Lesson 2: The Challenge of Cultural Relativism defined.

defined. Women could not own property; they could not vote or hold political office; and they
were under the almost absolute control of their husbands or fathers. Recently, much of this has
Part 2 changed, and most people think of it as progress.
What Follows from Cultural Relativism
But if Cultural Relativism is correct, can we legitimately view this as progress? Progress
Even if the Cultural Differences Argument is unsound, Cultural Relativism might still be true. means replacing the old ways with new and improved ways. But by what standard do we judge
What would follow if it were true? In the passage quoted earlier, William Graham Sumner states the new ways as better? If the old ways conformed to the standards of their time, then Cultural
the essence of Cultural Relativism. He says that the only measure of right and wrong is the Relativism would not judge them by our standards. Sexist 19th-century society was a different
standards of one’s society: “The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of society from the one we now inhabit. To say that we have made progress implies that present-
independent origin, and brought to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right.” Suppose we day society is better—just the sort of transcultural judgment that
took this seriously. What would be some of the consequences? Cultural Relativism forbids.

1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own. This, of Our ideas about social reform will also have to be reconsidered. Reformers such as Martin
course, is one of the main points stressed by Cultural Relativism. We should never condemn a Luther King Jr. have sought to change their societies for the better. But according to Cultural
society merely because it is “different.” This attitude seems enlightened, so long as we Relativism, there is only one way to improve a society: to make it better match its own ideals.
concentrate on examples like the funerary practices of the Greeks and Callatians. After all, the society’s ideals are the standard by which reform is assessed. No one, however, may
challenge the ideals themselves, for they are by definition correct. According to Cultural
However, we would also be barred from criticizing other, less benign practices. For Relativism, then, the idea of social reform makes sense only in this limited way. These three
example, the Chinese government has a long history of repressing political dissent within its own consequences of Cultural Relativism have led many people to reject
borders. At any given time, thousands of political prisoners in China are doing hard labor, and in it. Slavery, we want to say, is wrong wherever it occurs, and one’s own society can make
the Tiananmen Square episode of 1989, Chinese troops slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands, fundamental moral progress. Because Cultural Relativism implies that these judgments make no
of peaceful protesters. Cultural Relativism would preclude us from saying that the Chinese sense, it cannot be right.
government’s policies of oppression are wrong. We could not even say that a society that
respects free speech is better than Chinese society, for that would also imply a universal standard Why There Is Less Disagreement Than It Seems
of comparison. The failure to condemn these practices does not seem enlightened; on the
contrary, political oppression seems wrong wherever it occurs. Nevertheless, if we accept Cultural Relativism starts by observing that cultures differ dramatically in their views of right
Cultural Relativism, we have to regard such practices as immune from criticism. and wrong. But how much do they really differ? It is true that there are differences, but it is easy
to exaggerate them. Often, what seemed at first to be a big difference turns out to be no
2. We could no longer criticize the code of our own society. Cultural Relativism suggests a simple difference at all.
test for determining what is right and what is wrong: All we need to do is ask whether the action
is in line with the code of the society in question. Suppose a resident of India wonders whether Consider a culture in which people believe it is wrong to eat cows. This may even be a poor
her country’s caste system—a system of rigid social hierarchy—is morally correct. All she has to culture, in which there is not enough food; still, the cows are not to be touched. Such a society
do is ask whether this system conforms to her society’s moral code. If it does, there is nothing to would appear to have values very different from our own. But does it? We have not yet asked
worry about, at least from a moral point of view. This implication of Cultural Relativism is why these people won’t eat cows. Suppose they believe that after death the souls of humans
disturbing because few of us think that our society’s code is perfect—we can think of ways in inhabit the bodies of animals, especially cows, so that a cow may be someone’s grandmother.
which it might be improved. Moreover, we can think of ways in which we might learn from other Shall we say that their values differ from ours? No; the difference lies elsewhere. The difference is
cultures. Yet Cultural Relativism stops us from criticizing our own society’s code, and it bars us in our belief systems, not in our value systems.We agree that we shouldn’t eat Grandma; we
from seeing ways in which other cultures might be better. After all, if right and wrong are relative disagree about whether the cow could be Grandma.
to culture, this must be true for our own culture, just as it is for all other cultures.
The point is that many factors work together to produce the customs of a society. Not only
