there is no cultural structure that is superior to the other. The theory is based on the idea that there is no decisive standard considered good or evil. Therefore, every judgment about right and wrong is a product of the society. This means that we cannot learn or adopt another cultural code of standard (Rachels, 2006).

It is also imperative to use an individual’s culture to determine whether our actions are ethical or unethical. Ethics is relative because what one culture perceives as bad might be good to the other society (Rachels, 2006). This theory of culture also points out that there is no universal truth in ethics. Indeed, this implies that ethical issues are out of bounds to outsiders in a given culture and it can only be analyzed within the context of the culture in question.

It would then be wrong to judge cultural actions as unethical since no culture is better than the other and every cultural standard is guaranteed to a specific culture. Ethical subjectivism further explains cultural relativism. It states that there is no neutral truth in principles, no correct answers to ethical questions and that there are no moral queries with the right answers.

The notion of cultural relativism and culture specificity is exemplified by different life cases appertaining to various cultures that exhibit tendencies of what we might term unethical. Cultural relativism hence acts like a shield against criticism of actions emanating from a particular culture (Rachel, 2006).

Among the Eskimos, regulation of births via birth control method was not possible. As a result, the birth rate was high. This phenomenon is mostly observed in communities where food supply is unable to support a vast population. The Eskimos practiced infanticide as a way of regulating birth and the population (Rachel, 2006). Infanticide was mostly done to female children after birth to lessen the burden of providing food for the men.

Killing of children is unethical but in the Eskimo case it was a way of ensuring survival for some members. Among the Greeks it was normal for them to bury their dead fathers. In Galatians, cannibalism was practiced. They ate their dead fathers instead of burying them. In the modern American society such cases would be morally wanting and some would be considered unethical.

These similar but differently performed and interpreted cases show how ethical issues remain muddled in cultural activities. Although, these cultural differences occur, some similarities in cultures are also observed.

The cultural differences argument holds that each culture has its unique customs, worldviews and moral codes that the members of the society abide by. Cultures are imperatively understood as unique entities that can only be comprehended within their context and not from outsiders’ views. In support of these argument is the notion that there exists no bad or good culture. Cultural activities are coined to suit the demands of a certain society in a given geographical setting.

For example, infanticide among the Eskimos is a way of controlling the population due to scarcity of food resources (Rachels, 2006). This argument also states that there are no universal standards to judge what is wrong or right. Objectively, there neither radiate any good or evil nor bad or wrong since all acts within a society are restricted to the moral codes of cultures.

Therefore, there are no objectives truths in morality, no right answers to moral questions, right or wrong are mere matters of opinion that vary between cultures or groups. Rachels (2006) argues that this cultural differences argument is invalid in the sense that it lacks deductive validity and therefore cannot be proven.

Although, sociology and anthropological studies provide ample evidence about the differences in moral codes among different societies, the argument still holds no deductive validity and therefore cannot be concluded as right. Rachels also stated that the argument cannot be true due to existence of universal moral codes.

For example, different communities have different ideas about the shape of the earth. Thus, the argument holds that there is no independent truth about the shape of the earth and that the notions are views that vary from culture to culture but this does not state that the earth has no definite shape.

Rachel criticizes the cultural differences argument by stating that the argument cannot be deductively validated, although, sociology and anthropological studies among communities has provided evidence of different moral codes. Another criticism stems from the fact that the different cultures share some moral and ethical values in common; the cultural universals.

For example, all societies do not condone murder; take care of their young ones and places significance on expressing the truth. Further, the argument tries to drift away from the fact that cultures have different opinions regarding a certain issue and the conclusion that such an issue has an objective truth. The argument also discards the presence of any collective ethical values, ideals or facts that may strengthen the basis for inter-cultural comparative judgments.

For that reason, this does not mean that there are no inferior cultures in existence. It also implicates the notion that other societies are not entitled to having an ethical stand over the actions of other societies deemed unethical. Genocide and slavery practices in societies serve as good illustrations that cannot be termed as ethical within the context of other cultures.

Rachels, J. & Rachels, S. (2006). The Elements of Moral Philosophy . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.

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1. IvyPanda . "Cultural Relativism and Ethics: Ethical Issues and Context." December 14, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-relativism-and-ethics-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Cultural Relativism and Ethics: Ethical Issues and Context." December 14, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cultural-relativism-and-ethics-essay/.

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26 Cultural Relativity and Justification

Rebecca L. Stangl is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, specializing in contemporary virtue ethics. Her work has appeared in such journal as Ethics, Philosophical Quarterly, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and The Hastings Center Report, as well as edited volumes from Oxford University Press. Her current research focuses on extraordinary virtue, ordinary virtue, and their relation to right action and each other. For some of this work, see her recent “Neo-Aristotelian Supererogation,” Ethics (2016).

• Published: 06 December 2017
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Descriptive moral relativism is often thought to present a challenge for the justification of any non-skeptical normative theory of ethics. But does it present a special challenge for the justification of virtue ethics, more serious than the challenge it presents for deontological or consequentialist theories of ethics? On the one hand, and especially given its emphasis on concrete forms of life rather than abstract or universal norms, some have argued that it does. On the other hand, important strains of neo-Aristotelianism seek to ground virtue ethics in an objective account of human nature. This might suggest that virtue ethics has special resources for responding to the challenge posed by descriptive moral relativism. This chapter argues that neither of these claims is correct. Virtue ethics faces no special challenge from descriptive moral relativism, but neither does neo-Aristotelian naturalism provide any special resources for answering that challenge.

