One problem with Cultural Relativism is that it does not allow for the possibility for a culture to make moral progress.

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The statement present in the question is: 'One problem with Cultural Relativism is that it does not allow for the possibility for a culture to make moral progress.'

To evaluate this, first consider what Cultural Relativism (CR) claims: moral norms and judgments are determined by the standards of each culture, and there is no objective, universal morality that overrides these cultural norms.

Option analysis:
- True: This assertion points to a standard critique of CR. If morality is entirely determined by cultural norms, then there is no accessible outer benchmark to judge a culture as morally better or worse. Consequently, reform or progress within a culture would be reframed as mere internal change rather than universal progress, making genuine moral improvement across cultures hard to evaluate or endorse from a neutral standpoint. This is the core worry: CR can seem to block the idea that some practices may be morally wrong even if they are culturally endorsed, because there is no external standard to appeal to for moral advancement.

- False: If one argued that CR does permit moral progress, they would need to claim that progress is defined entirely within a culture’s own standards. This could allow a culture to improve by its own lights (e.g., abolishing a practice, expanding rights) without appealing to universal norms. However, this is often seen as a weakened or contested reading of CR, and many philosophers regard the standard CR position as making cross-cultural progress assessment and external condemnation difficult. The common critique centers on the tension between recognizing internal reform and acknowledging morally abhorrent practices when there is no universal yardstick.

In summary, the statement highlights a widely discussed limitation: CR’s framework can seem to preclude objective judgments of moral progress across cultures, since it relies on cultural norms as the sole standard. This is the essence of the identified problem and is why many ethics texts categorize this as a flaw of Cultural Relativism.

PHIL 220-001 Quiz: Rachels "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism"

One problem with Cultural Relativism is that it does not allow for the possibility for a culture to make moral progress.

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