Relativism: Absolute, Moral, And Cultural

Opinion: “Opinions are intensely personal, so it is understandable that people have strong feelings about theirs. (Ruggiero, 2010, p.34). Your opinion may not be the truth but for an individual it is a personal view and not any one else’s.

However, there are also many arguments to the contrary. One of the greatest examples of an argument against ethical relativism is the story, Possessing the Secret of Joy. In this story, the controversial issue of female circumcision is discussed. Now ethical relativism argues that whatever is normal in a society is what is considered to be morally good. However, topics such as female mutilation create holes in this argument.

Many topics that have been examined, taught and discussed in RS 121 correlate with the main themes in Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace. These topics in Kozol’s novel relate to many ideas taught in relation to sociological, philosophical and theological theories. For these reasons, Kozol’s novel is a novel that is effectively used as a learning tool in association to the idea of “the other” as well as the content of RS 121.

Someone can also however be both right and wrong. If not given all the information, someone can make an assumption and be right, but another outcome could have happen to let them be wrong. Also there is a matter of opinion. For example I may like chocolate and think it's the best and my mom could like vanilla and think it's the best of all. Both statements are right, because it is our best, but it is wrong because it may not actually be the best.

In chapter 19 of the philosopher, Russ Shafer-Landau’s book, The Fundamentals of Ethics, he presents an overview of the moral theory of ethical relativism. Ethical relativism is the view that there is some moral truth and that truth is relative to each person or culture. The overarching moral principle can be broken down into ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism. The difference being ethical subjectivism says an act is morally acceptable or forbidden if an individual approves or disapproves of the action. And cultural relativism relies on the judgment of morally acceptable or forbidden if a culture or society approves or disapproves of the action (Shafer-Landau, p. 295).

Moral relativism is becoming a greater part of society everyday. Since the idea of relativism states that nothing is absolute, the concepts of right and wrong are hazy. People are questioning their morals and wondering what they should believe, but in reality, no one knows. Moral absolutes do not exist in moral relativism. People are able to believe whatever they want, but they are not allowed to express their morals as fact.

It is hard to judge someones actions without knowing the situation. For example, some people would say it is wrong to speed since that is breaking the law. However, when it came to a situation where someone was injured and needed to go to the hospital, they would agree that it is acceptable to drive over the speed limit to get the individual there to obtain a higher quality of health. Since moral standards are relative to individual commitments, this example would support ethical relativism.

Two main types of ethical relativism are cultural relativism and normative ethical relativism. Cultural relativism says that there are different cultures and they always have different ways of thinking behaving and learning from the generation before, and this can be seen in daily life just by how different countries do things like music, dress, and even politics. Normative ethical relativism says that there is no universal right or wrong in the universe instead it says that what is right or wrong is different from society to society and that there is no

Our morals are what defined the line between deviant behaviour and non-deviant behaviour. We get our morals from: family, friends, the way we are brought up and where we have lived through out our lives. Everybody might not have the same morals but we all have a clear perception towards what is and isn’t acceptable in the public eye.

“Allegory of the cave” is an allegory written by Plato while in Greece in the Classical age. It describes the concept of reality and enlightenment through the point of view of prisoners in a cave. The allegory describes how the prisoners have been chained their whole lives and can only see shadows. It describes how one of the prisoners is freed and goes outside and realizes how everything he knew was a lie. He becomes enlightened and returns to the cave only to be met with ridicule and resistance from the other prisoners.

Relativism is the position that all points of view are pretty much as considerable and the individual makes sense of what is certifiable and relative for them. Relativism surmises that truth is various for unmistakable people not simply that assorted people acknowledge differing things to be legitimate. While there are relativists in science and number juggling, moral relativism is the most generally perceived blend of relativism. Practically everyone has heard a relativist trademark:

There are three types of relativism as described by Richard Brandt in his paper Ethical Relativism. The first is descriptive relativism, which is actually a theory that simply states that there is a disagreement about morality between people (Brandt, 25). An example of descriptive relativism is cultural relativism, which states that cultures disagree on morality (Brandt, 25). This is considered a state of fact and is merely

Relativism is the philosophical idea that the views and beliefs of a person are valid and relative to them. It can include many positions, whether it be religious, moral, cultural or even political. Over the course of this quarter I have been introduced to many different theories like Utilitarianism, Deontological and Teleological theories, but none of them got my attention like Normative Cultural Relativism. What’s great about philosophy is that there are no right or wrong answers, yet I cannot help but realize that many philosophers nowadays are biased about Normative Cultural Relativism. Many don’t agree and rather attack the theory which is why I intend to defend it.

For instance, in Physics, Newton’s Law of Gravity may almost be one hundred percent definite but one cannot say that it is absolutely true - for example, what if I drop a pencil, it would fall down, but what would happen if it is released and then rises upwards. So we can’t really say anything about this law. For this law to be one hundred percent certain, we would have to know the future which is impossible. Though, we cannot say that it is false, something which is not entirely true does not automatically become false.

Moral Relativism is defined as the belief that conflicting moral beliefs are true. This carries the impression that what you respect as a right behavior may be a right conduct for you, but not for me. Moral Relativism is an attempt to