ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to defend a weak cultural relativist position that permits limited deviations from “universal” human rights standards primarily at the levels of form and interpretation. It presents radical relativism and radical universalism. Radical cultural relativism would hold that culture is the sole source of the validity of a moral right or rule. The chapter explores the levels and types of cultural relativism and addresses the problem of the cultural basis of relativism. Cultural relativism is a doctrine that holds that variations are exempt from legitimate criticism by outsiders, a doctrine that is strongly supported by notions of communal autonomy and self-determination. The chapter shows that the international consensus represented by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international Human Rights Covenants, in the conditions of the modern world, support a weak cultural relativist approach to human rights.
