Cultural and Ethical relativism?

Question

I am taking a Moral Philosophy course, and one of my answers will be to use the terms we've learned and the prof. mentioned use Ethical and/or cultural relativism to answer questions. Aren't these meanings the same thing, or is there a difference? Help, please.

Answer 1

I think there is a little bit of difference between them. Both deal with how our behaviors are shaped. Cultural relativism deals more with, well, cultural issues. Issues of tradition, social norms, etc. Different cultures means you have different external influences on peoples' thinking and behavior.

Ethics deals more strictly with the laws that govern how we relate to each other. While ethics may be influenced by culture, they can also stand alone, and can deal with issues that culture has no say over.

An example of cultural relativism might be how women are treated in society. In much of American culture it is mostly taboo to regard women as inferior, whereas in some 3rd world nations it is considered an accepted norm. Ethical relativism I think operates on a more individualistic, less societal level than culture. It might include how two people (even from the same culture) deal with the temptation of wrongdoing.

Answer 2

There are no universal criteria by which to judge one "set of values" against another.

Cultural or Moral values, cultural or moral relativism.

The essence of relativism is that culture and morality are subjective truths, that is, there are no rational criteria, only personal preference. What is good in one society's ethos might not be good in another.

For example, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Yet in his time slavery was not considered evil. Therefore, we can't say that it was evil then to own slaves, and we can still say that TJ was a good person. (I would argue against this by saying that it was evil then and is now, but because of his social conditioning TJ wasn't necessarily fully culpable of the sin).
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The problem of relativism is that it is incapable of condemning an evil society. Our society prefers to put pizza into ovens, others in times past have preferred to put Jews into ovens.

(HINT: there actually is a rational basis by which to judge a culture/moral act, and that is to what degree it brings one to fulfill that purpose-for-which one was made.)