Cultures have different ways of defining their moral conduct. For instance, while Callatians in India fed on the bodies of their dead fathers, the Greeks instead cremated dead bodies and found it fit to discard them. A particular practice may be right in one community but it may be unacceptable in a different community. While the Eskimos allow infanticide, the society perceives them as having minimal respect for life. This essay shows how moral beliefs vary from one culture to another. Secondly, the essay explains the extent of truth in the moral statements from one culture to another. Moreover, it focuses on infanticide and how it is perceived from different cultures, thus changing from being true in one to being false in another.
There have been criticisms about the Eskimos having little regard for life. Eskimos have a different marriage life and culture. While the society does not allow sharing in marriage, Eskimo men shared their wives with guests as a show of hospitality. Another distinguishing aspect of the Eskimo culture is that they allowed women to kill their children at birth and more so female children that were a source of stigma in the community. Moreover, the elderly people who could barely contribute to the society were left out to die in the snow. These practices made the Eskimo to be considered as lacking the respect for life. However, to some extent the Eskimo may be justified since what is culturally wrong in one community may be accepted in another. The notion that Eskimos are archaic and primitive may not stand.
In the modern society, a parent that murdered a child would face imprisonment while the Eskimo embraces infanticide due to a number of social factors. Eskimos do not necessarily lack respect for life. If anything, the Eskimos protect their children. Eskimos live in a hostile environment where food is a rare commodity. The life of an Eskimo is difficult and has little security. As much as the Eskimo family desires to nourish their children, they may be unable to do so. Similarly to other primitive societies, an Eskimo mother nurses their child for as long as four years. The prolonged care given to the child makes it impossible for the mother to take care of many infants. As nomads, the Eskimos move from place to place in search of food and the mother may just have to carry one baby.
Baby girls are disposed of since males are the providers of food among the Eskimo. For this reason, the Eskimo strives to create a balance in the food provision by eradicating female infants. Among the Eskimos, infanticide does not portray their attitude towards children but the necessity for action to survive. However, for generations to survive in any society, they have to value their children. Children are helpless and have to be taken care of to reach full maturity after several years. If the infants are not taken care of, the elderly in the society would die and they would lack a replacement. Such a community would become extinct after a few decades. In any existing society, all infants should be taken care of with respect, whether male or female. However, cultural relativism is inexistent and therefore, it would be wrong to judge both ourselves and other communities as being culturally right or wrong.
