John Rachels The Challenge Of Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism is a rule of behavior. It restricts a natural instinct to judge, sort, and distinguish loosely and forbids any form of action. John Rachels’ The Challenge of Cultural Relativism outlines and attacks the theory of cultural relativism. He pays particular attention to the results of Cultural Relativism, and employs various examples to poke holes in the argument. What is important to remember is that his argument must exist under the assumption that a standard of morality that can transcend social differences exists. The three consequences of Cultural Relativism that Rachels identifies are not enough to reject the argument because the transcultural standard his examples rely on cannot be proven to exist.
Cultural relativism subscribes to the idea that all cultures have unique, individual moral codes. As legend has it, a king of Persia was fascinated by the moral differences he noticed the varied with each culture he was …show more content…
Surveying every society on Earth and finding common threads is a way of achieving this, however it is unlikely that there will be a universal moral standard that every society in the world, in all their backgrounds and experiences, hold in high esteem. If a moral framework was presented as being divinely it would be unwise to be anything less than skeptical because there is no being without their own perspective and agenda. One rule cannot possibly apply because a person or thing capable of creating it does not exist. Yes, Relativism justifies things that are widely agreed upon to be terrible based on the belief that morality is subjective. However, it holds morality itself accountable for its worldwide inconsistencies and intangibility. Rachels and others may argue against it and they’re points are valid but it remains unfitting to judge the morality of one culture using the framework of