Human Rights Quarterly 22 (2):501–547 (2000)
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Abstract |
In this paper I refute the chief arguments for cultural relativism, meaning the moral (not the descriptive) theory that goes by that name. In doing this I walk some oft-trodden paths, but I also break new ones. For instance, I take unusual pains to produce an adequate formulation of cultural relativism, and I distinguish that thesis from the relativism of present-day anthropologists, with which it is often conflated. In addition, I address not one or two, but eleven arguments for cultural relativism, many of which contribute to its popularity but receive scant attention from its critics. To elicit the failings of these arguments I deploy a host of pertinent but often neglected distinctions.
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Keywords | cultural relativism moral relativism ethics and anthropology |
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Cultural Relativism.John J. Tilley - forthcoming - In George Ritzer (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 3rd Edition.Jack Donnelly - 2013 - Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
A Pluralist Approach to ‘the International’ and Human Rights for Sexual and Gender Minorities.Po-Han Lee - 2021 - Feminist Review 128 (1):79-95.
Putting Values in Context.Mostafa Saket - 2022 - Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies 31 (2):1-9.
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