Moral Relativism Reflection

Loretta Kopelman’s dissertation, Female Genital Circumcision and Conventionalists Ethical Relativism, takes a new approach in a global plight. Kopelman begins her thesis by elaborating on a particular tribe in southern Kenya. She describes how young girls are being mutilated for marriageability. Their fathers, eager for large dowries, perform the ritual on girls as young as nine. While some victims are able to escape and seek sanctuary, this obviously isn’t always possible and thus these girls must live with an inflicted deformity their whole life that doesn’t only cause serious health complications but sometimes even death.

Culture is the Backbone of a society, when something/someone tries to alter it or go against it everyone will notice. In this issue pointed out by Ruth Macklin, we look at the problems that can arise when an individual’s culture and autonomy clash. Every year there at least 30 million immigrants from all over the world that move to the United states of America, making America one of the most culturally diverse country in the world. Keeping this in mind, we will focus on Ruth Macklin’s issue of Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviors, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles. Critics argue that we associate culture with a society, community and or family, but rarely with a single individual, thus placing it above the individual person. In this paper we are going to look at four different scenarios on from Ruth Macklin’s article.

Moral Relativism is tempting as an easy choice. If someone says he or she is a moral relativist about precise issues they perhaps have an underline principle that is morally true everywhere and is not relative. However, trying to find those underline principles is really hard.

Pope Benedict once said, “We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” When discussing the idea of Moral Relativism there are conflicting arguments as to if it is true in society or not. As much as Americans wish to ignore it, and although it has negative as well as positive effects, moral relativism is apparent all over the world. Moral Relativism is true and relevant today through individuals and cultures.

My conclusion on moral relativism is that it can do more harm than good as “it endorses social evils” and makes it hard to attain a utopia. If one culture endorses slavery, moral relativism will have no objection. This also “promotes moral apathy”, an idea which I disagree with. (Lecture 7. Moral Relativism-

Moral relativism, as Harman describes, denies “that there are universal basic moral demands, and says different people are subject to different basic moral demands depending on the social customs, practices, conventions, and principles that they accept” (Harman, p. 85). Many suppose that moral feelings derive from sympathy and concern for others, but Harman rather believes that morality derives from agreement among people of varying powers and resources provides a more plausible explanation (Harman, p. 12).The survival of these values and morals is based on Darwin’s natural selection survival of the fittest theory. Many philosophers have argued for and against what moral relativism would do for the world. In this essay, we will discuss

Before diving into the arguments for and against moral relativism, it is important to define some key terms including morality, cultural diversity, and tolerance. David Fisher, a Teaching Fellow at King’s College, London defines morality in his book, Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-first Century?. “Morality is thus neither mysterious nor irrational but furnishes the necessary guidelines for how we can promote human welfare and prevent suffering” (Fisher 134). Cultural diversity is simply the existence of various cultures in society. Tolerance is just the ability to accept something that you would not normally agree with.

Moral Relativism is generally used to describe the differences among various cultures that influence their morality and ethics. According to James Rachels, because of moral relativism there typically is no right and wrong and briefly states : “Different cultures have different moral codes.” (Rachels, 18) Various cultures perceive right and wrong differently. What is considered right in one society could be considered wrong in another, but altogether all cultures have some values in common.

Moral relativism is the belief that there is no universal moral truth. Instead of seeking objective principles to guide their decisions, moral relativists look toward moral standards their cultural, social, historical, and personal circumstances. They do not view right and wrong as absolutes, but as personal opinions. True moral relativists have no ground to judge another person’s actions, as they believe each person has their own set of moral beliefs. Therefore, they cannot be judged as wrong if others disagree with their decisions. As Marquis de Sade, a French philosopher and politician, once said, “There is no action. . . that is truly criminal; or one that

Lets first define what ethical relativism is, Santa Clara University explains it very simple in a easy to understand definition. It 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 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 (Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J.; Michael J. Meyer [Santa Clara University], n.d., para. 4). Our Text in this weeks reading goes on to explain while we might find that a set of moral values may be right in a given time or within a different culture it might not necessary be right in our time period or our culture.

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

As the weed of secularization continues to spread its roots through the belly of western civilization, its critical that Christians properly discern its damaging effects on our society’s sexual moral compass. As a culture, it seems what is acceptable changes every few months with little reasoning or clear logic. Confused, disoriented, and unable to draw a straight line between wrong and right, our culture’s moral compass is spinning. We are drifting off to sea in a ship commanded by drunk captain, name Moral Relativism.

Moral relativism is the philosophy that moral or ethical propositions do not represent moral truths, but are effected by the environment in person’s life. Christians have a worldview that believes otherwise based on the biblical worldview of what is right and wrong proposed by James Sire. Issues that are ethically questionable but not specifically banned in Leviticus, or in the Bible in general, such as gambling, drinking alcohol, and divorce are examples of how even seemingly unclear topics are still outlined by God. The Lord gives Christians the instinctive knowledge of right and wrong based on Scripture that does not and will never change, contradictory to the constantly evolving culture that is moral relativism.

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

Cultural and ethical relativisms are widely used theories that explain differences among cultures and their ethics and morals. Morality deals with individual character and the moral rules that are meant to govern and limit one’s character. On the other hand Ethics is somewhat interchangeable with morals, but it actually defines the principles of right conduct, thus to some extent, enlarging its scope to a societal or communal level. Ideally, ethics play a vital role in determining the dos and don’ts when dealing with the society. This essay will discuss what ethical realism is, analyzing why ethical relativism is unsound and unreliable in relation to the relevant evidence and literature, providing valid reason to ascertain why this is the case.