Cultural Relativism By Eskimos

The authors describe cultural relativism in this chapter. They explain cultural relativism with some examples such as Callatians, who lived in India and ate the bodies of their dead father, and Eskimos, who are native people of Alaska and had distinct moral codes, such as marriages, sexual practices, and infanticide. For instance, infanticide was common in Eskimos’ society of the early and mid-20th century. The customs seemed that they had little respect for human life. So, the two examples seem to show that there are big differences between one's moral codes and others. However, Eskimos had reasons why they did it, even thought they might have wanted to raise their children. They lived in hard environment, where food was scare, and were nomadic.
On the other hand, killing their children would not be their first choice, not due to a fundamental disregard for children. Their custom of infanticide does not mean that they valued human life even though most people might be unacceptable of the custom. The distinct societies must have distinct customs. Thus, the authors claim that there are no differences in value even though we have distinct belief. Moreover, all society cannot exist without prohibition, in fact, not every moral rule can vary from society to society. Therefore, the authors describe cultural relativism that distinct societies have different moral codes which determines what is right within the society, and has no special status. And, against other moral codes, there is no objective standard in order to judge one’s moral codes as better than others. Cultural relativism often applies the cultural differences argument. The cultural differences argument means that distinct cultures have different moral codes, so every society cannot judge whether other moral codes are right or not in morality because right or wrong depends on a matter of opinions which differs by