cultural relativism is that it is impossible to judge the actions of any culture as to their morality. In fact, because the relativist believes that what is right is what is functional for a specific culture, there is no room for comparing one culture's actions to another culture's. This may seem quite benign to the reader, but under certain circumstances there are negative ramifications. Suppose that one culture practiced infanticide, and another society believed that babies are to be protected from all harms. The relativist would explain that neither culture was more correct in its views; both societies would be doing the functionally right action for their culture alone. However, "the failure to condemn [this] practice does not seem 'enlightened'(Rachel p.455).'" Upon casual observation, it seems that infanticide is wrong, and therefore, the culture that practices it is also morally incorrect.Just as one culture could not criticize another society, there cannot be criticism of a culture from within it. Consider the instance of a culture that fought others simply to rape and pillage them. The relativist would not allow for and individual in the belligerent culture to speak out against their inhumane actions. This is because, as previously mentioned, the relativist states that one culture's actions cannot be judged as to their morality.A third consequence of practicing relativism is that there cannot be any moral progress in a culture. Since the relativist does not allow for any action of a given culture to be objectively right or wrong, he cannot give the name of progress to any change in a given society. At best, the cultural relativist can only admit to change in that culture. Let the reader consider this example of women's rights. "Throughout most of Western history the place of women in society was very narrowly circumscribed. They could not own property: they could not vote or hold political office; with a few exceptions, they we...
