Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture.
It was established as
axiomatic in
anthropological research by
Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."
[1] However, Boas did not coin the term.
The first use of the term recorded in the
Oxford English Dictionary was by philosopher and social theorist
Alain Locke in 1924 to describe
Robert Lowie's "extreme cultural relativism", found in the latter's 1917 book
Culture and Ethnology.
[2] The term became common among anthropologists after Boas' death in 1942, to express their synthesis of a number of ideas Boas had developed. Boas believed that the sweep of cultures, to be found in connection with any sub species, is so vast and pervasive that there cannot be a relationship between cultures and
races.
[3] Cultural relativism involves specific
epistemological and methodological claims. Whether or not these claims necessitate a specific
ethical stance is a matter of debate. This principle should not be confused with
moral relativism.
