Human beings come from all types of societies throughout the World. With experiencing a different upbringing, people across cultures and nations 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 …show more content…
Some include peace, honesty, freedom, social progress and human rights. In some cases, human rights are another way of saying equality of rights. Although it is important to understand ethical relativism, one major factor especially in today’s society is how religion affects universal ethical standards. Unfortunately, religion’s role in today’s society is a driving force for radical terrorist groups including ISIS and the Taliban. The Taliban follow a radicalized interpretation of the Muslim religion. In 2015, journalist, Melissa Black made a YouTube video to show the mistreatment of Taliban women. Women are extremely confined with what they are able to do on a day to day basis and are deprived of rights such as driving, education, having to wear a veil that covers their entire body, and aren’t even able to leave the house without a male relative. (YouTube: The Taliban Treatment of Women). If you were to take away religion from everyone on this planet, then people’s moral values would be more universally connected. It is hard to judge another society and how they go about their life because who is to say that one moral or ethical system is better than
Our moral beliefs indicate the kind of environment or culture we grew up in. Therefore, if we were born in Somalia, we would believe that it is morally right to go through female circumcision as a rite of passage. However, if we grew up in the western world, then we would not believe in female circumcision. We can therefore see the relativist 's argument of cultural relativism in this case, because if cultural relativism exists, then naturally, morality will also be relative. Additionally, to support his stance, the relativist will also argue that tolerance comes into play when it comes to cultural relativism.
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.
Throughout many years, religion has been the main part of people’s lives. There have been many wars over which religion is better or which one deserves to live here. This has caused many problems in societies. Sometimes a religion can control who lives in a city, this causes people to convert to that religion not letting people be free and happy. Religion should only be a part of someone’s life and not be controlling it.
Any intelligent person today will legitimately question the morality and ethics of the United States. Whereas morals refer to either an individual 's or a society 's beliefs of what is right and what is wrong, ethics refers to whether the actions of an individual or society is right or wrong. While morals and ethics have a strong connection with each other, they are not interchangeable. Those with integrity act based on their belief, whether or not that is just or unjust.
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.
According to Ethical Relativism, there are no universal truths, which apply to all human beings at all times, and proposes that moral principles should be viewed as "local, conventional, subjective and self-justified" (Yardley, 2012). While ethical principles should conform to social, cultural norms and moral beliefs and practices are frequently products of cultural upbringing, the basis for Ethical Relativism is fundamentally unsound because it can be used to justify and rationalize practices and behaviors that are inherently immoral, such as racism, discrimination, hate crimes and oppression. Ethical African
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
”(p.19) This shows that in the study of ethics, the study of moral relativism to be more specific, the idea of universal truth does not exist. That is to say what is perceived as “good” or “right” can vary form culture to culture, so there is no way to have one universal truth. Two major examples of cultural differences that are often cited in Support
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
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.
In other words, “right” or “wrong” are culture specific, what is considered moral in one society may be considered immoral in another, and, since no universal standard of morality that exist, no one has the right to judge another societies custom (Ess, 2009). Cultural Relativism is closely related to ethical relativism, which views truth as variable and not absolute. What makes up right and wrong is determined solely by individual or the society (Ess, 2009). Since the truth is not object, there can be no standards which applies to all cultures.
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.
Normative ethics is crucial in decision-making in the criminal justice system and it is based on the notion that one should act morally using reason to determine the suitable way of conduct of self. Ethical relativism is part of normative ethics and it argues that what is morally right or wrong varies in a great deal from one person to another. The standards of conduct and methods of doing things differ from one society to another and there can never be a single standard of conduct for all societies; we must make ethical decisions therefore based on each situation. Relativism requires that we judge an individual who acted immorally by the standards of his culture and not our own (Cook, 1999). It is effective in just
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.
Religious groups have had vey bad effects on society; they caused a lot of harm to people and property. Firstly they cause death, injury and might even people for life. Some people would even get traumatized as a result of havocs caused by religious bodies. These people kill people a lot. For example a great number of people were killed in Nigeria when Boko Haram bombed the mosque one Friday.