Cultural relativism is the principle that the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture should be understood and evaluated on their own terms, within their own cultural context, rather than judged against the standards of an outside culture, including the observer's own. The idea is generally traced to Franz Boas, who first articulated its core logic in 1887, writing that civilization is not something absolute, but is relative, and that a people's own ideas and conceptions are true only within the frame of their own civilization. Boas developed the principle in explicit opposition to the evolutionary, hierarchical thinking dominant in 19th-century anthropology, which ranked non-Western cultures as inferior to Western civilization, and it became the methodological cornerstone of the 'Boasian' school of American cultural anthropology built by his students.
Facts
Disputed
Core ClaimA culture's beliefs, values, and practices can only be validly understood and judged within that culture's own context and on its own terms, not by applying the standards of an outside, including the observer's own, culture. 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountThe descriptive claim, that understanding a practice requires first grasping it in its own cultural context, is not itself controversial among anthropologists. What is debated is the normative reach of the principle: critics from Julian Steward onward have argued that treated as a rule for moral judgment rather than a method of understanding, cultural relativism can leave a society unable to condemn a practice most societies regard as harmful, while defenders such as Clifford Geertz argue the criticism mistakes a method of understanding provincialism for an endorsement of whatever it studies. Origin YearSourced to the subject's own accountBoas's original articulation of the underlying principle dates to 1887; the term 'cultural relativism' itself entered wider use later, around 1924. Cross-Tradition Connections
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Philosophy Atlas: Ethics, discussed there.
Sources
Open Questions (2 open questions)
Does cultural relativism, as a methodological principle for understanding cultures on their own terms, necessarily entail moral relativism, foreclosing any cross-cultural ethical judgment?
Scholars and human-rights advocates remain divided on whether Boas's relativism was meant only as an anti-ethnocentric method of study, distinct from any claim about ethics, or whether it logically extends into a stronger claim that no culture's moral standards can be judged from outside at all, a question with direct stakes for how anthropology engages with practices widely viewed as harmful.
What would resolve this A close reading of Boas's own methodological writings against the later uses of "cultural relativism" in ethics debates, tracing whether the slide from methodological to moral relativism was present in Boas's own argument or added by later interpreters.
Anthropological ethics / philosophy of social scienceWikipedia: Cultural Relativism
Does cultural relativism's refusal to judge a practice by an outside standard leave it unable to condemn practices most societies regard as harmful, or does that criticism mistake a method of understanding for an endorsement of whatever it studies?
When the American Anthropological Association drafted its 1947 Statement on Human Rights around relativist principles, anthropologist Julian Steward directly challenged it: "Either we tolerate everything, and keep hands off, or we fight intolerance and conquest," and asked whether anthropologists would "approve the social caste system of India, the racial caste system of the United States, or many other varieties of social discrimination." Stanley Diamond and George Stocking pressed a related, postcolonial version of the same worry, that popularized relativism can end up rationalizing rather than critiquing unequal power between societies. Clifford Geertz defended the principle on the opposite reading, that it addresses provincialism rather than endorsing every practice it describes. The normative reach of the principle, not its descriptive core, is what remains unsettled.
What would resolve this A scholarly convention that distinguishes descriptive relativism (a method for understanding a practice in its own context) from normative or moral relativism (a rule for judging it) clearly enough that the "excuses anything" critique and the "addresses provincialism" defense stop talking past each other.
Moral philosophy and the anthropology of human rightsWikipedia: Cultural Relativism
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Core Claim
Steward challenged the American Anthropological Association's relativist Statement on Human Rights directly, arguing the position collapses into a stark choice: "Either we tolerate everything, and keep hands off, or we fight intolerance and conquest." He pressed the implication concretely, asking whether anthropologists holding the relativist position would "approve the social caste system of India, the racial caste system of the United States, or many other varieties of social discrimination." His dissent is against treating cultural relativism as a rule for moral judgment rather than only a method of ethnographic understanding, not against the value of understanding a practice within its own cultural context.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia: Cultural Relativism, Wikipedia
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