etched example of aliens coming to Earth with their customs comes to mind. Here, just because this new culture may have very different, yet harmless beliefs, other cultures should not condone these beliefs. However, an example can be given in which an open mind should not be extended. Let the reader consider the recent crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Serbs and Croats are "ethnically cleansing" villages in the area. It seems quite immoral to kill others simply because of their ethnicity, yet the relativist would consider such and incident with an open mind. Obviously, there are certain events that cannot be considered in such a way.In the final analysis, it is the relativist position, which has both negative logical and practical consequences, and negligible benefits. The logical consequences include the fact that the relativist must contradict himself in order to uphold his belief, and that his "Cultural differences Argument" is not sound. The problems of actually practicing cultural relativism are numerous. They include the fact that the culture determines what is right and wrong, that it is impossible (being a relativist) to judge a culture morally, and that there cannot be any moral progress in a culture per-say. As discussed, the negligible benefits of cultural relativism such as tolerance, lacking of an absolute standard, and an open mind can only be applied to a limited range of instances. As previously shown extreme relativism "in its vulgar and unregenerate form (Williams p.451) leads to stagnation of cultural morals and passive acceptance of ethical injustice. Of course, just as in any ethical theory, there are some things to be learned from it. One of these is the idea of not being too critical of other cultures. Also, the theory shows the importance of not becoming so culturalcentric that one looses the ability to learn from other societies. In truth, if more cultures tempered their tolerances with wisdom, then many o...
