Blog Prompt 3: Kopelman makes a distinction between types of relativism. What are the differences? What are the shared “methods of discovery, evaluation, and explanation” that Kopelman identifies? Do you agree that these methods allow for cross cultural judgments?
Loretta Koppelman discusses the relativism in relation to female genital mutilation, she uses a real time conflict in that she had been confronted with when she came across cross-cultural judgement and acceptance. She told us about two different types of relativism. The first is descriptive realism. It is a concept, of fact, belief, that differentiate cultures in which they believe in different things. It is an important part of understanding how the world works as a whole, it could be by meeting people from other regions or reading a book from the past. However, people gather the facts from their own environment/society and become forced to be nurtured in different ways. Ethical relativism is stated to be an “action that is right if it is approved by a persons’ culture and wrong if it is disproved”. Ethical relativism is also known as cultural relativism. For example, in parts of Northern Africa and South Arabia, cultures believe in the circumcision of women. In contrast, Western cultures look down upon those specific cultural practices by struggling to find common ground with the African cultures because this practice has been going on for centuries. “Philosopher Bernard Williams (1985) argues that moral knowledge is inherited by people within particular cultural traditions and has objectivity only within those cultures.” This quote provides proof that people from different cultures have different views on politics and policies. Is female circumcision morally right? I believe it is up to that person and their surroundings to say whether it is right or wrong. Imagine if another culture steps in and tells you that you have lived your whole life as well as the generations before have all been wrong and therefore are trying to force other morals and practices on you. It is an act of moral force, trying to force another culture’s beliefs to think a different way just because one doesn’t approve. Kopelman describes another form of relativism called descriptive relativism, which is the view that people from different cultures do act differently and have distinct norms. They try to understand cultural differences and look for any type of similarities.“Often relativism is presented as the only alternative to clearly implausible views such as cultural imperialism; sometimes it is used to stress the obvious points that different rankings and interpretations of moral values or rules by different groups may be justifiable, or employed to highlight the indisputable influence of culture on moral development, reasoning, norms, and decisions.” This is a quote taken from the reading proving that sometimes you have to accept the way people do things in another culture. Unless the culture shows signs of harm to other cultures who are we to tell them they are wrong? The way we view certain topics, in this case, female genital mutilation, is obviously going to have some cross-cultural judgment because there is a culture that believes this is something that is good and actually beneficial to the women that it is happening to. Due to the fact that other cultures didn’t come together to agree that this method is moral, we as a nation have formed our own opinions and therefore judge other cultures for their beliefs based on our own morals. Although I personally disagree with this practice, I would leave it up to the women in their cultures to have the last say for what goes on with their bodies.
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