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t although similar causes produce similar effects different causes may also produce similar effects 14 consequently similar artifacts found in distinct and distant places may be the products of distinct causes against the popular method of drawing analogies in order to reach generalizations boas argued in favor of an inductive method based on his critique of contemporary museum displays boas concluded it is my opinion that the main object of ethnological collections should be the dissemination of the fact that civilization is not something absolute but that it is relative and that our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes 13 boas s student alfred kroeber described the rise of the relativist perspective thus 15 now while some of the interest in so called solial culture science anthropology in its earlier stages was in the exotic and the out of the way yet even this antiquarian motivation ultimately contributed to a broader result anthropologists became aware of the diversity of culture they began to see the tremendous range of its variations from that they commenced to envisage it as a totality as no historian of one period or of a single people was likely to do nor any analyst of his own type of civilization alone they became aware of culture as a universe or vast field in which we of today and our own civilization occupy only one place of many the result was a widening of a fundamental point of view a departure from unconscious ethnocentricity toward relativity this shift from naive self centeredness in one s own time and spot to a broader view based on objective comparison is somewhat like the change from the original geocentric assumption of astronomy to the copernican interpretation of the solar system and the subsequent still greater widening to a universe of galaxies this conception of culture and principle of cultural relativism were for kroeber and his colleagues the fundamental contribution of anthropology and what distinguished anthropology from similar disciplines such as sociology and psychology ruth benedict another of boas s students also argued that an appreciation of the importance of culture and the problem of ethnocentrism demands that the scientist adopt cultural relativism as a method her 1934 book patterns of culture did much to popularize the term in the united states in it she explained that the study of custom can be profitable only after certain preliminary propositions have been violently opposed in the first place any scientific study requires that there be no preferential weighting of one or another items in the series it selects for its consideration in all the less controversial fields like the study of cacti or termites or the nature of nebulae the necessary method of study is to group the relevant material and to take note of all possible variant forms and conditions in this way we have learned all that we know of the laws of astronomy or of the habits of the social insects let us say it is only in the study of man himself that the major social sciences have substituted the study of one local variation that of western civilization 16 benedict was adamant that she was not romanticizing so called primitive societies she was emphasizing that any understanding of the totality of humanity must be based on as wide and varied a sample of individual cultures as possible moreover it is only by appreciating a culture that is profoundly different from our own that we can realize the extent to which our own beliefs and activities are culture bound rather than natural or universal in this context cultural relativism is a heuristic device of fundamental importance because it calls attention to the importance of variation in any sample that is used to derive generalizations about humanity as a critical device edit marcus and fischer s attention to anthropology s refusal to accept western culture s claims to universality implies that cultural relativism is a tool not only in cultural understanding but in cultural critique this points to the second front on which they believe anthropology offers people enlightenment the other promise of anthropology one less fully distinguished and attended to than the first has been to serve as a form of cultural critique for ourselves in using portraits of other cultural patterns to reflect self critically on our own ways anthropology disrupts common sense and makes us reexamine our taken for granted assumptions 9 the critical function of cultural relativism is widely understood philosopher john cook observed that it is aimed at getting people to admit that although it may seem to them that their moral principles are self evidently true and hence seem to be grounds for passing judgement on other peoples in fact the self evidence of these principles is a kind of illusion 17 cook recognizes the middle ground in between moral relativism and moral absolutism that cultural relativism straddles remarking that the ensuing battlegrounds that arise tend to be in the domain of claims of self evidence made on behalf of a people the critical function was indeed one of the ends to which benedict hoped her own work would meet the most famous use of cultural relativism as a means of cultural critique is margaret mead s research of adolescent female sexuality in samoa by contrasting the ease and freedom enjoyed by samoan teenagers mead called into question claims that the stress and rebelliousness that characterize american adolescence is natural and inevitable as marcus and fischer point out however this use of relativism can be sustained only if there is ethnographic research in the united states comparable to the research conducted in samoa although every decade has witnessed anthropologists conducting research in the united states the very principles of relativism have led most anthropologists to conduct research in foreign countries comparison to moral relativism edit according to marcus and fischer when the principle of cultural relativism was popularized after world war ii it came to be understood more as a doctrine or position the principle of cultural relativity does not mean that because the members of some savage tribe are allowed to behave in a certain way that this fact gives intellectual warrant for such behavior in all groups cultural relativity means on the contrary that the appropriateness of any positive or negative custom must be evaluated with regard to how this habit fits with other group habits while breeding a healthy scepticism as to the eternity of any value prized by a particular people anthropology does not as a matter of theory deny the existence of moral absolutes rather the use of the comparative method provides a scientific means of discovering such absolutes if all surviving societies have found it necessary to impose some of the same restrictions upon the behavior of their members this makes a strong argument that these aspects of the moral code are indispensable 18 19 although kluckhohn was using language that was popular at the time e g savage tribe but which is now considered antiquated and coarse by most anthropologists his point was that although moral standards are rooted in one s culture anthropological research reveals that the fact that people have moral standards is a universal he was especially interested in deriving specific moral standards that are universal although few if any anthropologists think that he was successful 18 there