Conflicting Moral Arguments : Louis Vaughn 's Philosophy, Moral Relativism And Moral Objectivism

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.

In ‘A Defense of Ethical Relativism,’ Ruth Benedict shares her view on relativism by stating, “Most of those organizations of personality that seem to us most uncontrovertibly abnormal have been used by different civilizations in the very foundations of their institutional life… Normality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined.” (Benedict, 1934) Moral relativism widely accepts the various beliefs and cultures that are present in society today, and while such tolerance is important, it can also come with downfalls. Because relativists do not believe in labeling actions as right or wrong, it eliminates liability, which could result in complete disorder and

In this paper, I am going to explain what two moral theories I mainly use to make a moral decision. In this paper, I used the textbook to help me figure out what moral theories are and it helped me decide which moral theories to use that best fit me when I make moral decisions. The two moral theories that I chose to highlight in this paper are utilitarianism and cultural relativism because I believe that they are the two that best fit me when I make a moral decision. The definition of morals is “a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is or is not acceptable for them to do”. Morals are an important thing to have because it is good to know what is and isn’t

The idea of values merely being subjective are a denial of the need and possibility of morality. Consequently, if morality is not present there will be no need to determine which values should be accepted as well as an acceptable standard of how an individual should act. Emotions are left to rule over to make the decisions. Where no moral judgement is practised then justice is impossible and crimes cannot be punished. This journal article further illustrates the problem with ethical subjectivism. If subjective preferences determine our ethical conceptions then no conception is inferior or superior to the other. However as we attempt to determine what constitutes an ethical conduct we do in fact find that certain ethical conceptions are superior to others. For example, in the context of the holocaust, we deem the sanctity of human life and non-discrimination as superior over the preservation and propagation of the Aryan race. Within Chapter 2 Lewis highlights one of the most intriguing aspects of human nature is that morals do not change but rather, they evolve. The sympathies of the average person have substantially grown within modern society as opposed to the past hundred years. There is now a significant development in the moral beliefs regarding issues such as the rights of women, racial discrimination, child labour and the abuse of animals for public entertainment. The main reason for this advancement in our moral view of society is our contact and association with other people. When we share common interests with others and strive towards one goal we are able to extend our affection to others as we share in their human nature. Even an increase in travel and the access to international communication has allowed us to encounter more people than any other generation in history. The conclusion of part 3 of the

Brooks’ article is putting forth what Terry L. Cooper alleges “The World as It is” (Cooper, 2012, p. 27). The difficulty in attempting to delineate his argument of “If it Feels Right” from a moral barometer perspective lies in the fact there are not any explicit unequivocal specifications to morality and value. While it can be argued there is a universal basis for ethics, depending on the society we are looking at, the interviews completed by Smith and Company addresses the contemporary issue of moral relativism, which is according to Lewis Vaughn, the view that a moral truth is completely and absolutely a function of the individual, with only specific cultures or persons legitimatizing morals values assigned to it (Vaughn, 2015). This issue

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.

Looking over the views of moral relativists and cultural relativists, I realized that there was an interesting similarity between their views. Although both moral relativist and cultural relativist views of subjective moral facts are based on their communities’ views, other external factors such as culture, social standpoint, social pressure and etc. dramatically affect a community’s view, thus,separating moral relativist and cultural relativist. As a result, these factor carries a substantial amount of bias in altering judgment of moral subjects. For example, actions of eating beef can be seen as right and wrong depending on the community you are in. If you are in a community that beef was staple food, eating beef would be seen as normal.

In my research, I have found varying definitions of moral relativism, but each is based on the philosophy that morals are culturally based and are subject to individual choice. Moral relativism is the perspective that ethical and moral standards are culturally based, and therefore subject to personal, individual choice (moral-relativism.com, 2016, N.p.). In Addition, Schumacher (2008) noted, with moral relativism there are no global, absolute laws that applies to all people...noting that individual moral practices dictate one's moral position (N.p.). In contrast, moral absolutism is the belief that rules and standards

When people hear the term “ethics,” most of their minds turn to dilemmas discussed by figures such as Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, Aristotle, and other famous philosophers. These men debated what is considered to be morally good and how a person can become ethical. Operating under normative ethics, these philosophers did not question whether or not ethics even existed, but rather if they exist, what are they? The branch of ethics that questions the foundation of ethics and morality is metaethics. There are three standpoints when debating metaethics: moral realism, moral relativism, and moral skepticism. I will be discussing my argument for moral realism and contend that moral relativism and skepticism are inaccurate. I will prove the

The challenges of moral relativism. Moral relativism argues against the idea of cultural moral relativism as a proper theory of ethics. Which is a view on moral judgments that is true or false, in addition, that it depends on a specific type of standpoint, and that no other standpoint is exclusively advantaged over all others. This proponent of this theory claims that morality is not the absolute, and that the conception of right and wrong depends entirely on the cultural traditions and beliefs. On this view could we honestly say that nothing can be absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Or could we also speculate anything about our moral values that could be determine by the relative to a diverse cultural of a moral system. Consequently, the main argument behinds these view of morality relies on the observation that exist in many different cultures around the world

I believe moral relativism is understood based on how the person lives their life and how it reacts to others. Moral relativism is not based on any morals, but what the person's belief based on their feelings and even their culture can affect their lives. For instance, a person might believe murdering is wrong, but if the cultures determined is right? For example,

Ethical behavior is different in every culture. One culture may see something as ethically right where another may see it as wrong. Moral relativism plays a role in accepting differences between cultures, even if they do not agree.

What’s at stake here is that this question poses the concept of cultural relativism, which if true, means that the only thing holding our morals together is the community and its normalities. This question will assume the idea that a person’s morals are not predestined, and can be molded to hold different morals than before.

Moral relativism is a philosophical doctrine that asserts that the truth or falsity of moral judgments is impossible to establish objectively. Its proponents claim that there is no moral truth and that any statement about what is good or bad points of subjectivity. The moral would only be a matter of opinion because any moral judgment would invariably and exclusively dependent culture from which it came. So there can be no universal moral prescription. In the end, the moral judgment would be reduced to a partial and biased assessment of the consequences of an act (Gowans).

According to Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, emerging adults tend to have an impoverished moral language, are morally inarticulate, align with ethical subjectivism and normative cultural relativism, and are morally apathetic. This finding is disturbing to Christian Smith, Naomi Schaefer Riley, and David Brooks because many young people claim morality is subjective without putting much thought into the issue. I am also concerned with my peers’ acceptance of moral subjectivism because I believe the denial of objective moral truths likely leads to corruption and inhibits moral progress in societies. In this paper, I will provide a simple modus tollens argument in favor of moral objectivism. I will then defend this argument by presenting further support for premise 3) in order to address the objection that premise 3) is not necessarily true, and I will conclude by acknowledging one grievance I hold against moral subjectivism. My argument is as follows: