Friday, August 14, 2009

Gender-based violence, cultural relativism, and human rights « Global Public Health through a Human Rights Lens

Gender-based violence, cultural relativism, and human rights « Global Public Health through a Human Rights Lens

Posted using ShareThis

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The author says what everyone is already thinking right? "This debate over cultural relativism has been going on since the inception of human rights. Whereas universalism contends that “humanity comes before culture and traditions” and that “people are humans first and belong to cultures second,” cultural relativists propose that cultural attitudes and beliefs supersede these general concepts of human rights (Callaway and Harrelson-Stephens 109)."

My response to this theory is that how can culture supersede general concepts of human rights? Its the chicken or the egg argument which came first? I argue a bit for the cultural relativist viewpoint in that a societal culture may indeed out-date "modern" human rights theories. However, there are hints to human rights that predate modern civilizations and can be argued to trump cultural relativists all day long.

William

Unknown said...

Please leave a comment I want comments!