 :compare moral relativism, aesthetic relativism, social constructionism, and cognitive relativism. cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture.http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/cultural_relativism.html it was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by franz boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students. boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."franz boas 1887 "museums of ethnology and their classification" science 9: 589 however, boas did not coin the term. the first use of the term recorded in the dictionary was by philosopher and social theorist alain locke in 1924 to describe robert lowie's "extreme cultural relativism", found in the latter's 1917 book culture and ethnology."cultural, adj. and n.", oed online, sept 2009, oxford university press, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50055630 , citing locke's article "the concept of race as applied to social culture", howard review 1 (1924): pp. 290-299. the term became common among anthropologists after boas' death in 1942, to express their synthesis of a number of ideas boas had developed. boas believed that the sweep of cultures, to be found in connection with any sub species, is so vast and pervasive that there cannot be a relationship between cultures and races. cultural relativism involves specific epistemological and methodological claims. whether or not these claims necessitate a specific ethical stance is a matter of debate. this principle should not be confused with moral relativism. ==epistemological origins==  herodotus (histories 3.38) observes on the relativity of mores (Î½ÏÎ¼Î¿Î¹): :"if anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably&mdash;after careful considerations of their relative merits&mdash;choose that of his own country. everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such thin
Cultural_anthropology Majorityaminority_relations Relativism