In Defense Of Cultural Relativism

Anthropological methods are bad ethics

Many people make the obvious argument against cultural relativism—the idea that morality must be understood within its own cultural context and not judged by the standards of your own culture.

Cultural relativism, they point out, is self-defeating. “You should only judge other cultures by their own standards” is a moral belief, and therefore according to cultural relativism you can’t judge other cultures for not sharing it. As Charles Napier said, “This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.” Q.E.D.

I agree that cultural relativism in this sense is both stupid and believed by a remarkable number of people who haven’t thought much about their moral beliefs. I also agree that cultural relativism has been used by many powerful people to justify their authoritarianism and oppression. “Oh, actually, the seclusion of women is our culture, so it’s fine that women are never allowed to leave the house.” (The women, naturally, don’t get consulted about what the culture ought to be.)

But as a cursory glance at the Wikipedia page will show you, cultural relativism was originally developed by anthropologists for the purpose of doing anthropology. And although it is a terrible moral belief, I think cultural relativism is a good methodological approach.