I. Introduction

That the norms endorsed by various cultures differ to some degree seems undeniable. But what follows for ethical theory from these descriptive facts is not at all obvious. For one, the depth and extent of such disagreement is controversial. For another, it is controversial whether or not the disagreement, such as it is, should undermine our confidence in the existence or knowability of universal moral norms. So the topic of cultural relativity and justification is of the first importance.

However, it is generally thought to be a meta-ethical topic, not a normative one. Whatever questions such relativity raises seem to be questions that any non-skeptical normative theory will have to answer. The inclusion of a chapter on cultural relativity and justification in this Handbook might therefore seem surprising. Virtue is a foundational concept in what has come to be recognized as one of the three major approaches to normative ethics: virtue ethics. As such, one might have assumed that a handbook on virtue would focus squarely on questions that arise within normative ethical theory.

But in fact, there are excellent reasons for its inclusion. On the one hand, friends and foes alike have often identified contemporary virtue ethics with an emphasis on concrete forms of life, rather than abstract or universal norms. Such an emphasis suggests that virtue may be tied to parochial forms of life in ways that deontological rules or universal commands to maximize utility are not. Taken to its most extreme, this suggests that a normative theory based centrally on the concept of virtue may lack the theoretical resources to justify any universal norms, or to criticize any extant cultural practices. It thus might seem to lead either to a pernicious form of meta-ethical moral relativism or moral skepticism.

And on the other hand, important strains of contemporary virtue ethics have lately exhibited a (somewhat surprising) return to some form of naturalism. And at least one goal of such naturalism seems to be to find an account of human nature capable of grounding a universal account of the virtues. If this naturalistic project were to succeed, it might lend weight to the claim that virtue ethics is not only no worse off than deontology or consequentialism as regards the challenge of cultural relativity. It might suggest that is has better resources for meeting that challenge.

In what follows, I will consider both of these claims, and argue that they are both mistaken.

II. Clarificatory Comments on Conceptual Matters

Before proceeding to either of these arguments, however, some clarificatory comments are in order. It is undeniable that there exists some degree of difference between cultures in the norms they endorse. But it is also not very interesting. If these differences concern only the application of universal norms, for example, then nothing of interest would follow. So even as concerns only descriptive facts, the philosophically interesting question focuses on the extent and depth of such disagreement.

Those who are impressed by the depth and degree of such disagreement generally endorse some form of descriptive moral relativism. The exact way such views are spelled out of course varies, but the important point they share in common is that different societies are taken to embrace different moral standards, and the differences between them are taken to be more important than any similarities they may share. This thesis is clearly at least partially an empirical one: to know whether it is true or false, we must know what norms different cultures actually endorse. But it is not only an empirical claim. Once all the facts are in, there will still remain the question of whether the disagreements in question are more important than the agreements. And this question seems not to be purely empirical: it depends also upon what are the proper aims of moral theory specifically, and moral discourse more generally.

But even for those who embrace descriptive moral relativism, it is not obvious what, if anything, follows. Disagreement abounds in scientific cases, but such disagreement is often taken to show only that one party is right and the other wrong. Likewise, one can accept descriptive moral relativism and take this to show only that some cultures are right and some cultures are wrong about the moral values they endorse. But while such a view is coherent, a number of philosophers have argued that it is not plausible. In the scientific case, they claim, there are clear standards of justification according to which some cultures are right and some are wrong. One culture, for example, may have superior empirical evidence. But in the moral case, no such explanation for the disagreement seems forthcoming. Cultures that differ profoundly over moral values need not have access to different information, nor need one of them be making some obvious mistake in reasoning from that information. Given this, there seems to be no way to rationally resolve the disagreement at issue, even if only in principle. Philosophers convinced by this reasoning thus conclude that there are no universal norms to be found in the ethical realm. 1

At this point in the argument, there are at least two different directions in which one might proceed. The first was given its classic formulation in the work of J. L. Mackie. Mackie famously endorses both descriptive moral relativism and the claim that no rational resolution of these differences is possible. But when people make moral judgments, Mackie thinks, they aspire to make universal, objective truth claims. Such is the nature of moral judgments. Because there is no way to show that one set of moral judgments is more rationally justified than any other, this implicit claim to objective truth can never be made good. So the most reasonable thing to conclude is that there are no such moral properties. From this he concludes that all moral judgments are false.

There is, however, another conclusion one might draw. Suppose one grants that there are no universally justified moral norms. Rather than conclude that there are no justified norms whatsoever, one might instead conclude that there are only relatively justified moral norms. This idea of relative justification is perfectly cogent in some circumstances: a Sicilian might rightly be judged tall in the south of Italy and short in Los Angeles. 2 Likewise, some might say, in the moral case. Polygamy might be permissible for a medieval Muslim, but impermissible for a twentieth-century Western liberal. The key point is that moral judgments are to be justified not by their relation to some universal or absolute standard, but by reference to the standards internal to various local traditions or practices. This sort of view is generally referred to as meta-ethical moral relativism. 3

I take the central question of this chapter to concern whether normative theories can meet the challenge posed by descriptive moral relativism. With the preceding distinctions in hand, I can now more clearly define what it would mean to meet that challenge. In short, it would be to show that the fact of descriptive moral relativism, such as it is, does not render non-relative justification impossible in the moral realm. Or, to put it another way: it would be to show that the fact of descriptive moral relativism, such as it is, does not imply either meta-ethical moral relativism or some kind of moral anti-realism or skepticism. Of course, this way of putting the point assumes that we want to avoid these outcomes. And one might contest that. But I take it that most defenders of comprehensive normative theories, virtue ethicists among them, do want to avoid these outcomes. My argument will be that descriptive moral relativism presents no special challenge for the justification of virtue ethics, but neither does neo-Aristotelian naturalism provide any special resources for answering the challenge it does present for normative ethics as a whole.

