On Human Rights & Cultural Relativism
Contents
1 Introductory Remarks
2 Ethical Considerations
3 Human Rights
4 To what extent should cultural relativism exist?
1 Introductory Remarks
Human rights claims the status of universality: certain protections and entitlements belong to every single person in virtue of their humanity. Cultural plurality and religious difference insist that moral and legal norms are embedded in distinctive social, historical and spiritual contexts; and that outsider imposition of norms risks illegitimacy, cultural imperialism, and even harm. The tension is both conceptual and political. What counts as a universal right? Who defines, enforces, and benefits from those rights?
Concepts of justice and human dignity appear in many traditions: Greek political thought, such as ideas of justice in Plato and Aristotle, and later Stoic thought about natural law; ancient Indian and Persian rulers advocating tolerance; and debates about humane rule in other traditions. In the modern West, John Locke articulated natural rights, life, liberty, property, that strongly influenced later liberal thought and constitutionalism. Immanuel Kant supplied a philosophical backbone for universal moral obligation grounded in the universalism of rationality embodied by the categorical imperative. After the devastation of World War II the international community codified a universal standard: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted in 1948: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The UDHR rapidly became the cornerstone of modern human-rights legal and moral architecture. Eleanor Roosevelt and a wide array of anti-colonial, feminist and global activists were centrally involved in shaping it. Late 20th / early 21st-century theorists broaden and debate universality (John Rawls, Jack Donnelly), while others reframed rights through capabilities (Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen) or emphasized cultural difference (anthropologists like Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas; postcolonial critics Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak).
The challenge against UDHR that will be the focus of this prompt is cultural relativism, or the idea that ethical and social standards must reflect the cultural context from where they are derived. It's the understanding that places are different, and there is no one right way to live. Throughout the Colonialism period, colonial powers often justified reforming local practices in the name of civilisation; this legacy makes universalist claims suspect in many parts of the world. Some states and movements explicitly contest "Western" human-rights framing (examples include speeches and campaigns by some Iranian bodies and the “Asian values” discourse advanced by leaders like Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamad), arguing that priorities like social order and development must come first.
Considering the historic context, the debate has two main arguments: Universalists and Relativists. The Universalists believe there exists a minimal core of rights (freedom from torture, slavery, arbitrary killing; basic gender equality; bodily integrity; minimum standards of education and health) that belong to every person. Universality is necessary to protect the vulnerable against abuses justified by a local custom or religious rule. And international law and instruments (UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW) give tools that ordinary people and activists use to challenge injustice. However, relativists argue moral norms and many legal institutions are culturally embedded; values, practices and social roles are intelligible only in their social/religious contexts. Imposing supposedly universal rights, especially when they mirror Western liberalism, can become a form of cultural imperialism and a cover for geopolitical intervention. Strong relativism warns against moral imperialism.
2 Ethical Considerations
“[R]elativism, the anthropologist’s heresy, possibly the most absurd view to have been advanced even in moral philosophy.”
- Williams (1978).
Cultural relativism is a descriptive claim. With its initial roots in Herodotus, its current salience emerges from the father of anthropology Franz Boas, who writes,
“The data of ethnology prove that not only our knowledge but also our emotions are the results of the form of our social. Life and of the history of the people to whom we belong.”
Taken strictly as a descriptive claim, Boas’ claim seem uncontroversial. Our habits, manners, accent, and other disposition are undoubtedly shaped by our environment and upbringing. However, for the purposes of this prompt, we will be looking at its prescriptive derivation. Namely, the idea that these myriads of cultural instantiations ought to be respected in equal footing.
This emphasis on tolerance, or the principle of tolerance, is often dubbed ‘prescriptive relativism.’ Defined, roughly, as ‘all ways of life and cultures are worthy of respect in their own terms.’ A notable proponent of this view is Paul Feyerabend, who notes the following benefits:
‘A free society is a society in which all traditions are given equal rights’
Due to the following diversity, agents will be less rigid and dogmatic in their view. That
is, increased relativism leads to increased toleration.
However, moral relativism is by no means uncontroversial. As J. Adam Carter writes, “[moral relativism is] the most reviled of all relativistic positions.”
