Ethics 01 - Cultural Relativism


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Cultural relativism (CR) says that good and bad are relative to culture. What is "good" is what is "socially approved" in a given culture. Our moral principles describe social conventions and must be based on the norms of our society.

These questions are about Chapter 1 of Harry Gensler's Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge: 1998 and 2011).

Cultural relativism basics

Cultural relativism holds that "good" means what is "socially approved" by the majority in a given culture. Infanticide, for example, isn't good or bad objectively; rather it's good in a society that approves of it but bad in one that disapproves of it.

Cultural relativists see morality as a product of culture. They think that societies disagree widely about morality and that we have no clear way to resolve the differences. They conclude that there are no objective values. Cultural relativists view themselves as tolerant; they see other cultures, not as "wrong," but as "different."

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This set has 30 problems.