III. Does Descriptive Moral Relativism Present a Special Challenge for the Justification of Virtue Ethics?

In her seminal 1988 essay, “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach,” Martha Nussbaum observes that the return to virtue in contemporary ethics often seems to bring with it a turn toward relativism. 4 As exemplars of this tendency, she names Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and Philippa Foot. MacIntyre, Williams, and Foot share a suspicion of overly abstract modes of moral theory, which they associate with modern philosophy. Consequently, they champion a return to the concept of virtue, which they view as richer and more deeply grounded in actual human experience. But where Aristotle had combined this emphasis on lived human experience with an aspiration to give a single objective account of human flourishing, MacIntyre, Williams, and Foot all emphasize the importance of local traditions and practices as sources of moral justification. So even though none of these philosophers unequivocally endorses relativism, each of them makes large concessions to it. And this, Nussbaum thinks, is unfortunate. She therefore sets out to develop a non-relative account of the virtues inspired by Aristotle. I will return to this account later.

But before doing that, another question presents itself: Why should the return to virtue have brought with it a turn toward relativism? I do not mean to question Nussbaum’s interpretations of the philosophers under discussion. Particularly given the date of her essay, her interpretive claim seems justified. Since then, some things have changed. The turn in the later work of both MacIntyre and Foot toward more naturalistic bases for their ethical theories represents a turn away from relativism. Nonetheless, the sense that virtue ethics faces a special problem with relativism seems to persist. In Hursthouse’s 1999   On Virtue Ethics , for example, she takes it as one of the serious challenges facing virtue ethics as a systematic approach. 5 In the remainder of this section, I will consider three possible reasons for this suspicion, and argue that none of them gives us a reason to think that descriptive moral relativism presents a special problem for virtue ethics.

One reason it might seem that virtue ethics, at least of the neo-Aristotelian variety, has a special problem with relativism derives from a particular interpretation of the naturalism thought to undergird it. Bernard Williams, for example, understands Aristotle to be offering an account of human nature that is intended to be objective and non-evaluative, standing outside of our ethical theorizing and therefore offering an independent ground for it. 6 On Aristotle’s view, nature can both stand outside our ethical theorizing and offer a ground for it because nature is teleological. As natural occurring kinds of beings, human beings have a teleological orientation; Aristotle believes there is something human beings are for. This is taken to be a metaphysical fact about humans, independent of our desires or particular ethical evaluations. But because there is something human beings are for, we can also ground ethical norms: ethical norms are those that allow human beings to reach their telos.

This, at any rate, is one interpretation of the purpose of Aristotle’s function argument in the first chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics . 7 But, according to Williams, this argument fails. It fails because the teleological picture of nature upon which it rests is false. What modern science has shown us is that there is no naturalistic account of what human beings are for ; there is nothing to ground the account of the good life and so justify moral norms as means to its achievement. 8 We are therefore left with one of two alternatives: to accept that there is no ultimate objective grounding for ethics, or to try to ground ethics in some local tradition or practice with no claim or pretense to objectivity. So, one might conclude, neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics does have a special relationship to relativism. Aristotle hoped to ground ethics in an objective account of human nature and thereby to gain some purchase on critiquing the norms embraced by particular cultures. But post-Darwin, we know that the account of human nature he offers is not available. And so we lose whatever we had.

But the first thing to say in response to this objection is that it rests on a contentious interpretation of Aristotle. Both John McDowell and Martha Nussbaum have argued—compellingly, I think—that Aristotle never intended to give a purely objective, naturalistic grounding of the virtues from outside of all acquired normative notions. 9 So the “loss” of a purely naturalistic theory of human nature cannot constitute a problem for modern virtue ethics.

Of course, one might respond that this only shows that virtue ethics had a problem long before its modern incarnation. Without some value-free conception of human nature, virtue ethics gives up its purchase on a universal grounding for virtue. Therefore, descriptive moral relativism will raise special problems for virtue ethics after all.

But this seems mistaken. The key premise underlying this objection is in fact not at all specific to virtue ethics. The key premise is that ethics requires a completely naturalistic, non-normative, basis if it is to avoid meta-ethical moral relativism or skepticism. If this is correct, problems loom not only for virtue ethics but also, for example, for non-naturalism or intuitionism. Historically, this includes such figures as Moore and Ross; in the contemporary landscape, it seems also to include Nagel’s kind of substantive realism. 10 But Moore was a consequentialist. And Ross and Nagel are deontologists. So virtue ethics looks no worse off on these grounds than any other theory.

So if descriptive moral relativism raises a special problem for virtue ethics, it is not because of virtue ethics’ purported relationship to naturalism. But perhaps it is not naturalism that is supposed to be the problem, but the concept of virtue itself. In On Virtue Ethics , Rosalind Hursthouse grants that both deontology and virtue ethics face a threat from descriptive moral relativism with which utilitarians need not reckon. 11 In the end, Hursthouse argues that any version of utilitarianism to which this advantage applies faces decisive objections on other grounds. But why does she make this concession to begin with?

