Cultural Relativism

A Challenge to the Possibility of

Ethics
Sample Situation
 
Consider the Eskimos. They are a
remote and inaccessible people.
Numbering only about 25,000, they live
in small, isolated settlements
scattered mostly along the northern
fringes of North America and
Greenland. Until the beginning of this
century, the outside world knew little
about them. Then explorers began to
Eskimo customs turned out to be very
different from our own. The men often
had more than one wife, and they
would share their wives with guests,
lending them for the night as a sign of
hospitality. Moreover, within a
community, a dominant male might
demand--and get--regular sexual
access to other men's wives. The
women, however, were free to break
these arrangements simply by leaving
their husbands and taking up with new
partners--free, that is, so long as their
former husbands chose not to make
But it was not only their marriage and
sexual prac-tices that were different.
The Eskimos also seemed to have less
regard for human life. Infanticide, for
ex-ample, was common. . . . Female
babies, he found, were especially liable
to be destroyed, and this was permitted
simply at the parents' discretion, with
no social stigma attached to it. Old
people also, when they became too
feeble to contribute to the family, were
left out in the snow to die. So there
seemed to be, in this society,
A more contemporary
example:
 
For eighteen months Del
Monte Corporation tried
to buy a 55,000-acre
banana plantation in
Guate-mala, but the
government refused to
allow the sale. Del Monte
offi-cials made inquiries
and asked for meetings,
but nothing happened.
Then they hired a
"business con-sultant" for
$500,000. The "consul-
The businessman feared that
disclosure of this relationship with a
large U.S. company would diminish his
influence in Guatemala and perhaps
even provoke left-wing threats against
his life. So he demanded and received
company assurances of anonymity. To
further protect him, Del Monte paid
him outside Guatemala. It charged his
fee to general and administrative
expenses on the books of several
Panamanian shipping subsidiaries. His
fee was entirely dependent on his
ability to get the Guatemalan
Suddenly the Guatemalan
government reversed itself and
permitted the sale. Now Del Monte
owns the profitable banana
plantation, for which it paid $20.5
million, and the "business consultant"
is considerably richer.
□ Ethical Relativism
Defined.
 
Ethical relativism is the
theo-ry which claims that,
because different societies
have differ-ent ethical
beliefs, there is no rational
way of determining
whether an action is
morally right or wrong
other than by asking
whether the people of this
or that society believe it is
Ethical relativism is the view
that there are no ethical stan-
dards that are absolutely true
and that apply or should be
ap-plied to the companies and
peo-ple of all societies.
Instead, rela-tivism holds,
something is right for the
people or companies in one
particular society if it ac-cords
with their moral standards,
and wrong for them if it
violates their moral standards.
-
Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases
■ What ethical relativism
comes down to.
 
 Different cultures have
different mor-al
codes/beliefs. What is
considered right within one
group may be utterly
abhorrent to the members
of another group.
THEREFORE: What is moral
is relative to a particular
culture.

 It would be naive and

mythical to think that there
is universal truth in ethics.
■ Challenge posed by ethical relativism (to
business practice in particular)
 
