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How Plausible is Cultural Relativism? Cultural relativism associates any ethical truth to the moral precedence of a particular culture: there can be no right or wrong actions or behaviour; rather actions that either do or do not correlate with the moral code relative to a specified society. For instance, polygamy is morally acceptable in some Islamic societies but not in Christian culture. According to William Sumner, morality is simply 'socially approved habits'1 that are subjective in their nature but form moral guidelines for the relevant culture. Therefore, cultural relativism denies the existence of objective and universal moral truths in favour of an acceptance that nothing can be intrinsically wrong or right, and that any feelings of moral obligation are caused by our upbringing and cultural influences. As a result though, there are many criticisms of this meta-ethical attitude because it does appear that human morality is considerably more complex than simply...

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