Why is relativism considered bad in the context of cross cultural psychology

Relativism is the claim that standards of truth, rationality, and ethical right and wrong vary greatly between cultures and historical epochs and that there are no universal criteria for adjudicating between them. The disappearance of old certainties in both the religious and scientific arena, the breakdown of traditional ethical frameworks, and an increasing awareness of social and cultural diversity across different societies have contributed to the popularity of relativism today. Philosophical considerations arising out of scepticism about the possibility of objective knowledge have also fueled the traditional and postmodernist debates on relativism. Different doctrines are subsumed under the single heading of ‘relativism.’ The questions: ‘What is it that is being relativized?’ and ‘what is it being relativized to?’ respectively allow us to distinguish between cognitive, conceptual, and normative relativism on the one hand and between subjective relativism (or subjectivism) and cultural or social relativism on the other. The most common criticism leveled against relativism is the charge of inconsistency. Since Plato, it has been argued that ‘truth is relative,’ if understood as an unconditional claim, is self-refuting and if interpreted relativistically is devoid of significance. More recent critiques of relativism have argued that the radical divergence of cultures and languages required by relativism is impossible. Relativism retains a strong appeal, despite these criticisms, because it captures an essential insight about the unavailability of a univocal solution to most human problems.

Relativism is a doctrine that, recognizing the importance of the perspectival in experience, offers a skeptical resistance to the philosophical and intellectual interest in universalisms, and absolutes. This resistance in the Western tradition dates back to the Sophists, and running through Hume, Kant, Marx, and Nietzsche extends to the modern pragmatists who conceive of knowledge as relative to contexts of power. Anthropological or cultural relativism derives from the awareness produced by ethnographic fieldwork of the multitude of different lifeways and cultural perspectives in the world. It has also given evidence of local awareness of the impact of the perspectival in human affairs. This is found in the folklore of different peoples. In America there has been a particularly strong strain of cultural relativism deriving from the work of the founder of American anthropology, Franz Boas, and his students. This American school emphasized the shaping force of culture on behavior and understanding. Strong forms of this relativism are found in the work of Benedict and Herskovits. Milder forms are found in the skepticism of Sapir and Geertz about the determined scientific pursuit of universals. In any clarifying discussion, anthropological relativism has to be differentiated into epistemological, descriptive, or methodological, and normative or moral forms. Few anthropological relativists would subscribe to all these forms and are usually partial to one or several only. Cultural relativism, despite the many attacks upon it, continues to inspire interest and commitment to one or another or all of its forms. Since the early 1990s anthropological interest in universal human rights has been a considerable challenge to relativistic thinking within the discipline.

Introduction

Moral relativism is a thesis about the nature of morality. Beyond this true but unhelpful characterization, it is a concept in serious need of clarification. The phrase labels several different, even if related, claims and we must take care to sort them out. Perhaps most often it is understood as the thesis that the moral principles one is bound by are just the principles that happen to be endorsed in one’s own group: Right and wrong are essentially group- or culture-relative. Others believe that the content and normative force of morality are relative not to the group, but rather to the individual. Inside these two broad kinds of relativism (group and individual), there are many different positions that can emerge as a result of clarifications, refinements, and qualifications of the main ideas. Properly contrast this general understanding of relativism with a family of views that share a commitment, in varying degrees, to moral universalism. Let us call universalism roughly the idea that the moral rules (whatever else we decide about their content, level of detail, sensitivity to context or circumstance, etc.) bind us all alike, universally, regardless of who we are or to what group we belong.

Terroir, culture and the individual

Dissatisfied with simple relativism, my first thought was the idea of archival terroir.5 Might archives be nourished by the quality of a particular society just as a master vigneron makes wine which distils the quality of a particular location, tradition, climate, geology and geography? Every element involved in wine production (grape varieties, vine pruning, appellation d’origine contrôlée, authenticity, technology) supports terroir as a powerful archival metaphor. It links nicely with the words of war historian C.E.W. Bean quoted in Chapter 8: ‘Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved, and here we guard the record which they themselves made.’ It connects with the agricultural beginnings of Sumerian recordkeeping. And it fits with the deep orally held ties indigenous peoples have with the land, with country.

