Cultural Relativism
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Cultural Relativism
- Living reference work entry
- First Online: 16 December 2022
- Cite this living reference work entry
- Riti Chandrashekhar 2
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Cultural context (Brown, 2008 ); Cultural subjectivity (Pauls, 2009 ); Cultural value systems (Brown, 2008 ); Enculturation (Baghramian & Carter, 2020 )
“The view that attitudes, behaviors, values, concepts, and achievements must be understood in the light of their own cultural milieu and not judged according to the standards of a different culture. In psychology, the relativist position questions the universal application of psychological theory, research, therapeutic techniques, and clinical approaches, because those used or developed in one culture may not be appropriate or applicable to another” (APA, 2022 ).
Although for every culture some moral judgments are valid, no moral judgment is universally valid. Every moral judgment is culturally relative (Tilley, 2000 ).
The origin of the term “cultural relativism” tends to be unclear; however, there exists some evidence to suggest that the term can be traced back to the...
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APA. (2022, 15 August). APA dictionary of psychology . Retrieved from American Psychological Association: https://dictionary.apa.org/cultural-relativism
Baghramian, M., & Carter, J. A. (2020, September 15). Relativism. Retrieved from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.): https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=relativism
Brown, M. F. (2008). Cultural relativism 2.0. Current Anthropology, 49 (3), 363–383. https://doi.org/10.1086/529261
Pauls, E. P. (2009, January 16). Culture area . Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/culture-area
Robotham, D. K., Tuttle, R. H., Hanchett, S. L., Schildkrout, E., Hill, J. H., Keyes, C. F., ... Paul, R. A. (2022, April 5). Anthropology. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/science/anthropology
Spiro, M. E. (1986). Cultural relativism and the future of anthropology. Cultural Anthropology, 1 , 259–286.
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Tilley, J. J. (2000). Cultural relativism. Human Rights Quarterly, 22 , 501–547.
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Riti Chandrashekhar
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Madeleine K. Meehan
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Chandrashekhar, R. (2023). Cultural Relativism. In: Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_765-1
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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_765-1
Received : 07 September 2022
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Published : 16 December 2022
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- DOI: 10.4135/9781452276311.n51
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Cultural Relativism
- John J Tilley
- Published in Encyclopedic Dictionary of… 1 May 2000
- Human Rights Quarterly
80 Citations
Human rights: an examination of universalism and cultural relativism.
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Finally, it examines cultural relativism, its theoretical strength, its social and ethical usefulness, and its intellectual coherence helpful to prevent growing cultural intolerance globally.
In this paper I discuss how to understand cultural relativism, or the ascription of relativist views, through contrasting views common within philosophy, anthropology and linguistics.
This encyclopedia entry, which appears in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GLOBAL JUSTICE (Springer, 2011), describes and examines cultural relativism as a normative moral claim, and explores its...
To understand cultural relativism better, it can be broadly classified into three types: descriptive relativism, normative relativism, and epistemological relativism (Spiro, 1986). Descriptive relativism has its roots in the theory of cultural determinism and suggests that it is culture that shapes social and psychological characteristics ...
In this article I discuss the ethical theory of cultural relativism. In particular, I refute six arguments for that theory, each of which is ‘moral’ in this sense: it aims to associate a vice (or a …
1. INTRODUCTION. We often hear that “morality is relative to culture” or that “right and wrong vary with cultural norms.” These are rough formulations of cultural relativism,2 a theory with multiple charms, appearing rigorously scientific to some, fashion-ably postmodern to others.
Cultural relativism continues to be closely identified with anthropology even though few anthropologists today endorse the comprehensive version of it first articulated by students of Franz Boas.
Cultural Relativism' John J. Tilley* I. INTRODUCTION We often hear that "morality is relative to culture" or that "right and wrong vary with cultural norms." These are rough formulations of cultural relativism,2 a theory with multiple charms, appearing rigorously scientific to some, fashionably postmodern to others. Not surprisingly, cultural ...
If there is no transcendent ethical standard, then often culture becomes the ethical norm for determining whether an action is right or wrong. This ethical system is known as cultural relativism. {1} Cultural relativism is the view that all ethical truth is relative to a specific culture.
Rachels rejects cultural relativism because, in his view, cul- tural relativism is identical to ethical relativism, and this equation leads to an inability to criticize any society's beliefs and practices, including our own.