Recently, we had watched the documentary called ‘Girl in the River’ which portrayed a shocking yet truthful story of a girl who was a target for an honor killing from her father and uncle.Fortunately, the murder was a failure and the girl had only been injured badly but not dead. To answer this question, we must first understand what exactly cultural relativism is. Cultural Relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself. We are looking at a very serious topic which is honor killings, and when we look at this, I personally think that honor killing should be universal and have nothing to with cultural relativism. There are many places in the world where this is happening today and this cannot go any longer which is why the authorities should start taking serious actions on people who have chosen to go down the path of honor killings. Human rights is very important and that if any human rights is violated, it cannot be tolerated. The violation in this case was article 3 of UDHR which states that you have the right to life. Murder cannot be let gone so easily no matter what the situation is and how you were pushed do it in whatever way.A murder should always face its consequences.
Hey Mathew, I agree with your points you made. Honor killings are bad and humans rights should be applied universally. Many human rights are very basic moral choices I believe we should all follow, however, I think it is also important to understand the perspective of those who wish for it to be culturally relative.
One thing I would have liked to see more of is the explanation of what the differences are between universalism and culturally relativist take on human rights. Although yes you did talk very briefly about what are culturally relativist views might be, it would be good to see your understanding of universalism as well.