A second option would have been to focus just on the human person as a self-documenter, as the subject of dossiers and personal recordkeeping within particular cultural settings. This would align with a long-standing personal interest as well as with the sense in which all recordkeeping behaviour, including corporate, is personal. Eric Ketelaar among others has championed the human angle. Noting France’s inclination for personal registration and the styling of illegal immigrants as ‘les sanspapiers’, he has called for research ‘in other countries and cultures … examining the archivalisation that determines how people create their own archives’(1999).6

Another option again would be to settle on definitions of culture and Australian culture – no simple matter – and, following many earlier thinkers, explore records and archives as a cultural product and manifestation.7 There is also the complementary notion of a recordkeeping culture, usually applied to corporate settings.8 The additional challenge would then be demonstrating how archival phenomena such as institutions, systems, practices and terminology are shaped by the historical, political, intellectual and economic contexts (in short, cultural contexts) distinctive to their production. All this serves to remind us of those who argue traditional understandings of provenance are too narrow: that a record’s immediate context of creation and use resides within still wider layers of organisational, psychological, family, cultural and historical provenance.

Cognitive (or epistemological) relativism is the view that every belief is bound to some individual, group, place, or time—whence there are no objective cross-cultural and universal truths. According to this view, what is true for us may be false for them. Hence, all beliefs would be equivalent. Whence there would be no point in searching for objective truths. Consequently, there would be no such thing as objective advancement of knowledge. Through a discussion of skepticism and its intellectual and social roots, a critique of cognitive relativism is put forward. It is argued that relativism is not only damaging to scientific truth, but also to democracy and the rule of law.

Does this form of relativism promote or avoid oppression or cultural imperialism?

Defenders of this version of ethical relativism, such as Scheper-Hughes, often argue that their theoretical stance is an important way to avoid cultural imperialism. Kopelman, in contrast, believes it promotes rather than avoids oppression and cultural imperialism. This view, she argues, entails not only the affirmation that female genital cutting is right in cultures where it is approved, but the affirmation that anything with wide social approval is right, including slavery, war, discrimination, oppression, racism, and torture. That is, if saying that an act is right means that it has cultural approval, then it follows that culturally endorsed acts of war, oppression, enslavement, aggression, exploitation, racism, or torture are right. The disapproval of other cultures, on this view, are irrelevant in determining whether acts are right or wrong. Accordingly, the disapproval of people in other cultures, even victims of war, oppression, enslavement, aggression, exploitation, racism, or torture, does not count in deciding what is right or wrong except in their own culture.

Kopelman argues that on this version of ethical relativism, objections by people in other cultures are merely an expression of their own cultural preferences, having no moral standing whatsoever in the society that is engaging in the acts in question. Kopelman argues this leads to abhorrent conclusions. If this theoretical stance is consistently held, she argues, it leads to the conclusion that we cannot make intercultural judgments with moral force about any socially approved form of oppression including wars, torture, or exploitation of other groups. As long as these activities are approved in the society that does them, they are right. Yet the world community believed that it was making important cross-cultural judgments with moral force when it criticized the Communist Chinese government for crushing a prodemocracy student protest rally, the South Africans for upholding apartheid, the Soviets for using psychiatry to suppress dissent, and the slaughter of ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. In each case, representatives from the criticized society usually said something like, “You don’t understand why this is morally justified in our culture even if it would not be in your society.” If ethical relativism is plausible, these responses should be as well, and they are not. It is troubling, Kopelman writes, for them to suppose that we are so different we cannot converse meaningfully and rationally about morally important topics.

Defenders of ethical relativism may respond that cultures sometimes overlap and hence the victims’ protests within or between cultures ought to count. But this response raises two further difficulties. If it means that the views of people in other cultures have moral standing and oppressors ought to consider the views of victims, such judgments are incompatible with this version of ethical relativism. They are inconsistent with this theory because they are cross-cultural judgments with moral authority. Second, as we noted, unless cultures are distinct, this version of ethical relativism is not a useful theory for establishing what is right or wrong.

Relativists who want to defend sound social cross-cultural and moral judgments about the value of freedom, equality of opportunity, or human rights in other cultures seem to have two choices. On the one hand, if they agree that some cross-cultural norms have moral authority, they should also agree that some intercultural judgments about female circumcision/genital mutilation also may have moral authority. Sherwin is a relativist taking this route, thereby abandoning the version of ethical relativism being criticized herein. On the other hand, if they defend this version of ethical relativism yet make cross-cultural moral judgments about the importance of values like tolerance, group benefits, and the survival of cultures, they will have to admit to an inconsistency in their arguments. For example, Scheper-Hughes advocates tolerance of other cultural value systems. She fails to see that claim as being inconsistent. She is saying tolerance between cultures is right, yet this is a cross-cultural moral judgment using a moral norm (tolerance). Similarly, relativists who say it is wrong to eliminate rituals that give meaning to other cultures are also inconsistent in making a judgment that presumes to have genuine cross-cultural moral authority. Even the sayings sometimes used by defenders of ethical relativism – such as “When in Rome do as the Romans” – mean it is morally permissible to adopt all the cultural norms whatever culture one finds oneself. Thus, it is not consistent for defenders of this version of ethical relativism to make intercultural moral judgments about tolerance, group benefit, intersocietal respect, or cultural diversity.