It is clear to see why this may be the case. Along with Popper’s ‘Paradox of tolerance’, there is the Argumentum ad Nazium, essentially questioning how extensive toleration can be without serious concerns to our moral intuitions. Moreover, as a direct challenge to (1), it is clear to see how a toleration of a cultural norm that, say, are oppressive of women or to sexual minorities can curb the mantle of toleration itself. If we were to tweak (1) to avoid this, to champion toleration, a revised view of (1) would appear to be more along the lines of ‘a free society is a society in which toleration of all forms are championed.’ However, note that the emphasis on toleration itself is an ethical boundary, meaning that anti-tolerant views will be normatively curtailed.
Moreover, recent examples of cultural and political discourse are, I argue, counterarguments to (2). Though the West is the home to few of the most diverse areas in history, this diversity, rather than breaking down boundaries have functioned to reinforce them. The narratives around the ‘downfall of Western cultures’, which arises during economic hardships, have posed a direct ideological challenge to the virtues of diversity itself.
Further, a pertinent line of criticism against moral relativism comes from Bernard Williams. He argues that if we were to respect other cultures and moral societies, then this respect must also extend to their judgement about other moral norms. This especially becomes troublesome as a core function of morality, bar a few, is its universality. That is, to say x is objectively wrong, is to say that x is wrong everywhere and has always been wrong. Can this element be reconciled with moral relativism, with its emphasis on the toleration of all cultures? For Williams, this is a contradiction. If a group g1 maintains the ethical belief that p, and treats it as universal, whilst group g2 maintains the ethical belief that not-p, and also treats it as universal, then what does respecting their respective cultures amount to? Especially, in societies where these two groups exist together? Ought their respective moral views be limited to their own groups? This seems to go against their understanding that their ethical outlook is universal. Whatever way one tries to reconcile g1 and g2 together, whether by restricting their universality or by other means, necessarily entails a level of intolerance to their respective cultural and moral views.. Williams’ point is thus that genuine moral relativism at its core is ‘confused’ and ‘logically unhappy.’
Thus, one might argue that cultural relativism runs into a brick wall. Its emphasis on toleration implies a norm, beyond cultural differences, that it purports to be against. Furthermore, its assumption that diversity leads to accommodation and toleration seems to be an odd notion considering the world as it is now. Finally, as William points out, at its core, genuine moral relativism seems to be structurally incoherent.
3 Human Rights
Yes... We agree about the rights but on the condition nobody asks why
- Jacques Maritain (1949)
One method of ratifying the emphasis on toleration by cultural relativists is granting a set of standards universally to all peoples. This is what the Declaration of Human Rights aimed to do. Namely, each individual person have with them, inalienable set of rights that can only be infringed upon in particular cases.
This is not to say that the Declaration of Human Rights have not faced its challenges, and the most salient, for this prompt, form of this challenge comes from the line of thought that Human Rights is a form of Western Cultural imperialism. The Singaporean Senior Minister in the 1990s, Lee Kuan Yew, took this view; arguing that the emphasis on individual rights of the charter dismissed the social cohesion and family values that were held over individual values in Asian societies.
Another line of argument is given by Joseph Massad in Desiring Arabs. In the third chapter, Reorienting Desire, Massad derides what he dubs the ‘Gay international’ for its oriental fascination of the non-heteronormative culture of the Arab world. Massad posits that the identity of homosexuality did not exist previously in the ‘orient’ and as a result the emphasis on the human rights of gays in the recently post-colonial Arab world was met with hostility; as its advocation was painted as cultural imperialism. In conjunction with the rise of Islamic-nationalism, the advocation of human rights of sexual minorities in the Arab world heightened the oppression felt by the non-heteronormative Arabs.
