Truth Is Culturally Relative

Wade Davis, a famous anthropologist, writer, explorer, and other professions, stated “The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” The quote means that because a person is not like you or your culture does not make them inferior. It makes them unique in their own way. On the other side of the spectrum is David Eller who stated “Insularity is the foundation of ethnocentrism and intolerance; when you only know of those like yourself, it is easy to imagine that you are alone in the world or alone in being good and right in the world. Exposure to diversity, on the contrary, is the basis for relativism and tolerance; when

Some claim that truth does not exist. Others claim that truth is subjective. To make any progress in searching for the true world-view, a person must presuppose that truth is real. In fact, even the person who claims that truth does not exist is making a statement that they believe is true. For their statement to be true, truth must exist. In addition, the person who claims that truth is subjective is making a contradictory statement. If truth is subjective, then their statement can be false. If their statement is false, then truth is objective and absolute. If truth is objective and absolute, then their statement is most definitely not true. So, what is truth? For the sake of determining what is true, truth must be defined as the objective, absolute reflection and affirmation of reality that is supported and not contradicted by fact and logic. This leads to the question of how to determine what is true. A few foundational truths help to determine what else is true. One of

Have you ever had such a yearning for knowledge? If a person is taught from a young age, what is told to be the “truth”, he or she will be less willing to hear out any other form of the truth. Learning the difference between knowledge and truth is a hard task to accomplish. Especially if society restricts whom is allowed to gain any knowledge. As a person gains more knowledge, he or she is able to distinguish knowledge from truth.

Imagine going through life learning and following what is believed to be the true , just to find out that it is a lie. In the story “ By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet the narrator, John is on a quest to find more knowledge, however he ends up discovering unexpected truths on his journey that affects his lifelong beliefs. The story leads the reader to an interesting question: what is the relationship between knowledge and truth? Knowledge is the education or information that is gained about a subject, idea, or experience. Gaining knowledge is often helpful and rewarding to a person, however the information or facts that is received is not always the truth.

Truth, what is truth? This question itself has a thousand answers, no person can ever be sure of what truth is rather, truth can be justified, it can checked for reliability with strong evidences and logic. If the evidence proves to be accurate then it can be established that a certain answer is the truth. However, have we ever tried to think about what intrigues us to seek the truth? To think about a question and set foot firmly on the path of knowledge. Definitely it has! That was the very cause itself which is why this world has witnessed some of the greatest philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates etc. along with the school of thought. The ability to think and reason is one of the greatest ability humans have, it is what

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

What is your understanding of “ truth” after your study of conflicting perspectives and their representation?

Moral and values is some of the things we learn as we grow up and these morals and values we learn from our parents and friends and also from our cultures and some of them you get to develop them as you grow up. The is so many ways to develop ones morals and values and cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism is of those ways that are used to develop morals and values.

Would-be culture-neutral standard Rachels suggests: "whether the parctice promotes or hinders the welfare of the people whose lives are affected by it." (p. 28)

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.

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.

For that reason, truth differentiates among individuals thorough their contrasting opinions. But, truth is something that everyone believes to be correct. Thus, it greatly depends on what’s true in the minds of the people. On the contrary, truth that’s spoken with bad intent is considered to be worse than a lie. Hence, truth is an expression, symbol or statement that corresponds to reality and happiness.

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?

In this paper I will discuss Cultural Relativism and argue that the cultural difference argument is not a sound one, because its premise does not prove or disprove its conclusion. Further, I will use this to prove that morals can be objectively true and do not have to change on a culture to culture basis. Cultural Relativism theorizes the nature of morality and whether moral truths are correct even if they are not agreed on across all cultures.