Comment on the Cultural Relativism in 150 words.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 Define cultural relativism — practices understood within their own cultural context, not judged by another’s standards.
Route 2 Open with its epistemological claim (Herskovits) that no moral vantage point is truly neutral.
Core claim — understand cultures on their own terms → Melville Herskovits — judgments mediated by enculturation; no neutral standpoint → Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man — rejects racial & civilizational hierarchy → corrective force — dismantles Eurocentric assumptions of progress → overlaps with multiculturalism, communitarian thought, the Asian-values debate
It slides into moral relativism — if every culture is its own moral universe, there is no ground to criticise female genital cutting, caste discrimination, or repression defended as “cultural.”
Route 1 Cultural relativism must be balanced with universal norms of dignity, justice and rights.
Route 2 Understand cultures on their terms without surrendering cross-cultural moral judgment.
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Political Ideologies — 20 questions in the Vault.
- Explain how the slogan ‘the personal is political’ addresses the issue of women’s oppression and discrimination?
- Mention the difference between Italian and German brands of fascism.
- Fascism displays an ambivalent stance towards parliamentary democracy. Explain.
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.