An Explication of the Current Debate Between Universalism and Cultural Relativism

As popular human rights ideologies, cultural relativism and universalism are simple, antithetical, and antagonistic. Taken into serious academic consideration, however, one finds a much more complex relationship between the two perspectives, with proponents on both sides taking positions in decidedly grey areas. It seems, though, that the dialogue has not been able to fully move past ideological bickering. Many relativist authors devote much of their work to refutations of essentialized (and often wrong) versions of universalism, and vice versa. As such, it is necessary to explore not only the academic arguments for and against the two perspectives, but also their ideological popular versions.

A Universalist perspective on human rights, in its most popular form, stresses a natural, "inherent dignity" and "equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" (UNUDHR in Bell 2001: 383). This argument, raised in the 1948 UNUDHR, carries in it the philosophical underpinnings of Hobbes' Natural Law and Mill's Utilitarianism as well as the sense of moral certainty that followed the Nuremburg Trials. Whether through shared fear of death or by divine provenance of God, Universalism as an ideology asks that if rights are inherent, how can they be denied by someone with conscience.