Ariadne's Thread on Ethical Relativism
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Tolerance

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Vera Speaking
I want to add something here. We have mentioned tolerance and non-interference, but we have not said anything much about criticism of other cultures.

Sometimes people seem to think that the theory of ethical relativism implies that the people of one culture cannot criticize the standards of another culture or the actions of its people. After what we have said about tolerance not following logically from cultural relativism or ethical relativism, I think we can say the same thing about criticism. No rule of non-criticism follows from the fact that people hold different moral principles or from the meta-ethical theory of relativism.

One writer, Alice Renteln, has listed three kinds of criticism that are available to us even if we accept the theory of ethical relativism:

  • criticizing an action because it violates the principles of the society in which it occurs.
  • criticizing an action because it violates moral universals (i.e., rules accepted by all or nearly all cultures)
  • criticizing an action because it violates the principles of the critic.
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