Question

What are cultural relatism? What are the some of the main motivations for it? What are the objections to this view? Do you agree with it? justify you answer with good examples.

Answer 1

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.

Relativism is a way to resolve disagreements. Given that there are several ways to address disagreements, what is sufficient motivation to adopt the relativist approach? I lay out the case for what kinds of epistemic clashes offer the strongest motivation to vote for relativism. I argue that the most promising candidate on the relativist ticket is that of disputes involving irreconcilable differences. Genuine irreconcilable differences are scarce, and I argue that the usual proposals of relativism-motivators, such as predicates of personal taste, fail to generate them. I then argue that irreconcilable differences are to be located at the level of independent methods of generating non inferential beliefs which are then used as basic data for building theories that one holds in reflective equilibrium. There are many ways to resolve disagreements besides relativism. Given that these other methods are often very appealing, or at least have their own partisans, it is incumbent on relativists to show what cases of disagreements are not plausibly addressed by competitor strategies. To keep matters perspicuous, I will phrase disagreements interpersonally, but nothing substantive should be read into this presentation, as there are other kinds of disagreement as well. I may disagree with Thomas Aquinas, but he and I cannot reasonably be said to be disagreeing with each other. Likewise I may disagree with one of St. Thomas’s arguments, one of his conclusions, or even his sense of fashion and eating habits, but those things do not stand in the same relationship to me. So while one may be in a state of disagreement, without there being an actual person with whom one disagrees, I think that them a in arguments given in these quell can be applied mutatis mutandis to being in a state of disagreement. Hopefully this is not disagreeable

Disagreement elimination strategies:

Here is a sample of methods for addressing disagreements:

Keep arguing until someone capitulates: Continued argument is the default mode, not just in epistemology, but in the quotidian affairs of life. From routine, everyday matters to subtle disputes in technical fields, continued debate until widespread consensus is reached is the common course of action. For philosophers who assume there is an absolute truth that we can ferret out through universally recognizable reason, it is easy to see the appeal of the relentless argument approach. And surely this is what we ought to do in most cases. If you and I disagree about whether a Ford Focus is cheaper than a Toyota Impreza, whether Saturday is the 24th or the 25th, and whether we need to buy milk, we should obviously search out the evidence that settles the matter. Even if we disagree about the Copenhagen vs. the Everett-Wheeler interpretation of quantum mechanics, or the linguistic taxonomy of Hindustani, or whether the demise off eudalism was a cause of the Industrial Revolution, continued debate and evidence-gathering seems like the right approach.

Compromise: Other times it seems that two parties have dugin their heels to an extent that each might despair of ever bringing their opponent around to their point of view. In such cases it may not be clear what kind of evidence would definitively decide the issue for one side or the other. When that happens, compromise starts to look attractive. For example, an abortion conservative (who believes that all abortions, even of zygotes, is morally impermissible) and an abortion liberal (who believes that all abortions, even of very lateterm foetuses, is morally permissible) might settle their differences through compromise on a moderate position. Perhaps they decide that early abortions are morally permissible, late abortions are not, and that they can amicably work out the middle-term boundary cases. In metaphysics, endurantists and perdurantists sometimes

attempt to compromise by distinguishing between objects and events. Objects are then said to endure through time whereas events perdure and have temporal parts. Compromise is a bit more contentious than fighting until capitulation, and it may not appeal to someone antecedent convinced that they are in possession of the complete truth on a topic. For example, suppose my brother and I disagree on how to fairly divvy up an apple pie. I want to split the pie evenly so we each get half. My brother wants the whole thing for himself. Compromise would suggest that we split our differences so that I get 1 4 of the pie and my brother gets 3 4. Surely in this case I should stick to my guns and keep arguing until he capitulates.

Ambiguity: A dispute mayseem intractable because the two parties are talking past each other and using their words with different meanings. Once the disputants work out their linguistic differences and settle on a common usage, they can reach agreement. The most familiar example is fixed ambiguity. William James opens his lecture What Pragmatism Means with a famous example of settling a dispute through disambiguation.

Pyrrhonian scepticism: When arguments have gone on a long time without any realistic prospect of resolution, neither r party is willing to compromise, and neither finds an appeal to ambiguity or contextualism satisfying, then they may decide to agree to disagree. Agreeing to disagree solves a dispute by giving up the fight, and has a respectable philosophical pedigree in the Pyrrhonian scepticism of Sextus Empiricus. The Pyrrhonian skepticaims for peace of mind(ataraxia) through the suspension of judgment (epochē). According to Sextus, the Dogmatic philosopher claims to have discovered the truth and in opposition the Academic philosopher denies that the truth can be apprehended.5 The Pyrrhonian skeptic takes a third patSextus’s ‘Skeptic Way’ by suspending judgment without hope of leaving the state of suspension. As Mates puts it, ‘the characteristic attitude of the Pyrrhonist is one of aporia, of being at a loss, puzzled, stumped, stymied’.6 Contrary claims are regarded as equally credible or discredible, and the skeptic is content to report only appearances, or how things seem to her. More accurately, the skeptic holds even the contention of equal credibility as tentative, and as just how matters presently appear. Really, the skeptic has no idea what to believe, and so removes from the fray altogether. Sextus writes that one of the ‘modes of epochē’ is ‘based on disagreement… we find that both in ordinary life and among philosophers, with regard to a given topic there has been reached an unresolvable impasse on account of which we are unable to reach a verdict one way or the other, and we end up with a suspension of judgment’ (Sextus 1.165 in (Ibid.)). Sextus rejects any distinction between a dispute that cannot be reconciled, and one that the disputants cannot reconcile. He determined that all disagreements are irreconcilable, if ‘reconciliation’ means that it can be rationally decided which party is right and which wrong. It is the Skeptic Way to suspend judgment about all propositions (even, officially, this one). All forms of scepticism are notoriously difficult to put to bed, and Pyrrhonism is no exception. While one might reasonably conclude that as a general solution to the problem of disagreement Pyrrhonism is chasing a flea with a sledgehammer, it is still quite possible that Pyrrhonism is a plausible approach to local disagreements. Relativism. Relativists resolve disagreements by declaring that everyoneisawinner. ConsiderHilaryPutnam’sfamiliarexampleregardingunrestrictedmereologicalcomposition(UMC).