Cultural Relativism
... Cultural relativism as a moral theory is right, and should be taken notice of. ... One argument against cultural relativism put forward by James Rachels is that what is believed to be true is not always true. ... Another argument put forward by James Rachels is that being a cultural relativist means that you cannot criticise or argue against the beliefs and systems put into place in other cultures (Rachels, 1999, 25). This argument tries to get the cultural relativist into a bind. Giving fairly descriptive examples of practices abhorrent in most western cultures, he is trying to dissuade people from thinking that all cultural practices of another culture are right. ... A cultural relativist cannot argue against the moral practices of another culture without being a hypocrite. ... The other main confusion of Cultural Relativism is the question: ”What counts as a Culture? ... He introduced the character of Rosie whom he depicts as a naïve cultural relativist attempting to solve an argument when contributing nothing worthwhile. ... ” (Blackburn, Relatively Speaking) It’s a bit of a stretch to believe that Genghis and Simon are cultures in their own right- that’s more along the lines of subjectivism rather than cultural relativism.