Essay On Cultural Relativism

The theory of cultural relativism is based on a valued judgment between beliefs, culture, and religion. However, cultural relativism incorrectly answers the question, “What is right?” since there is no right or wrong when considering validity. Cultural relativism creates a belief that is the “highest standard” and there should be no biased opinions. Certain cultures tend to believe that they are superior to others. As a result, the different customs that exist are not said to be incorrect or correct and for that our opinions are analyzed with judgment. One’s actions should be evaluated by society rather than one’s culture. In order to understand why the theory of cultural relativism cannot answer the question of “what is right?”, it is criticized by the law of contradiction and the anthro-arrogance. The law of contradiction, founded by Aristotle, states that if an item is a pen, then a rock could not have been a pen. They are two different objects that cannot be the same, making it impossible to be right. This idea demonstrates that object A could not equate to being object B as they are both in different forms. For example, young females in certain cultures follow the tradition of having their clitoris removed as a cultural belief that women should not be allowed to experience pleasure from sex. If one group believed that women
All of these past judgments are a prevailing notion of society. People’s actions should follow their own personal beliefs and not what society regards as appropriate. Each individual’s judgment is not always a matter of justice or what is proper. Two or more cultures cannot have different ideas in the same aspect and say all opinions of what is right is correct. This comes to the understanding that all humans are arrogant. Cultural relativism will never be able to regulate what is right and what is not