Relativism
RELATIVISM. The term relativism is applied to ethical, cultural, and religious views. Relativism contends that such views are to be evaluated relative to the societies or cultures in which they appear and are not to be judged true or false, or good or bad, based on some overall criterion but are to be assessed within the context in which they occur. Thus, what is right or good or true to one person or group may not be considered so by others.
This theory was first presented by certain Greek authors who noted the varieties of religions and moral behavior in the Mediterranean world and suggested that differing mores indicated that there were no absolute standards. Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things," and this was interpreted to convey that each person could be his or her own measure. The variations of human, social, political, and ethical behavior were worked into a basic theme of the Greek skeptics. The fact of differences in human behavior is taken to imply that no general standard can possibly apply to all peoples and cultures. Sextus Empiricus even suggested that cannibalism, incest, and other practices considered taboo are just variant kinds of behavior, to be appreciated as acceptable in some cultures and not in others. This reasoning was applied by the Greek skeptics to various religions and their practices. They urged suspension of judgment about right or wrong and undogmatic acceptance of one's own culture.
This relativistic attitude was in sharp contrast to the dogmatic views of the Jews and Christians in the Roman empire, who insisted their revealed information assured them that their religious beliefs and practices were the only correct and acceptable ones. The christianization of the Roman empire and of pagan Europe pushed the relativistic approach aside. There could be some variations in ritual or practice, but in essential beliefs and practices anything different was heretical.
The skeptical-relativist view reappeared in new and forceful ways in the Renaissance, with a rediscovery of the wide variety of beliefs and practices of ancient times, and with the discoveries of radically different cultures all over the world. The rapid development of new kinds of Christian practices resulting from the Reformation also contributed to an emerging view of differences as based on cultural factors. Contrasts with the Ottoman empire made people even more cognizant of the wide range of human beliefs and practices. Montaigne was foremost in presenting the panorama of human beliefs and implying that the fact of difference indicated that each set of beliefs and practices was culturally conditioned. He contended that most people hold their religious views as a result of custom rather than conviction. He also suggested that the religious and moral practices of the "noble savages" were at least as good as those of European Christians.
Montaigne's skepticism and cultural relativism were carried further by the French skeptic Pierre Bayle, who insisted that a society of atheists could be more moral than a society of Christians, since moral behavior results from natural causes such as custom and education and not from religious doctrines. Bayle sought to show that such biblical heroes as David, such leading Christians as Calvin and Luther, and saints and popes throughout the history of Christianity have all acted in the moral sphere because of their own human natures and not because of their religious beliefs.
Bayle's analysis was incorporated into the Enlightenment's quest for a science of humanity that would explain why people acted, behaved, and believed in different ways. This science would deem religious beliefs the effects of different physical and psychological conditions, which might be studied neutrally. Climate, history, customs, education, institutions, and so on would account for the fact that societies differ in their social, cultural, and religious practices. One's personal psychological conditions would account for an individual's strong or weak religious convictions. Hume's Natural History of Religion (1757) initiated the study of religion as a manifestation of human behavior in which religious activity is relative to individual and cultural conditions.
This relativistic aspect of religion was identified as a crucial feature of the human condition by the German philosopher J. G. Herder, who contended that every society or culture develops from its own unique idea or character. Ethical and religious norms are part of the expression of these ideas, and no culture is inferior or superior to any other; it is simply different. Thus religion is seen to be relative to the culture in which it appears.
Herder's relativism and the growing interest in comparative studies of language and religion led to the full-blown relativism of Alexander von Humboldt in the nineteenth century, and of many twentieth-century anthropologists. Von Humboldt stated, "There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for freedom" (Cosmos, London, 1888, vol. 1, p. 368).
The relativist position was further reinforced by various theories of the natural causes of beliefs. The theories of Marx and Freud offered ways whereby one could account for the fact that individuals and groups adhere to beliefs without considering whether or not these beliefs are true. Scholars now began to consider instead whether various religious beliefs were beneficial or deleterious, or why a particular belief arose at a certain moment in human history.
The relativist position was forcefully stated by the anthropologist Edward A. Westermarck in his major work The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (1906). Westermarck contended on the basis of historical, sociological, and anthropological evidence that no ethical principles are objectively valid. In Ethical Relativity (1932) he further argued his position on philosophic grounds.
Critics of cultural relativism have suggested, first, that evidence of cultural differences does not rule out the possibility that there exist common beliefs and attitudes held by most or all cultures and, second, that factual information about such differences does not eliminate the possibility that one belief system may in fact be better, or more true, than another. Further, philosophers are still arguing about whether causal explanations about people's beliefs evidence the value, truth, or falsity of these beliefs. Yet by the late twentieth century, cultural relativism was a rather common view among many students of ethics and religion.
Anthropology, Ethnology, and Religion; Apologetics; Freud, Sigmund; Herder, Johann Gottfried; Hume, David; Marx, Karl; Skeptics and Skepticism
Bibliography
Brandt, Richard B. "Ethical Relativism." In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards, vol. 3. New York, 1967. A careful presentation and examination of the relativistic theory.
Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Authorized translation by James Strachey. New York, 1950. A psychoanalytic interpretation of some features of primitive religion and their present form in ordinary neurotic behavior.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York, 1902. A classical psychological description of the role of religion in human experience.
Jarvie, Ian C. Rationality and Relativism: In Search of a Philosophy and History of Anthropology. London, 1984. A critical evaluation of relativism as a proper interpretation of anthropological findings.
Needham, Joseph, ed. Science, Religion and Reality. New York, 1925. Contains, among other essays, Bronislaw Malinowski's "Magic, Science and Religion," Charles Singer's "Historical Relations of Religion and Science," and Needham's "Mechanistic Biology and the Religious Consciousness," all pressing a relativistic interpretation of religion.
Westermarck, Edward A. Ethical Relativity. New York, 1932. The basic philosophical statement of relativism in the twentieth century.
Yinger, J. Milton. The Scientific Study of Religion. New York, 1970. A study of religion in relation to human needs, behavior, and problems. A multidisciplinary approach.
New Sources
Ariel, Yoav, Shlomo Biderman, and Ornan Rotem, eds. Relativism and Beyond. New York, 1998.
Devine, Philip. Relativism, Nihilism, and God. Notre Dame, Ind., 1989.
Jaki, Stanley. The Only Chaos and Other Essays. Lanham, Md., 1990.
Lewis, Charles, ed. Relativism and Religion. Blasingstoke, U.K., 1995.
Moody-Adams, Michele. Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, and Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass., 2002.
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