Relationalism vs. Relativism

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the theory of cultural relativism which holds that whatever a culture values or assesses as right is what is valuable or right. It looks at how this stands in contrast to relationalism, which holds that what is important is not what the individual or the culture holds to be valuable or right, what the individual or the culture would hold to be valuable or right if the individual were enlightened or the culture were comprised of enlightened individuals.

From the Paper:

"The members of a culture, because of the means whereby folkways are formed and believed and followed, must follow those folkways because they are true, because they follow them, because they are true, ad infinitum. There is nothing in Sumner's Social Relativism which allows for any subtlety or possibility beyond the "folkways": "The notion of right is in the folkways"; "In the folkways, whatever is, is right"; "When we come to the folkways we are at the end of our analysis" (Sumner 32). Again, to Sumner, nothing matters beyond what exists."

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