Kopelman argues that given these difficulties, the burden of proof is upon defenders of this version of ethical relativism. They must show why we cannot do something we think we sometimes ought to do and can do very well, namely, engage in intercultural moral discussion, cooperation, or criticism and give support to people whose welfare or rights are in jeopardy in other cultures. Defenders of ethical relativism need to account for what seems to be the genuine moral authority of international professional societies that take moral stands, for example, about fighting pandemics, stopping wars, halting oppression, promoting health education, or eliminating poverty. Responses that our professional groups are themselves cultures of a sort, seem plausible but incompatible with this version of ethical relativism, as already discussed. Some defenders of ethical relativism object that eliminating important rituals from a culture risks destroying the society. Scheper-Hughes insists that these cultures cannot survive if they change such a central practice as female circumcision. This counterargument, however, is not decisive. Slavery, oppression, and exploitation are also necessary to some ways of life, yet few would defend these actions in order to preserve a society. El Dareer responds to this objection, moreover, by questioning the assumption that these cultures can survive only by continuing clitoridectomy or infibulation. These cultures, she argues, are more likely to be transformed by war, famine, disease, urbanization, and industrialization than by the cessation of this ancient ritual surgery. A further argument is that if slavery, oppression, and exploitation are wrong whether or not there are group benefits, then a decision to eliminate female genital mutilation should not depend on a process of weighing its benefits to the group.

It is also inconsistent for such relativists to hold that group benefit is so important that other cultures should not interfere with local practices. This elevates group benefit as an overriding cross-cultural value, something that these ethical relativists claim cannot be justified. If there are no cross-cultural values about what is wrong or right, a defender of ethical relativism cannot consistently say such things as “One culture ought not interfere with others,” “We ought to be tolerant of other social views,” “Every culture is equally valuable,” or “It is wrong to interfere with another culture.” Each of these claims are intercultural moral judgments presupposing authority based on something other than a particular culture’s approval.

4.3 Pluralism and Multiculturalism

Yet philosophers who reject ethnocentrism, relativism, and isolationism must still confront the persistence of ethical diversity and disagreement and the challenges they pose, especially in the culturally complex societies found in large, modern nation-states. An increasingly influential response, associated with some forms of ethical pluralism, is the doctrine of multiculturalism, which recommends that we act and judge on the presumption that the ethical beliefs and practices of every way of life are in principle valuable and worthy of respect. But compelling philosophical discussions of multiculturalism have construed this presumption as, at best, a ‘starting hypothesis,’ maintaining that a final verdict on the worth of any practice must always await the results of respectful, but sustained, critical reflection (Taylor 1992). In response, some philosophers have urged adoption of a critical multiculturalism (as a form of objectivist ethical pluralism) which leaves open the possibility that reflection on almost any practice might generate rationally compelling grounds on which to reject the practice as ethically indefensible (Moody-Adams 1997). The question of how to put this critical multiculturalism into practice—how to articulate and apply plausible principles for tolerating some stances, rejecting others, and intervening in practices deemed intolerable—will be a central topic of debate in the normative ethical and political philosophy of the twenty-first century.

3 Reflexivity

This requirement immediately raises the issue of relativism and self-refutation. If sociologists, own claims are socially determined and relative' why believe what they say? That the program is relativist is beyond question, but this can be seen as a strength not a weakness. Relativism (which should not be confused with idealism) is the opposite of absolutism and implies that there are no absolute justifications for any knowledge claim. All justifications end in something unjustified and merely taken for granted. But this does not mean that there is never any reason to accept what anyone says, as if it were all an ideological smokescreen. It just means that in the end reasons are local and contingent. Such an admission is not self-defeating. To draw that conclusion would be to argue in a circle from the premise that the only real reasons are absolute ones, thus begging the question on behalf of absolutism. Rather, it is the attempt to produce absolute justifications that should be viewed with suspicion.

5 Critical Theory

The constructivist notion of theory is frequently accused of relativism: by devaluing the correspondence to an external reality, constructivism allegedly implies that the most influential groups in the social system define what scientific theories are. This view is a provocation to the covering law tradition, whose notion of theory was actually designed to expose as pseudo-science fascist theories about such things as the ‘fate of a people.’ But with the role of nuclear physics in developing nuclear arms, and more broadly, the use of science as legitimation of technocratic rule, criticism rather turned against those who wanted to base social science methodology on the model of experimental natural science.

