Cultural relativism

Cultural relativism says that good and bad are relative to culture. What is ‘good’ is what is ‘socially approved’ in a given culture.

William Graham Sumner, in his view on cultural relativism as: Everything in the mores of a time and place must be regarded as justified with regard to that time and place.

In other words the concept of cultural relativity is the positions that ideas, actions, and objects should be evaluated by the norms and values of the culture in which they are found rather than by another culture’s norms and values.

Cultural relativism is an argument against the universality of ethical theories. It argues that:
*Different societies have different moral codes
*There is no objective or universal truth in ethics or morals
*Therefore, what is determined to be moral is solely determined by one’s own culture

The idea of cultural relativism denies the applicability of universal principles of justice but what principles should take their place in international affairs is by no means clear.
Cultural relativism