Are There No Moral Absolutes

Over the last several decades, long established taboo, including the right to abortion, the right to death, and LGBTQIA+ rights have become much more acceptable throughout the United States. Consequently, it seems like basic moral norms are up to the interpretation of current and societal ideals. Moral relativism is the belief that the concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ exist only by comparison to a society’s moral code. It is an enticing moral theory in a world where so little seems absolute. Paul Boghossian, author of “The Maze of Moral Relativism” too believes that this idea of relativism is gaining popularity and importance in contemporary culture. However, he not only believes that moral relativism is not true, but an illogical or ‘incoherent’ moral theory. Moral relativism, he claims, cannot exist because there is no middle ground between ‘moral absolutism,’ the idea that moral facts are true across all cultures and time, and ‘moral nihilism,’ the rejection of all morality as people understand it, including the ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Boghossian’s argument is able to logically destroy moral relativism, leaving little option other than to accept that absolute morality exists somewhere.

James Rachels claims that morality is absolute. In his article Mortality is Not Relative, he discusses the fallacies of Cultural Relativism as well as the Cultural Differences Argument. Rachels believes that all cultures have some values in common and that there is way less disagreement between them than it seems. He brings up the example of the Eskimo’s and how they choose to kill the infants that they cannot take care of, “The Eskimo’s values are not all that different from our values. It is only that life forces upon them choices that we do not have to make” (Rachels). Another example of this would be how in some cultures it is wrong to eat cows because they believe that the souls of their ancestors and deceased are reincarnated into the cow. In our culture we would not eat our grandparents either, the only difference is we do not believe that they become cows, thus we would have no problem eating cows. “Now do we want to say that their values are different than ours? No, the difference lies elsewhere. The difference is in our belief systems, not in our values” (Rachels).

Each person has their own beliefs but they still respect the idea that other people’s views can differ from theirs. Cultures are better preserved with this principle of moral relativism and the root of each culture is everlasting. Since there are no wrong beliefs, each culture can have practices without being criticized for how they act. Moral relativism allows individuals to be diverse in their beliefs and to further express what they believe to be right and wrong.

Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist and folklorist who greatly influenced philosophy through her studies of isolated societies. Her theory of cultural relativism has met both great acclaim and vehement criticism as an explanation of morality and behavior. Stepping away from the stance of ethical absolutism she calls us to take a different and perhaps harrowing approach, examining morals as socially approved customs rather than immovable and eternal cornerstones of all cultures. I argue that Benedict, through her examination of indigenous cultures, provides a sound argument for the relativity of morality – and the consequent lack of a universal moral standard to which all humans can be held.

Mary Midgley, in her Trying Out One’s New Sword, argues against moral isolationism, which she defines as a position where, “Moral judgement…is a kind of coinage valid only in its country of origin” (161). She notes that supporters of this ethical theory view moral isolationism as a way to be respectful and tolerant of other cultures. In addition, holding this opinion about morality means that no one can understand any culture except their own, and thus, cannot make judgements of other culture’s moral standards. In this paper, I present one of her arguments and her reasoning in support of her premises. Then, I will provide an objection to her argument. Finally, I assess that objection, arguing that it does not show her argument against moral

In this paper, I’m going to discuss the argument that the famous American anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, has put forth regarding ‘ethical relativism’. Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms and values of one's culture or society. That is, whether an action is classified as right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in which it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in another. For the ethical relativist, there are no universal moral standards -- standards that can be universally applied to

Cultural Ethical Relativism is a theory that is used to explain differences among cultures, and thus their moral codes. According to cultural relativists, different cultures have different moral codes, and there is no objective truth in ethics. They believe there is no independent standard that can be used to judge one’s custom as better than another’s. In his article entitled “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” James Rachels offers his argument against the theory of Cultural Relativism by proving the Cultural Differences Argument is unsound and invalid. Further in his article, Rachels reasons against the claims made by cultural relativists, and he argues there are common values shared by all cultures and there exists an independent standard

Ethnocentrism is difficult to overcome in trying to understand the ways of others cultures. It usually leads people to believe that their own culture’s way of life is in some ways better or more natural than that of others. It is also hard to avoid this perspective because people are socialized to think in ways consistent with their cultural values and to evaluate practices in terms of how well they fit with a culture's views on what is good or bad. In general, cultures tend to value more those characteristics for which their own culture is particularly accomplished. The cultural variation in moral reasoning, described next would seem to behoove one to be slow to pass judgement on other cultures and first consider why the carious cultural differences exist as they do.

