HREQ 3890 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cultural Relativism, Moral Relativism, Karl Mannheim

• School: York University
• Department: Human Rights and Equity Studies
• Course: HREQ 3890
• Professor: L.Visanio

Document Summary

Lecture three: ideology as a locus of coercion. Delaet, chapter 3 the global struggle for human rights. Universalism refers to the belief that all moral values are fundamentally the same at all times and in all place. Universalists perspective on human rights suffers that basic human rights do not vary as a result of religious diversity, cultural difference or historical context. Moral relativism stresses that moral values are determined by religion, culture, history and other social contexts. Pure/radial relativism essentially discredits the idea of universal human rights by suggesting that there are no rights that all individual human beings have simply because they are human. Human rights, to the extent that they exist, are defied entirely fem the groups and cultures in which humans live. According to pure universalist perspective, any consideration of culture or historical context in the application of human rights standards would be invalid.