Hursthouse begins her comparative claim by noting that all three normative theories specify right action in terms of some concept to which descriptive moral relativism seems to apply. Deontologists tell us that right action is action in accord with correct moral rules or principles, but it is well known that cultures differ in what rules they endorse. Virtue ethicists tell us that right action is action in accord with the virtues, but it is well known that cultures differ in their list of which character traits are virtues (and how best to conceive of those virtues). Finally, utilitarians tell us that right action maximizes happiness, but cultures have certainly differed on what they took to be the relevant constituents of a happy life. So all three theories purport to give universally applicable accounts of right action, but all three theories are open to the worry that the concept by which they define right action is amenable only to relativistic accounts.

But in the case of the utilitarian, Hursthouse thinks, this relativism need not undermine the universal nature of its action guidance. Suppose we accept some kind of utilitarianism in which the concept of happiness is intended to be value-neutral, in which the satisfaction of just anyone’s desires or preferences counts as a good-making feature of outcomes. What we are to do, in this case, is to maximize the satisfaction of these desires or preferences. If members of one culture desire or prefer the provision of more material goods, then that counts in favor of giving them such goods. If members of another culture desire or prefer the provision of less material goods but more time for contemplation, then that counts in favor of helping them to organize their society in that way. All of this can simply be treated as an input to the utilitarian calculus, and we have no need to decide whose desires or preferences are better or worse. Not so in the case of the virtues or moral rules. In these cases, the differences between these two cultures will result not only in different inputs into some calculus from which one prescription for action can emerge, but different prescriptions for action. Thus, Hursthouse concludes that someone who accepts such a version of utilitarianism avoids any problems posed by descriptive moral relativism.

But this does not follow. It may be true that such a utilitarian does not have to worry about cultural disagreement about what makes individuals or cultures happy; she can simply incorporate that into her theory. But she certainly does have to worry about cultural disagreement about the moral importance of happiness (however it is conceived) and, what is more, about the moral importance of everyone’s happiness weighing equally in whatever moral decisions are made. For some cultures will certainly reject the claim that happiness (understood in whatever fashion) is important at all. And some others will certainly reject the claim that everyone’s happiness is equally important. They might care only about the happiness of members of their society, or even only the happiness of certain social classes within that society.

Of course, the utilitarian will view such people as mistaken. But the point is that she will then face the same question that descriptive moral relativism raises for anyone endorsing a universal, non-skeptical account of morality: Does the fact that some cultures reject her basic moral beliefs imply that they lack universal justification? This fundamental problem remains just so long as the utilitarian is putting forward universally binding normative claims that some cultures will reject, and she most certainly is doing this. Choosing to put those claims in the language of utility (even a “value-free” conception of utility) does nothing to alter that fact. So this second reason for thinking that virtue ethics faces a special challenge from descriptive moral relativism also seems mistaken.

Here is a third, and final, reason someone might think virtue ethics faces a special challenge from descriptive moral relativism: I have characterized virtue ethics as focused centrally on the concept of virtue. But the ancient theories from which it draws its chief inspiration might just as easily be said to focus centrally on the concept of happiness, or the good life. Following Julia Annas, we might go so far as to say that “any ethics based on virtue requires an account of the good life which the virtues enable us to achieve.” 12 This account need not be naturalistic—some ancients clearly thought the good life for us was one in which we transcended the limitations of human nature to whatever degree possible—but it will be some view of how a life as a whole goes well.

Suppose, as seems reasonable, that this is right. We might then argue in the following way: Virtue ethics is based, fundamentally, on a conception of the “good life.” But conceptions of the good life are notoriously subject to what Rawls called “reasonable pluralism.” 13 Given the burdens of judgment, we cannot expect otherwise rational and reasonable people to agree upon which conceptions of the good life are to be preferred. And one of the major sources of disagreement about our conceptions of the good life is precisely our different cultural traditions and practices. So any conception of ethics that is based, at a fundamental level, on such a conception will always be subject to rational disagreement. And there is no way to adjudicate the differences between them. If we hope to achieve any kind of objectivity in ethics, we would be better off limiting ourselves to a search for principles that could regulate the interactions of all rational and reasonable people, while leaving it up to them to seek the good life as they see fit. Precisely insofar as virtue ethics holds out the ambition of going beyond this, it will be subject to threat from the fact of descriptive moral relativism.

The issues raised by this line of thinking are extremely complex, and I cannot hope to solve all of them here. But for our purposes, it is not necessary to do so. Rather, I want only to observe that such an objection does not show that virtue ethics is worse off than any other comprehensive normative theory. In its Rawlsian version, the kind of contractualist reasoning that was supposed to be immune to controversy arising from competing visions of the good life was never intended to ground a comprehensive deontological ethical theory. It was rather intended to ground a political conception of justice that could be the focus of an overlapping consensus among such comprehensive theories. The contractualist theory of Scanlon is somewhat more ambitious, purporting to go beyond a theory of justice. But even Scanlon grants that it falls short of a comprehensive ethical theory. It is, rather, an account of one very important part of an ethical theory: the theory of “what we owe to each other.” So even if such contractualist reasoning is less threatened by descriptive moral relativism, this does not show that there is a comprehensive ethical theory that is less threatened by descriptive moral relativism than virtue ethics. 14

Moreover, the implicit contrast here, between relatively uncontroversial claims about “what we owe to each other” and wildly controversial claims about “the good life,” is overdrawn. On the one hand, claims about “what we owe to each” are based upon what it is reasonable to demand of one another. And the term “reasonable,” as Scanlon uses it, is avowedly a moral term. So it seems that it too will be open to cultural disagreement. On the other hand, while Scanlon grants that there is a plurality of good human lives, the pluralism is not unlimited. To count as an acceptable vision of the good life, one must recognize and incorporate the boundaries on behavior set by the morality of what we owe to each other. So Scanlon too will be making (if only implicitly) some universal claims about the “good.” When this observation is coupled with the plausible claim that virtue ethics need not insist that there is literally only one correct vision of the good life, the claim that virtue ethics faces a special problem from the facts of descriptive moral relativism looks even less plausible.