Katharine Dalacoura argues directly against this framework however. With the locus of the argument being the key criticism, in my view, of any post-colonial literature – the argument that by dissecting a part of the world as post-colonial, the narrative necessarily divides the interwoven cultural identity existent in these areas. This is especially pertinent in the Middle East, where through the Mediterranean, cultural and ethnic mixture precedes the notion of the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ itself. Further, Massad’s criticism seem to leave vulnerable those in the Middle East who fundamentally do identified with the ‘liberated gays’ of the West. After all, in a culturally integrated global world that we exist in, it is unjustifiable to place the mark of inauthenticity to those in the Arab world, as Massad does, who identify with the so-called ‘gay international.’ Are these sexual minorities, then, to be sacrificial lambs for the preservation of nation-states’ ‘authentic’ cultures?
Moreover, as pointed out by Moody-Adams and Binder, it is difficult to place where the locus of culture exists in the first place. Cultural relativism, and its derivation of moral relativism, normally places these culture in the hands of their respective nation-states. However, there are several problems with this understanding, of which I will outline two.
First, as Moody-Adam points out, cultures are not a uniformly coherent entity. They are inherently subject to change, incredibly porous, and usually inconsistent. Thereby, the resistance against cultural imperialism, especially if taken in the form of human rights, may be an unprecedented stop to the cultural mixture that has historically accompanied culture itself.
Second, to quote Binder,
[T]he idea of a bounded culture is closely connected to the particular structure of the nation state, which links together a set of political institutions, a process of mass political mobilization, a territorial language of administration and education, a shared civic identity, and often an official ideology of patriotism, ethnocentrism and cultural renewal. This particular cultural structure is a distinctively modem and paradignatically Western phenomenon.
- Binder (1999)
From this, rises a salient question – what does it mean to be tolerant of other cultures? Binder’s point is that the current assumption posits culture to be focused within the nation-state respectively. However, in nation-states where there are a myriad of varieties of cultures, is respecting their respective cultures bounded by the whims of their respective governments? Thus,
The imperialism critique of human rights law hinges upon the ideal of national self- determination, but that ideal may be an unrealistic criterion of legitimacy.
-Binder (1999).
Indeed, one can argue against these objections by reducing culture to more local areas, such that each localised culture has a representation in the web of toleration. However, how far can we go? If local culture ought to be protected from the whims of the nation state, why not say that the individual ought to be protected from the whims of their local cultures? That is why not instill the ideal of human rights?
To my view, derived from less than adequate research, though it is possible that the chartered ideals of Human Rights can nevertheless be improved, the notion that it is a form of cultural imperialism seem, at its best, short-sighted, and at its worst, a justification for further oppression of either individuals or localized cultures. I argue that the emphasis on toleration, as espoused by relativists, are not necessarily incoherent with human rights. If anything, a coherent instantiation of the ideal of toleration finds its form in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, to return to the previously posed question ‘what does it mean to be tolerant of other cultures?’, I answer, ‘to believe in universal human rights.’
4 To what extent should cultural relativism exist?
I feel closer to him than to many French people who speak about Algeria without knowing it. [...] his face reflect not hatred but despair and unhappiness. I share that unhappiness. His face is the face of my country. - Albert Camus (1957)
Cultural relativism is an essential interpretive tool in understanding human societies, but, as thus far argued, it cannot stand as an absolute ethical foundation. At its core, relativism reminds us that values, moral codes, and social practices are deeply shaped by particular histories and contexts. This insight guards us against the arrogance of imposing external norms without sensitivity to difference. Yet unqualified relativism collapses when cultural practices sanction systematic oppression or exclusion. In such cases, a minimal universalism—protection from slavery, torture, arbitrary killing, and institutionalized discrimination—is morally indispensable.
“the data of ethnology prove that not only our knowledge but also our emotions are the results of the form of our social life”,
- Franz Boas (1938)
The anthropological tradition of cultural relativism, rooted in Franz Boas’ insistence above rightly emphasizes that norms are contextually embedded. To understand a practice, one must situate it within its cultural framework. Relativism, in this descriptive sense, is uncontroversial. Yet its prescriptive form, as argued earlier, holding that all cultural practices are equally valid and deserving of respect, quickly runs into moral difficulties.
This theoretical problem becomes acute in practice, where appeals to “local culture” are often bound up with power. Cultural relativism is persuasive when it calls for humility and listening, but deeply problematic when it is used to justify exclusion or violence. The histories of the Pieds-Noirs and of Jim Crow illustrate this tension vividly.
