Is Cultural Relativity valid?

It is particularly important for cultural anthropology. You try and understand why people behave as they do not judge their behavior.

"Valid" in what sense?

Valid, as in a working method for dealing with and understanding other cultures.

It doesn't work too well for that, actually. It doesn't help with studying other cultures, because there's no standard against which to compare. It doesn't help with social activism, because, well, it's all relative.

In general, you try to walk the fine line between ethnocentricism and cultural relativisim. Both are a little too extreme to be of any use, but there's a happy medium in there somewhere.

I say it's valid. Why would you need an alternative with which to compare rufio?

Because science is useless unless you can draw conclusions about what you are studying, no? Saying everything is relative does not further our knowledge of anything.

The reason I asked was in light of the antithetical belief systems espoused in America and the Arab world...and how one school of thought is claiming moral superiority over the other on what seems to be relative grounds.

Ahh, well then you're talking about moral reletivism, not cultural relativism. Culture is not morality, they're not even in the same ballpark.

Re: Is Cultural Relativity valid?
Cultural relativity is valid because it is the only way to observe different cultures. The observer is already a factor of reference. I cannot see how could someone forget his own cultural patterns in order to observe with "objectivity" another culture. Besides, most cultures are related.
We must try to analyse a culture regarding it's own specificity, but it will always be impossible to make an interpretation that isn't "contaminated" by the cultural patterns of the observer.

Candidone1 wrote:



I wonder whether it's accurate to say that the two contenders here really have "antithetical belief systems." They may have different cultural values as regards methods of operation to achieve their ends. But are those ends really so different?

But that's not really responsive to the question, is it? In brief, I think that, yes, cultural values have to be taken into consideration when passing judgement on the mores and folkways of any given society. It is ludicrous to label an entire society immoral, for example, jsut because polygamy has been a practice established for millenia. It would be equally silly to denounce all Christians as sinners because they will eat pork.

Val, cultural relativism has nothing to do with how the culture is studied, only how it is interpreted. Postmodern approaches to anthropology, where the cultural identity of the observer is reflexively taken into account are actually the new vogue - but cultural relativism, where we say that no one can make value or moral judgements on any part of a culture, is generally looked down on.

MA, generalisation that "a culture is immoral" is the opposite extreme to cultural relativism. You wouldn't want to say that x culture is "immoral" because the people practice, say, female circumcision, but you wouldn't want to say that you can't pass judgement on the femal circumcision itself because all things are relative.

Culture Relativism is good to see how the culture thinks, but not good on making objective conclusions.

On the morality, one can label certain actions of the culture immoral, etc.
Generally speaking, I think that most cultures do have a common moral ground, but it's just that some make exceptions and that's basically the problem.

Rufio
If you make value or moral judgements on any part of a culture, those values are yours, values we received from your own culture.
I don't care what is in vogue. But would you apply christian values to make moral judgements about, let's say, the state city of Sparta? What would your point of reference be to establish those judgements?

Culteral realtivity only works for objective questions. Describing what is going on rather than what aught to go on is the only way to use culteral relativity. You can make statements like - culture X finds Y to be a very worthwhile goal - that is a valid objective culterally relative statement.

But the second you ask - is what Culture X finds as a good goal actually good? - that is an ethical question. The only anwer the the realtivist has to that question is - To them? Yes.

If you seek to evaluate normative claims of a culture you can not do this inside a culterally realtive mindset.

TF

Val, cultures are not homogenous things. Often there are different groups in a single "culture" that have different thoughts about different practices. If cultural practice A is considered good by group A, and bad by group B, for whaver reason, you can't use relativism to determine whether or not it really is healthy for the society or not. Take our own culture for example. Is smoking a good thing? Lots of people like to smoke, despite damaging effects, and it's a part of social life for many people. Some people are really opposed to smoking. So how do you analyze the effect of smoking on the culture as a whole? You can't, relatively. You have to look at the objective reasons why one group likes it and why another doesn't. Everything is relative in that it is in a context, but certain things taken in certain contexts are definitiely not right. For instance, slavery. Genicide. I'm sure you can think of more.

If you actually believe in Christian values, then you would apply them to anywhere. If you think something is wrong, then it is wrong anywhere. Of course, you have to look deeply into what is going on to determine morality.

If you believe that it is good to help your fellow man, then that pretty much applies in all cases. But if you think, say, it is pretty much always wrong to murder someone in the United States, you might not be able to apply it to a different society. Maybe the society has rampant crime and no system of prison or punishment. In this case, if might be OK to murder big-time criminals to save the society from crime. But this difference is not based on cultural beliefs, it is based on cirumstance. If the US developed the problem this society has, then murder might become OK there. If that society developed a prison system, murder would not be OK.

Moral relativism between cultures is in a way an exaggeration of the fact that morality depends on circumstances, and different cultures exist in different circumstances.

Catquas

To me it is not a question of right or wrong. The problem is that you cannot describe - and obviously make judgements - about a culture without envolving yourself, your own cultural belief.

TTF

What do you mean by "objective questions"? Do you mean that describing Sparta society, is describing something objective? And making moral judgements about Sparta is something subjective?
I don't see any difference.