1970s was the result of a rejection of moral skepticism and relativism and a search for solid moral theory that could ground moral judgments in an objective, rational, internally coherent and consistent, universally applicable and impersonal manner in order to overcome the particularities of time and culture. Universality or universalism therefore represented what Callahan saw as an effort to create standards that could be applied in many different cases. Universalism, as an ethical system, was based upon the ideas of Immanuel Kant and those of the Utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
Immanuel Wallerstein believes that there are multiple universalisms which do not necessarily have equal weight and place. The problem with universalism as understood by Wallerstein is that there are many different incompatible universalisms. What this suggests quite simply, is that if there are competing or alternative universalisms, neither can be truly universal. Universalism in this approach therefore becomes more particularist and more related to a specific culture (perhaps even a dominant culture).
Ethnocentrism is defined as "the tendency to judge the customs of other societies by the standards of one's own ethnocentric present." Ethnocentrism also represents the belief that one's own culture, society or group is basically superior to all others. Ethnocentrism means an inability to "appreciate others whose culture may include a different racial group, ethnic group, religion, morality, language, political system, economic systemà . It also means an inability to see a common humanity and human condition facing all women and men in all cultures and societies beneath the surface variations in social and cultural traditions
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