Rachel's Three Implications Of Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the thesis that there is no universal truth within ethics. This can also be explained that one’s culture determines what they see as right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, or even normal or not normal. For example, most are aware that many cultures view eating insects as a delicacy. However, in the United States culture, this seems odd and the majority of the population would not be okay with practicing this. In this example, neither culture can look at the other and deem the other as right or wrong. This is because each culture's practices are unique to themselves and cannot be judged by those who do not practice it. The example previously explained also depicts why so many accept cultural relativism. They accept …show more content…
He basically points out that the relativist sees that since there are differences between cultures, we cannot judge which is better. Rachels also presents three implications of cultural relativism. These are problems he finds within the argument for why cultural relativism makes sense. His first implication is that if cultural relativism is true, we cannot claim that our moral code is morally superior to others. This is because if we were to compare our moral code with another in order to see that ours is superior, we would be viewing the two cultures as the same, that there are no differences within the situations the two are …show more content…
This is because if we look at two cultures, they are completely different. They do not live in the same area, they do not have the same resources, and they have many different ideas of how life should be lived. This is because of the resources they have due to their location and the way they have learned how to survive. You cannot look at one culture, such as that of the modern day United States, who have very advanced technology and every resource imaginable right at their fingertips, to that of a third world country, who do not even have running water in their homes. If one was to compare the two and deem one superior, they would both have to be living under the same exact conditions, which is literally impossible.
The cultural relativist would also point out that you actually can deem what is right or wrong morally by checking your moral code. You can do this because even though your situation may cause you to believe you shouldn’t follow the moral code of your culture, it does not change the fact that you should still chose to follow your culture's moral code. This means even though you felt that you could have lied to the murderer asking where your friend was when they wanted to kill them, it does not mean you should have made the choice to lie in such an