Providence College And Ethical Relativism

Providence College is home to over 4,000 undergraduates who hope to pursue a higher education that will prepare students for life after college. Through experiences inside and outside of the classroom, Providence College has been trying to provide the best overall experience to achieve well-rounded people upon graduation. In efforts for students to grow socially, emotionally and intellectually, Providence College challenges you to translate this growth into action, habit and purpose. As I am about to go into my last semester at Providence, I reflect upon past and current issues involving diversity and racial-discrimination policies and regulations imposed by the college to see how far the school has come since I began here in the fall of

With experiencing a different upbringing, people across cultures tend to have contrasting views when it comes to morality. James Rachel’s is a philosopher who wrote an article on Ethical relativism and defined the term as, “The doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society” (Rachels, 2). Ethical relativism deals with three main concerns when evaluating a certain situation, the individual, the society in which they live in, and the historical time period. However, shouldn’t the whole general idea about ethics be a critical attempt towards finding reasonable, similar grounds of moral beliefs regardless of what cultural background someone is from? In the textbook The Moral of the Story, Anthropologist Ruth Benedict, declared that, “Cultures around the world should not be judged and that moral standards are not universal” (The Moral of the Story, 123). Understanding a different person’s culture can be difficult at times when there are contrasting beliefs, but moral values should be applicable in all situations and should be clearly stated in unambiguous language to everyone. A moral value is a universally accepted principle across all societies that just so happens to govern the day to day living of life. If there is little to no unity and respect between people of different ethnicities at PC, it would be

Brian Shanley wrote a memorandum from a rather egalitarian viewpoint to notify everyone that he had formed a Diversity Initiatives Committee to research, assess, and recommend a plan to change Providence College’s methodology to one that is more advanced and follows the principle that all people are created equal and deserve the same amount of rights and opportunities no matter what skin color you are. The objective was to rival its competitor schools in the area of diversity since PC severely lacked in this category. The committee observed data on existing diversity statements and affirmative action statements from other universities in efforts to formulate their own strategic plan for diversity reflecting upon the College’s values. The statement on diversity from Father Shanley’s memorandum affirms the Catholic and Dominican nature of PC’s commitment to welcome and educate people of diverse backgrounds. Father Shanley said, “Providence College recognizes the unity of the human family that proceeds from its one Creator and encourages the deepest respect for the essential dignity, freedom, and equality of every person. Diversity in its many forms and expressions is valued and appreciated; therefore, all community members are encouraged to talk and listen to, and to learn from one another” (Father Shanley: Draft Diversity Statement). The letter does mention that PC increased their enrollment of students of color from 7.5% in