Are Values Relative to Culture?

Harry J. Gensler and Mary Grace Tokmenko

First published in Dialogue Magazine August 2007

Hi, my name is Vera. I’m a student at Camford University, near my home in Liverpool. I recently got back from a term abroad in South Africa. My younger sister Relativa was especially happy to see me and asked if I’d like to proof-read an essay she was writing for school. I agreed and retreated to a back room to read her paper.

A Defence of Cultural Relativism

My sister’s essay defended cultural relativism (CR), which says that moral judgements merely describe social conventions. She expressed CR’s central claim in a definition:
“Good” means what is “socially approved” in a given culture.

If I say “Racism isn’t good,” I’m saying it isn’t socially approved in my culture. Each society has its own values. Things are good or bad, not objectively, but only relative to the values of a given society.

I read Relativa’s essay a couple of times, trying to get clear on what she was claiming and why. She rested her case on (a) the diversity of values between cultures and (b) the impossibility of resolving moral disputes between cultures.
Regarding diversity, Relativa recounted that she had been brought up to believe that morality is about objective facts. Just as snow is white, so also infanticide is wrong. But she gave this up when she learned how cultures disagree about morality. I highlighted these words in her paper:

Our values come from our upbringing. Mom and Dad teach us that it’s wrong to kill infants, and society later reinforces this teaching. These values become part of us. So we see “Infanticide is wrong” as an objective fact. But later we learn about other cultures. We discover that the norms we were taught are the norms of our own society; other societies have different ones. Just as societies create different styles of food and clothing, so too they create different moral codes. Morality is a cultural construct. In some societies, like ancient Rome, killing infants was perfectly acceptable.

From this diversity of values, Relativa concluded that values are relative to culture:
Right and wrong are relative. Think of it this way: a thing cannot be “below” absolutely; it’s always below something else. The same story goes for values; something isn’t “wrong” absolutely, but only “wrong in” this or that society. Infanticide might be wrong in one society but right in another. So when I call infanticide “wrong,” this just means that my society disapproves of it.

So a value judgement always has an implicit reference to a given society. Now some dispute this and claim there’s an objective truth about the morality of infanticide. Relativa rejected this, since she thought there was no neutral standpoint for resolving moral disputes between cultures:
The myth of objectivity says that things can be good or bad “absolutely” – not relative to this or that culture. But how can we know what is good or bad absolutely? How can we argue about infanticide or other things without just presupposing the standards of our own society? People who speak of good or bad absolutely are absolutising the norms of their own society. They take the norms they were taught to be objective facts.

Relativa then talked about tolerance:
“As I’ve come to accept cultural relativism, I’ve become more tolerant of other cultures. I’ve given up the attitude that “we’re right and they’re wrong.” I’ve come to realise that the other side isn’t “wrong” in its values; it’s just “different.” We have to see others from their point of view; if we criticise them, we’re just imposing the standards of our own society. We cultural relativists are more tolerant.”

She ended by saying that those who believe in the “myth of objectivity” need to study anthropology or perhaps “live for a time in another culture.” That last point struck home, since I had just spent several months immersed in another culture; and yet I did not believe in cultural relativism.

I was impressed with my sister’s essay. Little Relativa was starting to struggle with important issues. I had similarly found cultural relativism attractive a few years earlier; but I came to see problems with the view when I focused on it more clearly.

Problems with Cultural Relativism

When Relativa asked how I liked her essay, I smiled and said: “You’re addressing important issues; but let me ask you a few questions. First, do you ever disagree with your society about values?” Relativa answered, “Not much; like everyone else, I’m a child of my culture.” I pushed her further, “But even children can rebel. Don’t we all at times disagree with group norms? If everyone else approved of getting drunk and driving off a cliff, would you have to agree?” Relativa paused a few moments while the idea sank in; then she responded:

“Okay, I see your point. If “good” means “socially approved,” then I can’t disagree with my society about values. If I saw that something was socially approved, I’d have to say it was good. I couldn’t think for myself and disagree. I’d have to be a conformist about values – even if I saw that my society’s values were based on ignorance. ”

I asked, “Don’t you think it’s important to think for yourself about values?” She said, “Yes, of course; but I see that cultural relativism prevents this.”
I then told her about South Africa, which until recently had legally enforced race segregation, an “apartheid” policy that mistreated blacks. A cultural relativist living there years ago would have to see apartheid as good, since it was socially approved. But even then a minority disagreed. At this point, Relativa broke in:

“I see the problem here. With CR, “good” by definition is what the majority approves; so minority views (like those opposing apartheid) are always wrong. But then how can we change the values of society – if we can’t disagree with the majority? Sometimes social values need to change, as in South Africa. But with CR we can’t express disagreement with accepted values without contradicting ourselves. So CR would stifle social change.”