3. The idea of moral progress is called into doubt. We think that at least some social changes are are the society’s values important, but so are its religious beliefs, its factual beliefs, and its
for the better. Throughout most of Western history, the place of women in society was narrowly physical environment. Thus, we cannot conclude that two societies differ in value just because
they differ in custom. After all, customs may vary for a number of different reasons. Thus, there its young, the young would not survive, and the older members of the group would not be
may be less moral disagreement than there appears to be. replaced. Eventually the group would die out. This means that any culture that continues to exist
must care for its young. Neglected infants must be the exception, not the rule.
Consider again the Eskimos, who killed perfectly healthy infants, especially girls. We do not Similar reasoning shows that other values must be more or less universal across human
approve of such things; in our society, a parent who kills a baby will be locked up. Thus, there societies. Imagine what it would be like for a society to place no value on truth telling. When one
appears to be a great difference in the values of our two cultures. But suppose we ask why the person spoke to another, there would be no presumption that she was telling the truth, for she
Eskimos did this. The explanation is not that they lacked respect for human life or did not love could just as easily be lying. Within that society, there would be no reason to pay attention to
their children. An Eskimo family would always protect its babies if conditions permitted. But the what anyone says. If I want to know what time it is, why should I bother asking anyone, if lying is
Eskimos lived in a harsh environment, where food was scarce. To quote an old Eskimo saying: commonplace? Communication would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, in such a society.
“Life is hard, and the margin of safety small.” A family may want to nourish its babies but be And because societies cannot exist without communication among their members, society would
unable to do so. become impossible. It follows that every society must value truthfulness. There may, of course,
be situations in which lying is thought to be okay, but the society will still value honesty in most
As in many traditional societies, Eskimo mothers would nurse their infants over a much situations.
longer period than mothers in our culture—for four years, and perhaps even longer. So, even in
the best of times, one mother could sustain very few children. Moreover, the Eskimos were Consider another example. Could a society exist in which there was no prohibition against
nomadic; unable to farm in the harsh northern climate, they had to keep moving to find food. murder? What would this be like? Suppose people were free to kill one another at will, and no one
Infants had to be carried, and a mother could carry only one baby in her parka as she traveled and disapproved. In such a “society,” no one could feel safe. Everyone would have to be constantly
went about her outdoor work. Finally, the Eskimos lacked birth control, so unwanted pregnancies on guard, and everyone would try to avoid other people—those potential murderers— as much
were common. as possible. This would result in individuals trying to become self-sufficient. Society on any large
scale would thus collapse. Of course, people might band together in smaller groups where they
Infant girls were more readily killed for two reasons. First, in Eskimo society, the males were could feel safe. But notice what this means: They could be forming smaller societies that did
the primary food providers— they were the hunters— and food was scarce. Males were thus acknowledge a rule against murder. The prohibition against murder, then, is a necessary feature
more valuable to the community. Second, the hunters suffered a high casualty rate, so the men of society.
who died prematurely far outnumbered the women who died young. If male and female infants
had survived in equal numbers, then the female adult population would have greatly There is a general point here, namely, that there are some moral rules that all societies must
outnumbered the male adult population. Examining the available statistics, one writer concluded embrace, because those rules are necessary for society to exist. The rules against lying and
that “were it not for female infanticide . . . there would be approximately one-and-a-half times as murder are two examples. And, in fact, we do find these rules in force in all cultures. Cultures may
many females in the average Eskimo local group as there are food-producing males.” differ in what they regard as legitimate exceptions to the rules, but this disagreement exists
against a broad background of agreement. Therefore, we shouldn’t overestimate the extent to
Thus, Eskimo infanticide was not due to a fundamental disregard for children. Instead, it which cultures differ. Not every moral rule can vary from society to society.
arose from the recognition that drastic measures were needed to ensure the group’s survival.
Even then, however, killing the baby would not be the first option considered. Adoption was
common; childless couples were especially happy to take a fertile couple’s “surplus.” Killing was
the last resort. I emphasize this in order to show that the raw data of anthropology can be
misleading; it can make the differences in values between cultures seem greater than they are.
The Eskimos’ values were not all that different from our own. It is only that life forced choices
upon them that we do not have to make.

Some Values Are Shared by All Cultures

It should not surprise us that the Eskimos were protective of their children. How could they
not be? Babies are helpless and cannot survive without extensive care. If a group did not protect