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Ethical Relativism Vs Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral theories. Like other forms of consequentialism, its core idea is that whether actions are morally right or wrong depends on their effects. Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and happiness) in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things (such as pain and unhappiness).(http://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/). Ethical Relativism is the view that there are no ethical absolutes. It maintains that what is right or wrong depends on the circumstances, the person’s views, culture, etc. Therefore, in ethical relativism, all ethical views are equally valid and are changing as societies and …show more content…

utilitarianism seems to be more of a subjective concept because of the fact that the perception is only based off of the moral action being either right or wrong according to the effect being good or bad. Relativism and utilitariansim go hand in hand but it seems like relativism is the tree as compared to utilitarianism being the forest. In relativism, nobody is objectively right or wrong; and normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree about the morality of it. (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moral_relativism). Another difference is that utilitarianism seems to be a more proactive system while relativism is more of a laissez- faire system because relativism has to do with no absolute truths which seems more indifferent. Utilitarianism seems to be a more progressive theory to society as opposed to relativism which is more focused on the status

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