As I nodded in agreement, I reflected how intolerant CR is toward minority views.
Relativa’s face turned to puzzlement as yet another problem came to her mind. She asked me in a halting way:

“But how on earth could people who had been brought up to believe one thing (like the acceptability of apartheid) come to think something else – something that went against the teaching of their society? What could possibly bring them to do this?”

I told her that there may be moral ideas common to all cultures that would lead people to criticise apartheid – ideas like the golden rule, “Treat others as you want to be treated.” Perhaps people, after imagining themselves in the place of their victims, saw that they were treating others as they were themselves unwilling to be treated in the same circumstances. I asked Relativa if the golden rule was widely held throughout the world. She replied:

“Yes, I learned in anthropology that most cultures accept the golden rule. Now that I think about it, I guess I’ve overemphasised how cultures differ. While there are disagreements over details, most cultures are in broad agreement on most aspects of morality. This is natural, since cultures couldn’t survive unless they had some rules (and somewhat similar ones) about things like killing, stealing, and lying.”

I added that, even if societies disagreed widely about morality, that wouldn’t show that there was no truth of the matter. Cultures disagree widely about anthropology or religion or even physics. Yet there still may be correct and incorrect ideas on these subjects. So, despite the disagreements, there still may be some truth of the matter about whether it’s right to treat people badly because of their race.

Attractions of Cultural Relativism

I asked Relativa why she and others find CR so attractive. She responded:
I guess I liked cultural relativism because (1) it promotes tolerance, (2) it gives clear guidelines (you just follow what your society says), and (3) it seems to be the view of sophisticated social scientists.
I suggested that we go through these ideas one by one.
First, I asked Relativa whether CR could promote intolerance and ridicule toward others (whether in our own culture or in another). She replied:
Yes, if such intolerance were socially approved. If society favoured imprisoning people or burning them at the stake for their beliefs, then these forms of intolerance would have to be good. Now that I see this, it troubles me.

I added, “If we value tolerance, then maybe we need a better basis for it than CR.”
Next I turned to the “clear guidelines” idea. I asked Relativa what group she considered to be “her society.” Since she was puzzled about how to respond, I told her that I belong to various groups with different values. At Camford, for example, I’m part of the dressage team; I enjoy the horseback competition, but the group is very elitist and constantly looks down on people who are poor or of other races. But I’m also part of the Service Club, which respects and tries to help poor people of any race. If I defined my personal values by what each of those groups approved of, I’d be in conflict. Relativa broke in:
“Okay, I see the problem. According to CR, when I say that something is “good” I mean that it’s “socially approved in my group.” But which group is “my group”? I’m part of many groups with conflicting values. Suppose that my family and my religious group disapprove of racism, while my friends and my neighbours approve. What would CR tell me to believe?”

“That’s the point,” I said. “CR would give us clear guidelines only if we belonged to just one society; but we don’t – instead, we belong to various overlapping societies.”
Since Relativa saw CR as “the view of sophisticated social scientists,” I told her that many important social scientists oppose CR. The famous psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, for example, claimed that people of all cultures go through the same stages of moral thinking. CR represents a relatively low stage in which we simply conform to society. At more advanced stages, we reject CR; we become critical of accepted norms and think for ourselves about moral issues. Kohlberg’s view suggests that there’s more to moral thinking than just absorbing the values of our culture; there’s also a critical level where we start to think for ourselves and perhaps disagree with what society taught us.

 Learning from Other Cultures

We were both enjoying the conversation; at long last, the two of us were discussing something serious in a constructive way. Yet little sister was becoming tired from my questioning. So, to put the discussion more on my shoulders, Relativa asked me to talk about my experiences in South Africa and how these might shed light on cultural relativism. I, in turn, was eager to share my experiences with my sister.
So I talked about my experiences. I recounted how I passed the Study Abroad office at Camford one day and spied a poster about a college in Cape Town. For the rest of the day, all I could think about was how great it would be to get away for a term and immerse myself in another culture. What a great learning experience! When I returned the next day, I discovered that the college in Cape Town had an internship program in social work, which was my area. I was very happy about this, since it would help me in my future work to understand how another culture dealt with social problems.