In this context, J. Habermas (1970) and others revitalized the interwar (Frankfurt School) program of critical theory. This position agrees to the rejection of the deductive–nomological approach, but insists that constructivism must be cured of its relativism by reference to an ethical foundation defined by communicative ethics. This internal linkage of theoretical and ethical reflection sets critical theory apart from the other three notions of theory (Table 1).

The social sciences are related to human interaction, involving understanding based on language. Since it should in principle be possible to agree peacefully in disputes between human beings, a communicative ethics is implied in all social interaction, the social sciences included. The evolution of modern society has enlightened the humans, equipping mankind with a set of human rights. Wherever these are not respected, social movements may form, legitimating their strategies with reference to solid ethical principles. Habermas regards this consensus–criterium of truth as an alternative to the mainstream criterium of correspondence. Social science is defined not by its stock of universal laws, but by its commitment to universal ethical principles. Since the reality studied by social science consist of interacting humans, the truth of its theories cannot be determined by correspondence to the present state of affairs, since social mobilization may prove this state of affairs to be unjust. Since also the social scientist is a participating actor, she cannot139 refrain from making her own judgment on this question.

The mobilization of social movements creates increased public attention to the life situation of certain social groups, supporting claims of equality (universal suffrage, equal social rights, etc.). The standard example is the labor movement, which according to classical nineteenth century Marxism was the ‘critical subject’ whose interests coincided with the universal interests of mankind. Marx himself, in fact, combined a sociology of knowledge with a law-oriented approach: he exposed ‘bourgeois’ economists by claiming that their theories were constructions based on the special, nonuniversal interests of their class. Only scientists who related to universal interests could provide an ‘objective’ understanding of the manmade world, of the ‘laws of motion’ of contemporary society. Later Marxist philosophers of science and others who try to fuse inspiration from the sociology of knowledge with anti-constructivist realism (Bhaskar 1978, Bourdieu 1990) have taken up this idea. In this survey, however, the features that unite critical theory and constructivism are emphasized.

In the postwar twentieth century, several feminist theorists claimed that the women's movement at that time played a role similar to that of the nineteenth-century labor movement. Fusing such an emphasis on women's ‘standpoint’ with a phenomenological focus on everyday knowledge, Smith (1990) criticized the male bias of all established sociological theories, using the common female experience of housework and child-rearing as a standard.

This position was countered by feminist theorists who link up with poststructuralism (Scott 1988), claiming that the idea of a standpoint serving as a basic foundation of theory is in itself a construction, as relative as others. More generally, the whole dispute between modernists and postmodernists in contemporary social theory—dating at least back to Habermas' (1985) attack on the poststructuralists, and on Foucault in particular—can be seen as a controversy between critical and constructivist notions of theory.

Critical theory has focused more on ethical foundations and less on concrete paradigms involved in the explanatory efforts of applied social science. Habermas (1968) distinguishes the action sciences from empirical–analytical (natural) sciences and historical–hermeneutic sciences. These are driven by different ‘knowledge interests’: technical dominance (natural science), maintenance and extension of inter-subjective understanding (historical sciences), and liberation. The latter, critical knowledge interest implies that to the extent that social sciences discover law-like regularities, these are evaluated through collective reflection on their legitimacy.

Habermas argued that adaptations of the deductive–nomological ideal of universal laws by social engineering-oriented social scientists turned science and technology into ideologies. The law-like regularities are reinterpreted: the very point that social science laws can never be universal is not regretted, but given an ‘offensive’ meaning. Their nonuniversal nature means that they can be changed by social action. Later, Habermas (1981) linked technocratic world views and also mainstream economics to the systemic imperatives of modern societies, while critical theories were connected to the defense of Lebenswelt against the system's ‘colonizing efforts.’

Unique to critical theory is its explicit reflection on the ethical foundations of social science theory. Like constructivism, critical theory is weak on parsimonious theories, but in addition it is mostly also weak on applied explanations. In the latter respect, it may at times converge with the constructivist focus on unique historical sequences, at other times with the law-oriented approach, emphasizing the changeable nature of quasi-laws.

2.4 Relativism and Questioning Postmodernists

Postmodernism is plagued, because of its European philosophical precursors, with the charge of relativism (Gellner 1992) but many postmodernists defy this heritage and reject relativism. This is especially true for the postmodernists who come from a philosophically committed heritage: Marxism, feminism, environmentalism, peace movements, ecology groups, and religious studies (Griffin 1988, 1990, Kumar 1995, Leonard 1997). This leads them to argue that while deconstruction is an interesting first step to a postmodern methodology, it is limited because its goal is to undo all constructions. Deconstruction's intent is not to improve, revise, or offer a better version of the text, so they reject it. Postmodernism, in this view, must ultimately move to reconstruction and by extension, methodology remains essential.