IV. Does Virtue Ethics Have Special Resources for Responding to Descriptive Moral Relativism?

So I conclude that the fact of descriptive moral relativism does not present a special problem for virtue ethics. This is good news for virtue ethicists. But might better news be forthcoming? Recent work in neo-Aristotelian naturalism might be taken to suggest not only that virtue ethics is no worse off than other normative theories in relation to the challenge presented by descriptive moral relativism, but also that it has special resources to respond to it. In particular, if neo-Aristotelian naturalism can connect virtue to an account of human nature as such, it might thereby neutralize any threat from descriptive moral relativism.

Of course, not all Aristotelians, much less all contemporary virtue ethicists, are committed to naturalism. Williams’s influential dismissal of such a project, which I mentioned earlier, is by no means exceptional. Probably no book did more to revive interest in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics than Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue . But as Aristotelian as After Virtue was in other respects, MacIntyre there famously rejects Aristotle’s metaphysical biology as incompatible with modern science. MacIntyre retains the teleological structure of Aristotle’s virtue theory, but replaces a naturalistic account of the goods that virtue allows us to achieve with a historically and socially situated account of the goods internal to particular practices and traditions. 15

Nonetheless, and more recently, there has been a turn to avowedly naturalistic approaches among some prominent neo-Aristotelians. Most significant are Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness and the third section of Rosalind Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics . 16 (And even MacIntyre has changed his tune: his Dependent Rational Animals is not a full-fledged defense of naturalism, but seems to presuppose some version of it. 17 ) Foot seeks to ground ethics in judgments concerning what she calls “natural normativity.” The idea is that all living things exhibit discernible patterns in what it means for things to go well for them, and therefore for them to flourish. A rose plant with strong roots, glossy leaves, and beautiful, fragrant, blooms is flourishing. A tiger missing a limb, unable to mate, and hungry is not flourishing. Ethical evaluation, on this view, is simply a particular species of this general form of the evaluation of living things; ethics consists in judgments of natural normativity as applied to human beings. Thus a just, compassionate, and temperate person flourishes just as a beautiful rose bush flourishes. And a person who lacks courage is like a tiger missing a limb, or a wolf that refuses to hunt with the pack. She lacks something necessary for flourishing as the kind of being she is: a rational, social animal.

To this general picture, Hursthouse adds a more detailed account of how exactly such judgments should go. In general, Hursthouse claims, the characteristics of rational, social animals such as human beings should be evaluated according to whether they promote four different ends: individual survival, continuance of the species, the characteristic pleasures of such creatures along with their freedom from pain, and the good functioning of the social group. 18 Her argument is that the virtues, understood as we generally understand them, can be justified by appeal to these four ends. If this argument were to succeed, it would show that the account of the virtues as “we understand them” is not simply an account from within our cultural tradition, but one that can be justified by appeal to an account of human nature as such. A virtue ethics grounded in this neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics would thus have a decisive answer to any challenges thought to arise from descriptive moral relativism.

Let us consider how such an argument might proceed for one of the most central of the virtues, both to Aristotle and to his followers: justice. It does seem that rational social animals, such as we human beings are, will need something like the virtue of justice. If we are to live in community, there must be some set of rules or regulations governing how we distribute scarce goods and what basic rights we accord to one another. So the virtue of justice seems to aim at the fourth end enumerated by Hursthouse: the good functioning of society. Moreover, given natural human limitations, inculcating such a virtue might well serve to promote our individual survival. If so, justice would also serve the first end enumerated by Hursthouse.

This is all very sketchy, and would require much working out. But if the details could be filled in, Foot and Hursthouse would have a decisive response to the claim that the character trait of justice is a virtue only in some cultures. Facts about human nature as such would establish that justice is our best bet for human flourishing and thus a virtue as such.

But even were we to get this far, we would have answered only part of the challenge that descriptive moral relativism presents for virtues ethics. It is true that different cultures have accepted different character traits as virtues. For example, many in medieval Europe considered humility the most admirable of all the virtues; for the ancient Greeks, however, humility would have been counted a vice. So one challenge for the virtue ethicist is to justify which character traits count as virtues, given disagreement on this point. And the naturalism of Foot and Hursthouse might provide a way of answering this challenge in the case of justice.

But cultures not only disagree on which character traits are virtues. They also disagree over the correct accounts of the virtues. Does courage, for example, require the willingness to fight in defense of one’s city? The Homeric Greeks believed that it did. But a modern Quaker might disagree. For her, conscientious objection to war might embody courage most of all. So a second challenge for the virtue ethicist is to justify particular accounts of the virtues, given disagreement on this point as well. And it is far from clear that the naturalism of Foot and Hursthouse can answer this challenge in the case of justice. For it is undeniable that differing cultures have had very different understandings of justice. Can we detect, among these differences, patterns of natural normativity such that some of these understandings promote human flourishing and some do not?