is an ambiguity in kluckhohn s formulation that would haunt anthropologists in the years to come it makes it clear that one s moral standards make sense in terms of one s culture he waffles however on whether the moral standards of one society could be applied to another four years later american anthropologists had to confront this issue head on vertical and horizontal relativism edit it was james lawrence wray miller who provided an additional clarification tool or caveat of the theoretical underpinnings of cultural relativism by dividing it into two binary analytical continuums vertical and horizontal cultural relativism ultimately these two analytical continuums share the same basic conclusion that human morality and ethics are not static but fluid and vary across cultures depending on the time period and current condition of any particular culture vertical relativism describes that cultures throughout history vertical i e passage through past and future are products of the prevailing societal norms and conditions of their respective historical periods therefore any moral or ethical judgments made during the present regarding past cultures belief systems or societal practices must be firmly grounded and informed by these norms and conditions to be intellectually useful vertical relativism also accounts for the possibility that cultural values and norms will necessarily change as influencing norms and conditions change in the future horizontal relativism describes that cultures in the present horizontal in time i e the present period of the culture are products of the prevailing norms and conditions developed as a result of their unique geographies histories and environmental influences therefore moral or ethical judgments made during the present regarding a current culture s belief system or societal practices must account for these unique differences to be intellectually useful statement on human rights edit the transformation of cultural relativism as a heuristic tool into the doctrine of moral relativism occurred in the context of the work of the commission of human rights of the united nations in preparing the universal declaration of human rights 1948 melville j herskovits prepared a draft statement on human rights which executive board of the american anthropological association revised submitted to the commission on human rights and then published the statement begins with a fairly straightforward explanation of the relevance of cultural relativism 20 the problem is thus to formulate a statement of human rights that will do more than phrase respect for the individual as individual it must also take into full account the individual as a member of a social group of which he is part whose sanctioned modes of life shape his behavior and with whose fate his own is thus inextricably bound the bulk of this statement emphasizes concern that the declaration of human rights was being prepared primarily by people from western societies and would express values that far from being universal are really western today the problem is complicated by the fact that the declaration must be of world wide applicability it must embrace and recognize the validity of many different ways of life it will not be convincing to the indonesian the african the chinese if it lies on the same plane as like documents of an earlier period the rights of man in the twentieth century cannot be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture or be dictated by the aspirations of any single people such a document will lead to frustration not realization of the personalities of vast numbers of human beings although this statement could be read as making a procedural point that the commission must involve people of diverse cultures especially cultures that had been or are still under european colonial or imperial domination the document ended by making two substantive claims even where political systems exist that deny citizens the right of participation in their government or seek to conquer weaker peoples underlying cultural values may be called on to bring the peoples of such states to a realization of the consequences of the acts of their governments and thus enforce a brake upon discrimination and conquest worldwide standards of freedom and justice based on the principle that man is free only when he lives as his society defines freedom that his rights are those he recognizes as a member of his society must be basic these claims provoked an immediate response by a number of anthropologists julian steward who as a student of alfred kroeber and robert lowie and as a professor at columbia university was situated firmly in the boasian lineage suggested that the first claim may have been a loophole to exclude germany from the advocated tolerance but that it revealed the fundamental flaw in moral relativism 21 either we tolerate everything and keep hands off or we fight intolerance and conquest political and economic as well as military in all their forms similarly he questioned whether the second principle means that anthropologists approve the social caste system of india the racial caste system of the united states or many other varieties of social discrimination in the world steward and others argued that any attempt to apply the principle of cultural relativism to moral problems would only end in contradiction either a principle that seems to stand for tolerance ends up being used to excuse intolerance or the principle of tolerance is revealed to be utterly intolerant of any society that seems to lack the arguably western value of tolerance 22 they concluded that anthropologists must stick to science and engage in debates over values only as individuals 22 governmental usage edit several countries have used cultural relativism as a justification for limiting the rights in the universal declaration of human rights despite the world conference on human rights rejecting it as a refutation of human rights violations 23 a 2011 study by international legal expert roger lloret blackburn examining the universal periodic reviews distinguishes several different groups of nations 24 one group consists of nations where the current regime has been installed by revolution and that deny the need for political plurality china vietnam myanmar cuba and iran another group are certain islamic nations that adhere to sharia and certain traditional practices yemen iran saudi arabia pakistan a third possible group is nations that give special rights to specific groups malaysia mexico indonesia and colombia criticism edit cultures differ in values practices and outcomes some prioritize individual liberty others collective harmony some advance scientific inquiry others may suppress it these differences can lead to measurable disparities in things like human rights economic prosperity or technological development the debate over the statement on human rights then was not merely over the validity of cultural relativism or the question of what makes a right universal it forced anthropologists to confront the question of whether anthropological research is relevant to non anthropologists although steward and barnett seemed to be suggesting that anthropology as such should restrict itself to purely academic affairs people within and without the academy have continued to debate the ways non anthropologists have used this principle in public policy concerning ethnic minorities or in international relations political scientist aliso...