HELP!!! Paper on Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights ...?

Question

SO IM WRITING THIS PAPER ABOUT CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL RIGHTS AND I NEED SOME INSIGHT..... IF ANYONE KNOWS OF ANY CUSTOMS OR PRACTICES WITHIN A CULTURE THAT MIGHT BE CONTROVERSIAL TO HUMAN RIGHTS WOULD YOU LET ME KNOW ...CAUSE I NEED EXPAMPLES. IT WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED.

Answer 1

How about capital punishment..or genital mutilation...infanticide..

Answer 2

Universal rights you can get from looking at what the UN agree they are. Not everyone agrees with their list but it gets to call itself Universal Rights. And by looking at it you will see in the US culture alone there are lots of practices that do not fit. But if you want stuff that is politically correct to expose you can use the stuff on female circumcisions being done in India and Africa. Those are culturally approved of and controversial. Stuff like that. In many European countries it is assumed that all humans have the right to decent health care. And shelter. Along with food and clothing. That right there is highly controversial in the US. But not in Canada. They agree with the Europeans.

Answer 3

Check your local library for a book called East Asian Challenge for Human Rights by Bell and Bauer.  We used it as one of several texts in my undergrad Human Rights and Ethics anthropology class.  It talks primarily about collectivist vs. individualist ideas of human rights.

Answer 4

In some cultures, it is considered more humane to inflict harsh physical pain as a form of punishment rather than the prolonged psychological pain of imprisonment.  Here is a quote by a Papua New Guinean that was given as an example to emphasis how cultural differences can be in conflict with universal human rights:

"We used to kill only very bad people, but now one may get into prison simply for stealing or even fighting.  One dies if shot by an arrow, but in jail one has to suffer before death.  One has to stay in one place and has to work when one does not like it.  Jail is really the worst thing.  Human beings should not act like that.  It is most immoral."

I hope that helps - and good luck with the paper :)

Answer 5

Well I think that universal rights are hard to define when you're bringing cultural relativism into the discussion.  With this theory, what one culture believes is a universal right may not be in another culture; it strictly depends on the culture's history and their personal beliefs.  

Personally, I think that universal rights that are observed in most cultures are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I am American, but don't most cultures recognize these three as rights that every human should have?  But since I am American, I can only speak for my culture and myself.  Applying cultural relativism to this, I can only speak for myself and my culture, I can't speak for anyone other culture as I can't comprehend their beliefs and history without having been raised within that culture.  I suppose that universal rights would depend on the culture and their own personal beliefs.

Answer 6

look up" the nacirema" they lived in northamerica.