When our ancestors began to develop cognitive thought, they began to compare themselves to one another in an attempt to decide, what is morally permissible behavior, and what is not. Although our global community has grown to be very large and culturally diverse, these same moral debates still linger in today’s society. Fundamentalist believe that there are absolute moral codes that apply to all societies. Inherently the fundamentalist view sounds like an ideal view that all cultures should respect. However there are flaws in the fundamentalist views, who decides what is morally permissible and what is not. This is where the moral relativist view comes into play in an attempt to further define moral guidelines that are relative to the perspective of a society’s cultural norms and beliefs. Robert Fuller and Peter Berger both highlight the positive and negative merits of each ethical point of view and ultimately come to loosely the same conclusion, that neither view is an absolute answer to the question of cultural values and moral beliefs. While both theories do have their positive merits, they also have some flaws that can only be resolved through the implementation of a new perspective on universal moral principles.

Moral relativism is the idea that there is no absolute moral standard that is applicable to any person at any place at any given time. It suggests that there are situations in which certain behavior that would normally be considered “wrong” can actually be considered “right”. Moral relativism has played an increasingly significant role in today’s society, particularly regarding the differences between the countries of the world. This essay will summarize and explain both arguments in favor of and against moral relativism. Despite what many relativists believe, the arguments against are not only stronger, but also more accurate.

The thesis of meta-ethical cultural relativism is the philosophical viewpoint that there are no absolute moral truths, only truths relative to the cultural context in which they exist. From this it is therefore presumed that what one society considers to be morally right, another society may consider to be morally wrong, therefore, moral right's and wrongs are only relative to a particular society. Thus cultural relativism implies that what is 'good' is what is 'socially approved' in a given culture. Two arguments in favour of cultural relativism are the 'Cultural Differences argument' and the 'Argument from the virtue of tolerance', the following essay will look at and evaluate both of these

Louis Pojman made the point that a moral absolutist doesn’t necessarily have to believe that every single moral law is universally applicable. Instead, they could believe that one particular moral principle is non-negotiable; therefore making an ethical theory absolute. If we coincide with this, we could be absolute about one thing, like committing adultery, and relative about something else, like lying. However, contrary to Pojman’s idea, that isn’t all that absolute as we would probably end up being more relative.

I would disagree with your statement that moral absolutism with exceptions is moral relativism. Moral relativism in the individual sense leads to everyone being their own moral compass to guide them, which would lead to chaos. It is not base on any absolute morals except freedom. Cultural moral relativism is what you are describing in your reply post, but it does not take into account the fact that there are morals which are common in all cultures. How can there be moral absolutes like mass murder is wrong, but have moral relativism as the standard? Would is stand to reason if there are moral absolutes, then moral absolutism exists?

A discussion of moral theories must begin with a discussion of the two extremes of ethical thinking, absolutism and relativism. Moral Absolutism is the belief that there are absolute standards where moral questions are judged and can be deemed right or wrong, regardless of the context. Steadfast laws of the universe, God, nature itself are the forces that deem an action right or wrong. A person’s actions rather than morals and motivations are important in an Absolutism proposition. Moral Relativism states, that the moral propositions are based on Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one's culture. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the

In this paper I will discuss Cultural Relativism and argue that the cultural difference argument is not a sound one, because its premise does not prove or disprove its conclusion. Further, I will use this to prove that morals can be objectively true and do not have to change on a culture to culture basis. Cultural Relativism theorizes the nature of morality and whether moral truths are correct even if they are not agreed on across all cultures.