Central Argument In Favor Of Cultural Relativism

This paper serves to argue in favor of cultural relativism, which claims that the correct moral standards are relative to a certain culture or society. This argument suggests that “an act is morally acceptable just because it is allowed by the guiding ideals of the society in which it is performed, and immoral just because it is forbidden by those ideals” (Landau, 2001). I will first present cultural relativism and its implications. As we move past the central argument, I will present a series of criticisms on both things that are in favor of cultural relativism and things not in favor of it. The central argument for cultural relativism successfully establishes and enforces the fluidity and multitude of cultures and diversity there are, in different places around the world. Are moral standards relative to the individual or the society? Cultural relativism answers that an individual’s beliefs and actions should be evaluated from that individual’s society perspective. If this is broken
James Rachels in his chapter “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” explains these critiques: “Does it follow, from the mere fact that they disagreed, that there is no objective truth in the matter? No, it does not follow; for it could be that the practice was objectively right (or wrong) and that one or the other of them was simply mistaken.” This reasoning explains that just because one society deems a practice true and another deems it false, this does not mean that there is no objective truth. To portray this, we can consider a scenario. In Society A, the people believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In Society B, the people believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. There seems to be a disagreement at hand. Per cultural relativism, there is a stalemate, in which case, does it follow that there is no objective truth because societies A and B disagreed? To that, we must answer