Christopher Gowans has argued very persuasively that, at least in some important range of cases, we cannot. 19 Gowans’s argument turns on the question of whether virtues such as justice and charity must incorporate what he calls “moral universalism.” Moral universalism, as he uses the term, is simply the affirmation that “each human being has moral worth or standing, and hence deserves serious moral consideration.” 20 So defined, moral universalism is compatible with partiality: we might think we owe more to our children than to strangers. But it does require that each human being has some standing, and deserves to be treated in ways that recognize that standing. At its most minimal, it might simply affirm that there is a prima facie reason not to harm any human being. For most of us, the virtue of justice incorporates some such understanding. And both Foot and Hursthouse seem to agree with moral universalism; the former writes in Natural Goodness that a virtuous person will “recognize the claim of any human being to a certain kind of respect.” 21

But not all viable cultures have recognized this. It is hard to imagine a culture surviving if it does not have some conception of justice, and therefore recognize the moral standing of (at least some) of those with whom one shares a daily life. But it is not hard to imagine a culture surviving with a radically constricted conception of justice, one that fails to recognize the moral standing of foreigners, women, or slaves. It is not hard to imagine because it has existed; we need look no further than archaic Greece for one example. And the fact that good humans have those characteristics that allow them to survive and contribute to the good functioning of their social group does not rule this out. Human beings may well be rational, social animals who can flourish only in community. But the communities they require to flourish do not appear to extend, as a matter of necessity, to all human beings as such. So the natural normativity of Foot and Hursthouse is not strong enough to rule out the restricted forms of justice in favor of the more universal ones. Presuming we do want to rule out such constricted accounts of justice, it is therefore not strong enough to meet the challenge raised by descriptive moral relativism.

There are a number of responses one might make to Gowans’s challenge. Foot and Hursthouse might argue that it is no longer true that human beings can flourish in largely isolated, small groups of human beings. The social world being such as it is, we are connected with human beings throughout the world, whether through trade, political, or religious ties. Given this, our social nature really will require us to embrace some more universalistic conception of justice.

But, at least as a response to the challenge of descriptive relativism, this answer is unsatisfying. Claims about natural normativity are supposed to be grounded in the kind of creatures we are, and those who lived in former times were not, in the relevant sense, different kind of beings. They too were social, rational animals. Given this, the affirmation of the moral standing of all human beings does not look like a deep moral fact, but a contingent application of natural normativity to our particular cultural location. This is implausible.

A more promising alternative would be to reply that, even if facts derived from natural normativity cannot take us all the way to moral universalism, they can still show that some character traits and ways of life are defective. At least in her earlier work, Foot seemed sympathetic to such a strategy. Thus, in “Morality and Art,” Foot claimed that from the very concept of morality we can derive a strict proof of some moral propositions, such as those condemning the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, but other important moral judgments, such as claims about the permissibility of abortion, will be true or false only relative to particular choices we make. 22

But adopting such a strategy not only seems like a serious scaling back of the ambitions the later Foot and Hursthouse have adopted. It also seems like less than one might have hoped for in a response to the challenge of relativism. That each human being has serious moral standing serves, for many of us, as what Rawls called an initial fixed point in our moral judgments. 23 If forced to choose between it and the naturalistic account of justification proposed by Foot and Hursthouse, we would opt for the former and not the latter.

The preceding considerations suggest that virtue theorists would do well to heed John McDowell’s advice in “Two Sorts of Naturalism.” 24 There, he argued that mere nature would never be enough to justify the outlook of the virtuous person. One has no choice but to appeal to an avowedly ethical outlook on the world. Such an outlook is acquired via a moral upbringing, and can become internalized so as to appear to one as second nature. But it is not the kind of thing that exists from a neutral, external point of view. And so it cannot serve as an external justification of the perspective of the virtuous individual.

This is not to say that an account of human nature might not do some work in helping the virtue ethicist frame her response to the challenge of descriptive moral relativism. Consider again Martha Nussbaum’s work in “Non-Relative Virtues.” 25 Following Aristotle, Nussbaum believes that we can identify certain spheres of human life that virtually all of us experience and in which we need to make choices about how to act and respond. The “thin” concepts of the virtues are simply the dispositions to act and respond well in these respective spheres. The “thick” accounts of the virtue will be a particular specification of what it means to act and respond well in that sphere. All human beings, for example, are subject to injury, illness, and, eventually, death. All of us know this, and all of us must find some way to respond and act in the face of these facts of human experience. To the disposition to act and respond well in the face of dangers Aristotle gives the name “courage.” The question then becomes what it means to act well in the face of these dangers. And different answers to this question will constitute different “thick” conceptions of courage.

The relevance of this project to answering our challenge is obvious. If Nussbaum is right that there are certain spheres of experience that virtually all human beings face, it seems she has an answer to the first part of the challenge that descriptive relativism presents for virtue ethicists: to secure agreement on the list of the virtues. Since all cultures will face these situations, all cultures will have to develop some account of how it is good to respond to them. Agreement on the list of virtues will thus be secured: everyone will agree that “courage” is a virtue just insofar as everyone has to face dangers and wants to face them well and not poorly.