After I arrived in Cape Town several months later, I wasn’t sure that I had made the right choice. I felt uncomfortable in this new culture and longed to be back home. I had trouble, for example, adjusting to how casual and unstructured things were; I was used to a very structured life at Camford, where I loved to type out a weekly schedule for myself. Eventually, though, I opened myself up to the Cape Town lifestyle and began to enjoy it.
The greatest part of my experience was getting to know my host family, which consisted of a doctor and his wife, and two wonderful children. The family helped me learn about the food and music and other customs of South Africa. And the daughter let me use her computer to keep in touch with my friends back home by e-mail, which helped me not to feel so isolated.
I had long discussions about values with the doctor, who was very intelligent and had studied in Britain and America. We often compared life in Britain with life in South Africa. He was critical, for example, of how older people were treated in Britain, so often being isolated from younger folks. He preferred the common South African practice, whereby grandparents lived with the family and helped raise the children; he thought this was better for everyone. I wasn’t sure this would work as well in Britain, but his comments made me think. Now when I consider social problems in my own country, I try to learn from how other cultures deal with the same problems.

Since my host family was coloured, we often talked about race relations. I was especially interested in what life was like under the old apartheid system; the wife told me how painful it was to live under a system that made her children feel that they weren’t as good as white people. Of course, we both condemned the old practice of apartheid and welcomed the changes. But the doctor emphasised that people still had a long way to go, and that subtle forms of racism still exist in South Africa – as well as in Britain and America.

When I discussed values with intelligent and open-minded people in South Africa, I found that we tended to agree more than disagree. This was so even when we were discussing defects in my society or in their society. Seldom was there a conflict between “British values” (values that nearly all British accept) and “South African values” (values that nearly all South Africans accept). The one exception was when the English cricket team played South Africa; only then did we line up neatly on opposite sides.

One big problem with cultural relativism is that it divides people. CR simplistically sees each group as having its own unified system of values. So “we” (as in “we British”) have our values, and “they” (as in “those South Africans”) have theirs. This “we versus they” mentality may have worked reasonably well when cultures were isolated from each other. But we live in a shrinking world where technology tears down fences between cultures; think of transcontinental flights, global news agencies, multinational corporations, and the Internet. Today we need ways to mediate disputes between societies and to establish some common norms. Since CR helps very little with such problems, it gives a poor basis for life in the twenty-first century.

Cultural relativism also limits our ability to learn from other cultures. CR says “Our culture’s norms are okay, and so are yours.” But our culture’s norms might not be okay. Our norms might have biases and blind spots that we won’t recognise unless we dialogue with others. Societies, since they deal in differing ways with the same life problems, can learn much from each other. Our growth demands that we experience other ways of thinking and acting – and that we be open to change how we do things on the basis of this experience.

Few things can stunt our moral growth more than cultural relativism. CR says that whatever is socially approved must thereby be good. So if it’s socially approved to value money above all else, then this must be good. And if it’s socially approved to put Jews in concentration camps, then this too must be good. To live as a cultural relativist is to live as an uncritical conformist. But cultural relativism is an error: “good” doesn’t mean “socially approved.” What is socially approved may sometimes be very bad.
For Further Study
This article is somewhat based on Chapter 1 of Harry Gensler’s Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (London and New York: Routledge Press, 1998).
For interactive Web exercises about cultural relativism, go to: http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/cr
Be careful of terminology if you do outside reading; what we call “cultural relativism” is sometimes called “ethical relativism.” To sort out the different types of “relativism” in ethics, see Richard Brandt’s “Ethical Relativism” in the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (edited by Paul Edwards, London and New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967).
For defences of cultural relativism by prominent anthropologists, see Ruth Benedict’s brief “A Defence of Cultural Relativism” (which is in several ethics anthologies but first appeared in The Journal of General Psychology, 10: 59-82) or William Sumner’s longer Folkways (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1911).
For Lawrence Kohlberg’s approach, see his brief “A Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Moral Education” (Humanist, 32: 13-16) or his longer Essays on Moral Development (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981 and 1984).
R.M. Hare’s Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963) is a classic treatment of ethical reasoning, the golden rule, and race relations.