It should go without saying that we as individuals live in a very, very large world. Large not only in size but in population; somewhere around 7 billion to be exact. Maybe the most interesting thing about this is that even with such a large number of individuals, almost unavoidably, each person lives in some kind of society, and with some kind of cultural identity.
In this world exists hundreds, if not thousands of cultural identities, all of which possess their own customs, rules, and ideas. The ideas that Ruth Benedict focuses on in A Defense of Ethical Relativism are the things which any individual society deems normal or not normal.
“Ethical Relativism” refers to the idea that there are inherent differences between peoples and cultures concerning what one or another might deem acceptable. One of the examples that Benedict cites is homosexuality, noting that while there are places in the 21st century world where homosexuality is seen as grounds for institutionalization, there are other places and there have been other times where it is/has been considered essential. Benedict says that the reason for this is “Every society… carries its preference farther and farther, integrating itself more and mole completely upon its chosen basis, and discarding those type of behavior that are uncongenial.” This is an argument that is hard to discard when it is so visible in the real world.
Where ethical relativism begins to become questionable is in how society decides what is right. For example, if the majority favor capital punishment and oppose abortion, then capital punishment is right and abortion is wrong. While the argument could be made that this is ethical because the majority decided so, is it logically inconsistent to concern oneself with the preservation of life in one scenario and not in the other.
Noah's Blog: Part II 