This is not a trivial point. Nussbaum’s article is a response to the early work of Alasdair MacIntyre. In After Virtue , MacIntyre argues that we should retain the teleological structure of Aristotle’s theory of the virtues. But given the failure of Aristotle’s metaphysical biology, such an end cannot be discovered in human nature. Where, then, can the end be found? It is found in the goods internal to human practices such as philosophy, art, and architecture. Virtues are just those character traits that allow one to achieve the goods internal to these practices. But these practices are avowedly human constructions, and their ultimate justification comes not from their ability to successfully navigate the possibilities and limitations imposed by our shared human nature, but from standards of rationality that are internal to traditions of inquiry that have cultural histories of their own.

To many, it seems as if MacIntyre (in this early work, at least) is committed to a relativistic theory of the virtues. This is not correct. For while the justification for the particular virtues may be relative to the traditions of which they are a part, MacIntyre also claims that traditions as a whole can be rationally vindicated over and against competing traditions. 26 In the course of their development, moral traditions almost inevitably confront various problems and contradictions. Sometimes the tradition has the internal resources to solve these problems, and sometimes it does not. Suppose that it does not, and that it encounters an alternative moral tradition. If this alternative moral tradition can both solve the problem and diagnose why the first tradition cannot, then it emerges as rationally superior.

But while this account avoids relativism, it gives rise to a worry about skepticism. On the kind of tradition-based conception of inquiry that MacIntyre endorses, the bar for justifying a tradition is set exceptionally high. The justification of the individual virtues depends on the tradition as a whole, and thus requires knowledge of that tradition as a whole. But what is more, the justification of that tradition requires significant knowledge of any other live traditions that one may encounter. And how many of us can really claim to have such understanding? In the end, virtually none.

Of course, one might try to put a positive spin on this. Perhaps we all should be more cautious in claiming justification for our moral beliefs. But even so: epistemic humility is one thing. Skepticism is another. And if we can avoid the latter, it seems worth trying to do so. As an alternative to MacIntyre, Nussbaum’s use of the concept of human nature offers hope that we might. If she is right that the human condition is such that we can identify common spheres of experience, we can establish a single rational discourse about each of the virtues to which we have access in light of our shared humanity.

But even if successful, Nussbaum’s appeal to human nature is strictly limited in what it can accomplish. The appeal to human nature identifies only the “thin” concept of the virtues. To answer the question of what the correct “thick” conceptions of virtues are, Nussbaum argues that we need now to look at the detailed specifications on offer, and the arguments given in their defense. Some of these arguments, Nussbaum thinks, will be better than others. Some of these specifications will depend upon false factual claims, or rest on unsupported traditions. Moreover, we need not operate under the assumption that there must be only one correct way of dealing with each sphere of life. It might be that the correct conception of a virtue is a disjunctive one, in which a number of different conceptualizations of courage are accepted as equally valid. Finally, as Nussbaum notes, conceptions of the virtues are, on her view, always open to revision in light of new circumstances and evidence. 27

All of this is quite reasonable and helpful. But there is no claim that the correct thick conception of a virtue can be derived from human nature. Of course, if one of the thick conceptions on offer rests on false factual claims about human nature, that might eliminate it from contention. But to eliminate some possibilities is not yet to settle on the correct answers. Nor does Nussbaum claim otherwise. Rather, different accounts of the virtues can be seen as answering to common human possibilities and limitations, with no assumption that these answers will be given in purely naturalistic forms. Like McDowell, Nussbaum regards any demand that they be put in such form as anachronistic when attributed to Aristotle, and in any event unreasonable. 28

So Nussbaum’s account offers no guarantee that the virtue theorist will be able to avoid skepticism or relativism via a notion of human nature. In this respect, her project is less ambitious than Foot’s or Hursthouse’s. But if what I have argued in the preceding is correct, that project does not succeed. So perhaps Nussbaum’s less ambitious employment of the concept of human nature is to be welcomed.

V. Conclusion and Directions for Future Research

The existence of some degree of descriptive cultural relativism is beyond dispute. The implications of such disagreement are far from clear, and have been the subject of debate for as long as moral philosophy has existed. In this chapter, I have argued that whatever challenges such facts present for non-skeptical normative ethical theory in general, they present no greater challenges to virtue ethics in particular. I have also argued that neo-Aristotelian appeals to a naturalistic account of human nature cannot pre-empt such challenges.

But neither of these implies that virtue ethics does not have a distinctive contribution to make to the challenges raised by cultural relativism. In the first place, research into neo-Aristotelian naturalism is still in its early days, and so the final word on it has yet to be had. Perhaps its defenders will yet find a way to derive our most cherished moral norms from some completely naturalistic account of human nature.

But barring such developments, I suggest that virtue ethicists would do well to turn their attention away from completely naturalistic accounts of human nature and toward the virtues and vices themselves. Suppose we accept Nussbaum’s claim that an account of human nature yields not one decisive answer to the questions of how best to conceive of each virtue, but rather one rational discourse about their nature. What we need in that case are rich philosophical accounts of the particular virtues and vices, drawing both from our own lived experience and cultural traditions, as well as cultural traditions differing from our own. Only once we have these accounts in hand can we determine whether the degree of cultural relativism that exists among them is problematic. Much fine work is being done in this vein already. 29 But much remains to be done, and the field of virtue ethics is well poised to contribute to this project.

1. This argument is widespread in the literature, but the classic expression of it is given in J. L. Mackie , Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin, 1977) , chap. 1.

2. I borrow the example from Thomas Scanlon , What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 332 .

Such a view is, strictly speaking, compatible with Mackie’s claims that ordinary people intend to make universally justified judgments when they assert moral claims. If one were to grant this, one could then endorse meta-ethical moral relativism as an account of how we should make moral judgments, rather than an account of how we do in fact make moral judgments.

