Is Cultural Relativism Morally Permissible?
Cultural relativism is the moral theory that states that morality is created together by many individual groups of humans and morality therefore is not fixed, but rather varies from culture to culture, peoples, and different contextual situations. Cultural relativism preaches that certain practices are always morally permissible for a culture as long as the members of the culture see it as morally right. For example if a culture has a traditional custom that believes it’s okay for them to eat the bodies of deceased family members than it’s morally permissible because morality isn’t objective for all groups throughout the world and varies throughout. That group that believes it’s permissible to eat the bodies of deceased family members created morality for their
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So therefore, there is no objective truth in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture”(Rachel’s, 698). Rachel’s rejects this argument because the premise of this argument is a descriptive claim but the conclusion is a normative claim. Descriptive claims are facts about what is actually the objective truth in the world, and normative claims are facts about what ought to be the case in the world. For example just because a group of people believe it’s morally permissible to practice same sex acts doesn’t mean it’s a descriptive fact of the matter. There’s no objective truth that same-sex behavior is morally permissible or morally impermissible. Just cause it’s descriptively true that there are societies that continue to accept it doesn’t mean that it’s the case that societies out to continue to allow same sex behavior. None of these societies are either right or wrong. The premise of the cultural differences argument is a descriptive claim and the conclusion is a normative claim therefore making it an invalid
So therefore, there is no objective truth in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture”(Rachel’s, 698). Rachel’s rejects this argument because the premise of this argument is a descriptive claim but the conclusion is a normative claim. Descriptive claims are facts about what is actually the objective truth in the world, and normative claims are facts about what ought to be the case in the world. For example just because a group of people believe it’s morally permissible to practice same sex acts doesn’t mean it’s a descriptive fact of the matter. There’s no objective truth that same-sex behavior is morally permissible or morally impermissible. Just cause it’s descriptively true that there are societies that continue to accept it doesn’t mean that it’s the case that societies out to continue to allow same sex behavior. None of these societies are either right or wrong. The premise of the cultural differences argument is a descriptive claim and the conclusion is a normative claim therefore making it an invalid