The company or the business-person who
operates in several different countries and
who encounters societies with many differ-
ent moral standards will be advised by the
theory of ethical relativism that in one’s
moral reasoning one should always follow
the moral standards prevalent in whatever
society one finds oneself. After all, since
moral standards differ and since there are
no other criteria of right and wrong, the
best one can do is to follow the old adage
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
■ How do we respond
to this challenge?
 Diversity Thesis
▪ People do in fact disagree in their moral
beliefs.
But while there is variation in moral beliefs
between cultures, much of the apparent diver-
sity in moral beliefs can be traced to differ-
ences in circumstances and in non-moral be-
liefs that are not directly related to questions
of morality.
Thus, appearances to the contrary, the
difference may not be a genuine moral
difference.
 Relativity Thesis
▪ Simply stated, the thesis says that the
rightness or wrongness of moral beliefs
can be determined only in rela-tion to the
culture or moral tradition of the
individuals who hold them.
But the fact that moral beliefs differ may
only show that some beliefs – or perhaps
all of them – are false. From the fact that
different people have different moral
beliefs about some issue, it does not
follow logically that there is no objective
truth about the issue nor that all beliefs
about that issue are equally acceptable.
 Toleration Thesis
▪ Relativists say that we should adopt a
tolerant attitude towards other individuals
or social groups that hold different moral
beliefs. “Toleration” presumably means
refraining from using force to impose the
moral beliefs of one's own culture on
other cultures.
But if a principle of toleration is not a part
of the moral beliefs of another culture, the
members of that culture have no moral
obligation to practice tolerance toward us,
even if we believe in toleration.
■ Further Arguments
against Relativism:
 There must be certain
moral standards that the
members of any society
must accept if that society
is to survive and if its
members are to interact
with each other
effectively. Thus, all
societies have norms
against injuring or killing
other members of the
society, norms about
using language truthfully
when communicating with
mem-bers of one’s
▪ The most telling criticisms
against the theory of ethical
relativism are those that point to
the incoherent consequences of
the theory. If the theory of ethical
relativism were true, then it
would make no sense -
to criticize the practices of
other societies so long as they
conformed to their own
standards;
to criticize any of the moral
standards or practices accepted
by our own society.
▪ Performative Contradiction

Just in case the conclusion of cultural

relativism is true, i.e., that there is no
universal truth in morality, by implica-
tion, it also claims that there can be no
universal truth at all. This conclusion
must be made self-referentially. There-
fore, there is no reason why we should
take cultural relativism's conclusion ser-
iously, since it qualifies as an assertion of
a universal truth.
▪ Consider the form of argument
of cultural relativism.

It argues from facts about the

differences between cultural
outlooks to a conclusion about
the status of morality – i.e., from
what people believe to what
really is the case. The
fundamental mistake of the
argument from cultural
differences is that it attempts to
derive a substantive conclusion
about a subject (morality) from
What can be learned from
cultural relativism?
 Most important: what cultural
relativism seems to stress is
respect for cultural differences as
well as differences in moral
traditions.
 Cultural relativism reminds us that
many of our practices are peculiar
to our society and could not be
made into some absolute standard.
 An awareness of cultural relativism
enables us to keep an open mind.
By stressing that our moral views
 ■ Conclusion

So “when in Rome, do as the Romans

do?”

One clearly should observe local

etiquette and other such customs in
countries other than one’s own. To this
extent, when in Rome one should indeed
do as the Romans do.

It is equally clear, however, that if a

business operates in a country in which
slavery or bondage or apartheid is legal
 In Other Words .
..
We can and should draw the
line bet-ween local practices
and customs that are morally
indifferentsuch as which
side of the road you drive on
in a countryand others that
are immoral or that we
clearly perceive to be im-
moral, such as engaging in
slavery.
No individual and no
company can ethically
justify engaging in
practices the individual
or com-pany believes
are immoral or un-
ethical. A person of
integrity and a company
of integrity not only
have principles but live
by them. . . – Richard T. de George,
Business Ethics, 4th edition, New Jersey: Prentice
What will you do and
why? You are the vice-president and
head of the strategic planning
division of an American-based
multinational. You long believed
in the slogan “When in Rome,
do as the Romans do,” but in
recent years, you have been
forced to rethink your position.
In 1990, when the company
considered opening a
manufacturing branch in South
Africa, it finally decided against
the move because of the then-
You are faced with three
somewhat similar situations – or
are they similar?

First, your company has the

opportunity to contract at an
excellent price for fabric woven
in China. However, you have
reports that the fabric probably
comes from factories employing
forced labor.
A second opportunity is to buy
clothing manufactured in the
Philippines. Again, however, you have
reports that your sources are using
child labor, usually girls under 14
years of age.
Your third opportunity is to open a
plant in Saudi Arabia. In this situation,
you are warned that for the operation
to be successful, women should not be
placed in executive positions because
they would not be taken seriously by
those with whom they had to deal.