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Essays on the problem with ethical relativism
Ethical and cultural relativism
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Week Three Journal 1. Describe your personality (choose 3 power words) A. Driven B. Strong C. Tactful Driven: I am generally pretty ambitious person, and when I set my mind to something I won’t stop until I feel like I reached my objective.
Mackie’s Arguments Against Ethical Objectivism According to the book The Fundamentals of Ethics, it is stated that ethical objectivism “is the view that moral standards are objectively correct and that some moral claims are objectively true” (Shafer-Landau, p. 294). It is the belief that each individual or person has their own set of moral principles. J.L Mackie explains two arguments against ethical objectivism, which include the argument from relativity and the argument from queerness. In addition he explains and defends his error theory.
Moral Relativism, should it be abandoned or not? This was the original question that came to my mind when starting off reading this excerpt. Mary Midgley, the author of this story, mentioned that now days we as people deny that we will ever be able to understand a culture that is not our own. That got me thinking and as I was thinking I found what she said to be relatively true. I feel as if society has shaped us as young adults to judge our culture as being the best and all other cultures as coming up second best.
Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist, argues that morality is relative and based on one's culture or society. What could be morally acceptable in one culture is not necessarily acceptable in another culture. She believes that “the most spectacular illustrations of the extent to which normality may be culturally defined are those cultures where an abnormality of our culture is the cornerstone” (134). James Rachels, a philosopher, argues that Benedict’s argument is fallible. The conclusion of her argument does not follow from the premises.
Moral absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards where actions can be judged as right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Absolute moral rules are difficult to universalize, thus they are difficult for everyone everywhere to abide by them. When I think of absolutism, I think of the ten commandments in the Bible. Commandments such as; Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not kill, and Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife, all are examples of absolute standards and rules. For true believers under no circumstance are these commandments to be broken.
Moral standards are an integral aspect of human rationalization in bringing control and order into our daily situational encounters. These ethical and moral standards are learned and ingrained early in childhood, they have internalized with ourselves as our moral compass. These internalized moral rules and ethical principles dictate the outcome of the decisions we encounter on a daily basis. Situationally dependent, the outcomes can lean towards successfully correct decisions or a drastic failures to abide by our moral standards. Regardless of the situations we all have the potential to commit immoral actions, given the right circumstances.
This is because of moral relativism’s take on ethical dilemmas, and the view that there are a number of disagreements among people as to the nature of morality. An act can
Cultural relativism is the understanding of other cultures in their own terms. To achieve the understanding of the rituals used in the cultures of another, one must be able to look at them from an emic (insider) perspective. One must also be able to look at his own culture from an etic (outsider) perspective. The ability to look at one’s culture from the etic point of view will make it easier to explain the rituals to someone from a different culture, for example, rites of passage. Rites of passage are used to mark a life stage and are celebrated by tradition or religion, meant to separate a specific group.
The ethics of cultural relativism are different than traditional ethical theories mainly because cultural relativism dismisses morality. Cultural relativism is named so because the ethics of different cultures
If we take a look at the different cultures in the world, we will see that the idea of what is ethically acceptable is vastly different. When the United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they had attempted to provide the world with a guideline of how we should ethically treat people. In many cases this declaration did not succeed and different cultures have their own ethical guidelines which go against this declaration. These culture specific ethics are defined as cultural relativism (Brusseau, 2012). Cultural relativism is the belief that ethics are not the result of universal reason; they are solely based on the individual cultures history (Brusseau, 2012).
Moral absolutism leaves no room for logical reasoning. Moral Relativism on the other hand says that moral propositions do not reflect objective and/or
Ethical relativism is the belief that actions are right or wrong depending on the norms of a society. Ethical relativists decide on a moral issue by taking into account societal norms and mob mentality, not deciding what is absolutely right or wrong. The Nazis in Schindler’s List are ethical relativists because they judge what is right or wrong according to their society and the Nazi Party. Since they were young, the Nazi’s were taught to believe that the Jews were animals, not human beings. If the young Nazi’s in training questioned this or did not agree, they were punished and seen as a traitor to Germany.
In this prompt the argument that Morality exists is irrelevant, contrary to our thoughts and beliefs. Everyone follows a set of moral rules. Ethical relativists disagree with this belief because, they believe that morals are distinctive from each individual culture. These relativists as described are mixing up moral and cultural distinctions, or are simply not willing to completely understanding the cultures they are standing up for. There are two different types of relativism Ethical, and Cultural, that rely upon the argument of cultural differences, which have flaws that make the argument unsound.
Every society has its own unique cultures in which people will have different ideas of moral codes. The diversity of these cultures cannot be said to be correct or incorrect. Every society has independent standards of ethic within their society and these standards are culture-bound. Cultural Relativism has a perception in which rightness or wrongness of an action depends entirely within the bounds of the culture. This theory opposes the belief in the objectivity of moral truth.
The Strength and Vulnerability of Different Moral Views Over centuries of fervent discussion in the moral world, there is still nothing like a consensus on a set of moral views. This essay attempts to outline and critically evaluate two moral views, namely ethical objectivism and cultural relativism. It is crucial to understand that both moral theories cannot be true at the same time as it results in contradictions, contributing to false beliefs. Additionally, it is essential that we discuss these issues with an open-mind so as to gain deeper insights from them. First and foremost, we will be looking at the prominent view of ethical objectivism.