The case of the Pieds-Noirs (European settlers of French, Spanish, or Italian origin who lived in Algeria during French colonial rule) demonstrates the fraught status of cultural claims. On the one hand, they developed a distinctive identity: Mediterranean, hybrid, and rooted in generations of settlement. On the other hand, their very position was built on structures of colonial privilege. After the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), the Pieds-Noirs faced rapid expulsion. Nearly 800,000 fled to metropolitan France in the early 1960s, where they encountered stigma and marginalization. From their perspective, this was a profound cultural trauma—loss of homeland, uprooting, and erasure of identity. To recognize their suffering is both morally necessary and politically important. Yet a purely relativist defense of the Pieds-Noirs as a cultural group would risk overlooking the colonial hierarchies that enabled their existence. Thus, relativism is inadequate on its own. What is needed is a universalist lens that acknowledges both the injustices of settler colonialism and the rights of displaced people to dignity and recognition. Universalist principles of dignity require us also to account for the suffering of those expelled. This dual recognition is impossible within strict relativism but attainable if relativism is bounded by universal rights.
The American South after the Civil War offers a parallel case where appeals to local “culture” justified oppressive institutions. The brief experiment of Reconstruction saw African Americans gain unprecedented political and social rights, only to be met with violent backlash and the institutionalization of Jim Crow segregation. It was a rigid system of exclusion that endured well into the 20th century. From the standpoint of cultural relativism, one might describe Jim Crow as a manifestation of “Southern culture.” Yet such description risks legitimizing practices that deprived millions of basic rights. Here, relativism fails utterly: what is at stake is not simply difference, but domination and systemic violation of universal claims to equality and dignity.
However, the American south is markedly different to the situation in Algeria. We would like to turn our attention to Albert Camus’ views on the Pied-Noir question. Camus, though thought of as of one of the 20th century French philosophes, never thought of himself as a Frenchman, but rather Algerian. Born in Drean, his mother resided in Algiers, with Camus frequently visiting her, and publishing all of his works there.
His writings on Algeria, if one permits, are infamous. Though sympathetic to the colonial injustice outlined by the Algerian nationalists, Camus stamped his foot on his conclusion that an Algeria without France would have a fraught future. His anti-independence stance of Algeria was met with harsh criticisms by his contemporaries on the French left, and still remains the focal- point of criticism of Camus. These criticisms, as of today, seem valid, especially following his inflammatory statements that rang ‘[t]here has never been an Algerian nation.’ This is not to say that Camus was a fervent colonialist in Algeria. Rather, Camus’ position was one that emphasised equality among the Jews, Europeans, Arabs, and all those living within Algeria. His hope was that a society of equality, a long with reparations, would end the cycle of violence that engulfed Algeria during his life. It was this, perhaps unrealistic idealism, stance that offered Camus a likening to Nelson Mandela by the Algerian writer Assia Djebar.
Poignant to Camus was the fact that the Mediterranean always existed as sect of the world where, through cultural mixture and constant trade dating back millennia, existed as an essentially porous set of cultures, with Algeria being a part of this. Moreover, I find great sympathies with Camus’ claim that the pied-noirs in Algeria, after 130 years of colonialism, were indigenous peoples of Algeria at the time of his writings. If so, were their displacements in the face of anti-colonial violence a loss of an indigenous culture? Is this an instance where one dominant culture, now at the helm of the power of the nation-state, came to exclude a sub-culture within the region?
The histories of the Pieds-Noirs and the American South both show that cultural relativism, while necessary as a tool of interpretation and humility, cannot serve as the ultimate standard of justice. Left unchecked, relativism risks excusing oppression in the name of “cultural authenticity.” Yet without it, universalism may degenerate into cultural imperialism. The answer, therefore, lies in tension: relativism should guide how we listen, interpret, and contextualize, while universalism should provide the minimal protections that safeguard individuals from systemic harm. To the question of how far cultural relativism should exist, the answer that we give is: far enough to cultivate humility and respect, but not so far that it permits cultures to destroy the very dignity that makes tolerance possible.