Political Science 3388E Chapter Notes - Chapter Donelley 7: Cultural Relativism
5 Feb 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Argument: human rights are not in any way culturally relative. Culture explains little importance about the development of ideas and practices of human rights or what rights we have. Western culture is a result of human rights, not a cause. Political changes (ex: abolishment of hierarchy) allowed for more universality of rights and more groups to be heard. Modernity and human rights transformed western culture and is currently changing non-western culture. No culture is by nature compatible or incompatible with human rights. Matters on what people make of and do w their cultural resources. Once denied human rights but now embrace them as part of their culture. Culture does not provide a justification for hr. Cultural relativeity : cultural differences over time and space. Substantive relativists: rights of unhr have no normative force of divergent cultural traditions; practice is to be evaluated by culture in question.
