Cultural Relativism Research Paper

Determinism is the idea that everything we do as humans is determined by events prior to us being born and events that have happened in the past. Decisions that you may think are based on your desires, are actually based of things beyond your control. But the big question is, if determinism is

Relativism is the philosophical idea that the views and beliefs of a person are valid and relative to them. It can include many positions, whether it be religious, moral, cultural or even political. Over the course of this quarter I have been introduced to many different theories like Utilitarianism, Deontological and Teleological theories, but none of them got my attention like Normative Cultural Relativism. What’s great about philosophy is that there are no right or wrong answers, yet I cannot help but realize that many philosophers nowadays are biased about Normative Cultural Relativism. Many don’t agree and rather attack the theory which is why I intend to defend it.

In “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism”, James Rachels presents six claims that have been made by cultural relativists. One of the six claims that Rachels presents in section 2.2 of the article is that different societies have different moral codes. I believe that Rachels thinks this claim is true. Section 2.1 of the article does a good job at explaining this idea. In this section, Rachels gives several examples of the differences that can be found in moral codes of different people groups throughout time. One of the specific examples he mentions is the different burial rituals of the Greeks and the Callatians. The Greeks perform a ritual that includes burning the dead. The Callatian ritual consists of eating the dead. The Greeks and Callatians, while encountering each other, both stated that the other’s ritual was inhumane. This disagreement, according to Cultural Relativism, is okay and to be expected because the two moral codes come from two drastically different societies. A modern example of this claim is that up until recently in China, small feet were praised and larger feet were frowned upon for women. Radical efforts to prevent women’s feet from growing included foot-binding. This method of prevention caused women to constantly be in pain. Women’s foot size in the United States isn’t emphasized like the way it used to be in China. Therefore, citizens of the United States believe that Chinese foot-binding was a barbaric method, while people in China would think

Determinism is based off this notion that all events are pre-determined, without influence by human actions. If this is true, we can imply that people do not have free will and thus are not responsible for their actions. In Oedipus the King we see that the dichotomy of fate and free will is hazed by the hyperbole of events, which can make it difficult, but possible, to determine if humans even have free will. Through Oedipus’s flaws and decisions and Sophocles use of the imagery of a crossroad it is apparent that free will can be exercised in a meaningful way.

Determinism (as defined by Webster) is “A doctrine that acts of the will, natural events, or social changes are determined by preceding events or natural causes”. Likely, the most radical definition of determinism would state that all events in the world are the result of a previous event, or a combination of previous events. Within the realm of the all encompassing radical determinism there are philosophies that are somewhat better thought out or backed by science. One example of this is Genetic Determinism. We know that people are in some way determined by their genes both physically and behaviorally, as the human DNA is applied. Two categories of genetic determinism are Genetic Fixity and Innate Capacity.

Cultural relativism is the theory where there is no objective truth in morality, and moral truths are determined by different cultures. The primary argument used to justify cultural relativism is the cultural differences argument, which claims different cultures have different moral practices and beliefs, therefore, there is no objective truth in morality (Newton). After reading James Rachels The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, I find his criticisms to be persuasive because the argument made for Cultural Relativism is not sound from a logical point of view. You cannot draw a conclusion about what is factual based on what people believe is factual. Rachels also points out that even though cultures do in fact disagree about moral values,

Cultural relativism is the way society separates right from wrong within a culture. What we describe as “good” and “bad” is based off of our cultural beliefs. Cultural relativism argues that no culture is better than any other and all their beliefs are equally valid. The way that modern society is has made it possible for almost everything to be justified.

Aristotle's virtue ethics endeavor to make peace with crime and restore justice to society by forgiving the offender for his actions instead of holding resentment for that person. Ressentiment use to be involved in most of the capital punishment case. Also, it was used to sentence an offender.In order to overcome the negative of resentment we have to overcome the negative with positive virtues such as with forgiveness and mercy. Retribution is getting the victim, offender, and community together. so the victim can forgive the offender. Also, the offender gets to tell the victim how sorry he is. The virtue of passion and forgiveness for instance help us to overcome the tendency towards anger,hatred, and the desire for revenge(Williams & Arrigo,

Cultural relativism is the way society separates right from wrong within a culture. What we describe as “good” and “bad” is based off of our cultural beliefs. No culture is better than any other and all their beliefs are equally valid. The way that modern society is has made it possible for almost everything to be justified.

There are many strengths and weaknesses to virtue ethics that can be discussed, but they both have a main strength and weakness that could be talked about. One primary strength of virtue ethics is character traits this is how we use are virtues to help other people and make them better. People should have respect, love, and compassion for one another these are what a person should have in them innately to help others out because it’s the way you are instead of doing just because you should. The main weakness of virtue ethics that people argue is that it does not have focus of what is supposed to be morally right and wrong in the first place even though we know that something like murder is not moral virtue ethics doesn’t really ask this question.

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.

The general study of humans and their ways of life is called Anthropology. Anthropology have four classic subdivisions: Cultural (or socio-cultural) Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics Anthropology and Biological (or physical) Anthropology. He or she who typically had some training in each of these four classic subdivisions in fact, have connected them to one another within a large field anthropology study. Moreover, he or she can use the theoretical knowledge and findings of anthropology to solve real-world problems surrounding human beings or human customs. Anthropologist has an idea that the beliefs and practices of a culture should be understood within the context that particular culture’s background, history and current events surrounding it called Cultural relativism. The main objective of this final research paper is examining my own culture from etic (i.e. outsider’s) perspective and another culture from emic (i.e. insider’s) perspective to clearly show my personal understanding of cultural relativism. Specifically, I will examine the rites of passage in African American girls/women lived reality and effects of the intersectional race, class and gender oppression in America coupled with discussing Japanese different rituals comparison to American outlook into death and the afterlife. All in all, rites of passage are done differently and makes a difference in its own society.

Cultural relativism is one of the core concepts of anthropology. Are there any limits to this concept? If so, what are they? Is there a place in anthropology for the idea of universal human rights?

If we look at the world today, there are millions of cultures centered everywhere. With this much cultures in the world, everyone is bound to believe that they’re all different. Even though they are different in some aspects, all of them are similar to each other in some way. So if this is the case, do we as human beings have the right to judge these cultures as ethically wrong or just a cultural difference? Cultural Relativism is the belief that we cannot judge the cultural practices of other societies and that we should let them do as they please. But if we cannot judge them, does it make it right when they threaten the lives of others? Through the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, we begin to have a deeper insight this idea of

Different societies have different moral codes. Cultural relativism claims that ethics is relative to individuals, groups, cultures and societies. Relativism resists universal moral normal. The moral code of society determines what is right or wrong in that society. There’s no objective standard that can be used to judge one’s society code against another. Its arrogant to judge others cultures. We should always be tolerant of them. Cultural relativism for many people is a response to the complexity of moral issues and the number of different responses various. Groups our cultures have given to moral issues so for many when we look at just how different cultures have responded two different issues the way different cultures. All this diversity that there seems to be a response where we want to say well, maybe there isn 't some sort of absolute right or wrong maybe morality really is just relative to a different group that different people believe different things. In this paper, I will discuss the aspect of my culture from an outside perspective and discuss another culture from an inside perspective. In sociology, the principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as 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 is related to but often distinguished from moral relativism, the view that morality is relative to