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APY1501 - Ass 1 & 5 - Sem 2 - 2019
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
Ass 1 & 5 - Sem 2
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Module: APY1501ASSIGNMENT 1: DISCUSSION
Cultural relativism Vs. Universal human rights.
Should sociocultural system be judged by its own beliefs and behaviour rather than other
system morals and values?
No, we live in a rapidly changing world society, which is increasingly bringing people of
various cultures in closer interaction with each other. This interaction can be positive or
negative depending on the level of sensitivity and respect people have for other cultural
groups. Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be
understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of
another. We are all different and have different values and beliefs. It gives no one the right to
judge any one in any matter or anyone’s culture or traditions/beliefs. Cultural relativism
refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right or wrong, strange or
normal. “A sociocultural system is a "human population viewed in its ecological context and
as one of the many subsystems of a larger ecological system.” And therefore should not be
judges by its own beliefs and behaviour because if you look at the system as a whole there
are many topics, headings covered by this system and one should not be judged if he/she
falls under that heading, everyone is and are themselves and they have their own beliefs and
behaviours. No culture beats another, we are all our own, in our own way, and should not be
judges for who we are as people.
Can we broadly make a distinction between right and wrong or good or bad on the global
scale?
No, not really. Because your judgement can be right and mine wrong, but almost the same.
What seems right to you in your culture would or could maybe be wrong in mine. Ethics,
broadly, is concerned with the meaning of all aspects of human behaviour. Theoretical/
normative ethics aims to differentiate right from wrong. An organization's culture sets
standards for determining the difference between good and bad decision making.
People’s cultures and beliefs differ from another, so we can’t really make a distinction
between right and wrong or even good or bad, but we all know right from wrong in our
different cultures and believes, as long as you know one from the other, wrong from right in
your own culture. For e.g. let’s say in my culture I am allowed to date/marry someone from
another culture and it is not seen as wrong or right or good or bad, then in some other
culture you have to marry the same culture, otherwise it is seen as wrong and or can be seen
as a bad thing, another e.g. like In the Middle East, India and parts of Africa, don't eat with
your left hand. In South India, you shouldn't even touch the plate with your left hand while
eating. That's largely because the left hand is associated with, um, bodily functions, so it's
considered to be dirty. Then of instance in my culture you are allowed to eat with whatever
hand you want or you can choose to eat with a knife and fork or spoon.
, How can the concept of cultural relativism coexist with the notion of universal human rights?
Human rights are rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. Proponents of the
concept usually assert that everyone is endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason
of being human. Human rights are universal. Human rights are culturally relative.
There is much diversity between the universalism and relativism. There is greater challenge
to compromise between these ideas. Human rights when understood from which a
modernistic perspective, is confronted by the same difficulty, in that anything other than the
uniformity of an imposed universalism leads to value judgment about different culture
perspective. There is no possibility to apply all the human rights universally because every
society have their different context and different culture. There are differences in human
rights in every society’s perspective.
In my view, the human rights are not universally applicable but they are partly applicable.
They declare those rights which are common in all the societies like the right to health,
education and other rights are not universal and their applicability is handed over to the
respective societies.
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