What Is Ethical Relativism

Ethical relativism is the theory that morality is relative to the norms of one's culture. That is, the moral norms of the society practiced depend on whether an action is right or wrong. But, the problem with moving from cultural perspective to cultural relativism is rather than saying, “we need to understand the morals of other cultures,” it says, “we cannot judge the morals of other cultures,” regardless of the reasons for their actions. The same action may be right in one society but be wrong in another. Thus, you cannot judge another's culture if you do not understand it. You would have to be apart of the culture to comprehend motives and beliefs to judge them. It is the only way you can understand as someone of a different culture. As cliche as it is, it's almost like they can't know any better.
We read articles like this and most of us think of how inhumane it is.
When things like this happen in our culture there is often outrage and news coverage for a week or so. I have little tolerance for any sort of behavior like this to another human being. However, it becomes gray when you try to inflict judgement or punishment from, let's say, an American standpoint. It does not work because those brought up in the Pakistani culture do not possess the same sort of thought process as someone born and raised in America. They were not brought to have the same morals and expectations we have in American culture. For example, in the Catholic church to consider something a sin there must be full knowledge and complete consent. But, this could mean they do not have full knowledge of immoral things they're doing - so can we call them
sinners?

The contradiction of cultural relativism becomes immediately clear. A society that embraces the notion that there is no ultimate “right” or “wrong” loses the ability to make any judgments at all. Tolerance has mutated to imply unconditional support and agreement for all opinions or lifestyles. However, we don't support those who choose to be “intolerant”. Tolerance, therefore, becomes an “ultimate good” in and of itself, which is contradictory to the entire idea of relativism. In the same way, crimes such as rape and murder demand a moral judgment - but strict cultural relativism cannot say that such things are always wrong.

However, at an attempt to appeal to an understanding, I do feel that this behavior taking place in other cultures is a lot easier to condemn. If this sort of action took place in the United States, there would be more room for moral obligations because you're not in your niche anymore. In our culture that is not acceptable. As mentioned if you try to judge or commit an act that does not align with the culture, there will be some form of backlash. In this case, if someone does this in America they usually end up behind bars.