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Cultural relativism; perspectives in cultural pluralism

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Herskovits is one of the early masters in this concept. Even the most well trained individuals tend to look at other cultural societies and ideas through the filter of their own morals, and sense of what is right, good.

Donald T. Campbell points out in the introduction of Herskovits's book:

"He mistakes his own cultural categories as universally correct, as a part of nature rather than a more or less arbitrary convention of his own people. When he encounters different patterns of judgment in another culture, he cannot help but see them as erroneous. Consciously or unconsciously, he regards his home culture as superior, the people studied as inferior. The acts his culture has taught him to be immoral and unclean he sees as immoral and unclean when done by others."

Oh what woe and pain humans have caused do far by this mistake.

For similar ideas read Edward Said's "Orientalism."