4. Martha Nussbaum , “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13(1) (1988): 32–53 .

5. Rosalind Hursthouse , On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) , chap. 1.

6. Bernard Williams , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) , chap. 2 and 3.

7. Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics , translated by Terence Irwin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1999), 1097b22–1098a22 .

8. Bernard Williams , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) , chap. 3.

9. Martha Nussbaum , “Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundations of Ethics,” in World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams , edited by J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 86–131 ; John McDowell , “Virtue and Reason,” Monist 62 (1979): 331–350 ; and John McDowell , “Two Sorts of Naturalism,” in Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory , edited by Rosalind Hursthouse , Gavin Lawrence , and Warren Quinn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 149–170 .

10. See, e.g., G. E. Moore , Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903) , esp. chap. 1; W. D. Ross , The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930) , esp. chap. 4; and Thomas Nagel , The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) , esp. chap. 8.

Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , 32–34.

12. Julia Annas , “Virtue Ethics: What Kind of Naturalism?” in Virtue Ethics Old and New , edited by Stephen M. Gardiner (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press: 2005), 11 .

13. John Rawls , Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) , esp. Part II.

14. Thomas Scanlon , What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) , introduction and chap. 4.

15. Alasdair MacIntyre , After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) , especially chap. 2, 14, and 15.

16. Philippa Foot , Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) ; and Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , chap. 8–11.

17. Alasdair MacIntyre , Dependent Rational Animals (Chicago and LaSalle: Open Court, 1999) .

Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , chap. 9 and 10.

19. Christopher Gowans , “Virtue and Nature,” Social Philosophy and Policy 25(1) (2008): 28–55 .

Christopher Gowans, “Virtue and Nature,” 40.

Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness , 103. Quoted in Christopher Gowans, “Virtue and Nature,” 41–42.

22. Philippa Foot , “Morality and Art,” Proceedings of the British Academy 56 (1970): 131–144 .

23. John Rawls , A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 17–22, 577–587 .

24. John McDowell , “Two Sorts of Naturalism,” in Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory , edited by Rosalind Hursthouse , Gavin Lawrence , and Warren Quinn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 149–179 .

Martha Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach.”

26. Alasdair MacIntyre , Whose Justice? Which Rationality ? (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1988) ; and Alasdair MacIntyre , Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1990) .

Martha Nussbaum, “Non-relative Virtues,” 43–45.

John McDowell, “Two Sorts of Naturalism.”

29. See, e.g., Howard J. Curzer , Aristotle and the Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) ; Gabrielle Taylor , Deadly Vices (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) ; Rebecca L. Walker and P. J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) ; and Stephen C. Angle and Michael Slote (eds.), Virtue Ethics and Confucianism (New York: Routledge, 2013) .

Annas, Julia. “Virtue Ethics: What Kind of Naturalism?” In Virtue Ethics Old and New, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner , pp. 11–29. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2005 .

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Cultural Relativism (Essay Sample)

Cultural relativism.

We all come from different cultures and therefore, have our own sets of beliefs and norms that we ascribe to. To some of us, it is accurate that we are slaves of our cultural beliefs. Often, people look at things and even pass judgement while being guided or being influenced by their cultural background. Therefore, it is indeed possible to find or say something from another culture is right or wrong or ethical and unethical especially when our cultures guide us. The above is often referred to cultural bias, and cultural relativism is the opposite of such thinking. Cultural relativism seeks to have people judge or view values, beliefs, principles, and practices within the confines of a particular culture. This means that while the norms may vary from culture to culture, everyone is right or equal simply because there is no single system which is fit enough to be used as a yardstick. Cultural relativism was born from the idea that the world lacks an ultimate standard measure of right or wrong and good or evil. Consequently, whatever people regard as right or wrong and good or evil is indeed the product of the society. Therefore, every deed in society is subject to an individual’s cultural perspective or simply an individual’s cultural background.

Currently, it appears that cultural relativism is almost upheld all over the world of course except a few societies. Today, use of words such as tolerance, pluralism, as well as acceptance has become rampant, and people are culturally creating space for others. People seem to understand each other better and are willing to seek to comprehend the workings of other cultures. To a large extent, cultural relativism has helped us to co-exist and to accommodate each other despite our diverse cultural backgrounds. People do not question or out-rightly say something is evil or good unless the action in question is universally considered good or evil.

However, it is essential to consider all factors that relate to cultural relativism. Initially, we had cultural perspective, and it brought about a willingness to seek to understand politics, history as well as psychology. People used to want to understand another culture’s actions rather than opt for the easy way out and say “we need to understand and accept the morals of other cultures.” The universal truths, lies, good as well as evil were coined because we had cultural perspective. Gradually, however, the world has moved on from seeking to understand history and psychology to simply accepting everything as it is. The world has slowly eroded the aspect of reason, and currently, it is almost impossible to categorize something as morally right or wrong.

In conclusion, it is true to say that cultural relativism has helped to become accommodative. However, it is also true that it is gradually robbing us off the ability to make or pass any judgements whatsoever. We have become more tolerant as well as accommodative to more bizarre and incomprehensible activities in the name of cultural relativism. As is always the case, people have turned what cultural relativism originally meant to something contradictory. The incorporation and global adoption of the words tolerance, acceptance, and pluralism have also helped to dilute the matter at hand. It is fair to say that absolute relativism is nearly impossible and that its basic premise of truth being relative is flawed.