'Some Moral Minima' by Lenn Goodman: An Analysis

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.

Therefore, we can state, as James Rachels does on page 24, “there is no objective ‘truth’ in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture.” Since no differing beliefs may be considered right and wrong, the only solution is to let cultural relativism take effect. Any rational people understanding this theory will realize that their beliefs are considered to be true merely because it is their own culture’s beliefs. Others’ views must be held just as high as their own even though the two are not in agreement. Ideally, cultural relativism could allow this kind of understanding recognition between societies to develop and bring about coexistent peace.

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.

Chapter 4 of “The Elements Of Moral Philosophy” by James Rachels opens up by raising a question. Does morality hinge on religion and does religion then turn contingent to morality? In 1995, Judge Roy Moore was sued for having the Ten Commandments out in plain view on his desk. The American Civil liberties Union was called to act upon this infringement. The union stated that Judge Moore violated the first amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. Despite the controversy with the ACLU,

“… I had to grapple with difference between what was expected of me as a good Chinese son and what was expected of my non-Chinese friends” (pg. 603). Because of such conflicts, he breaks down relativism into two categories; Meta-ethical and Normative relativism.

However, Chappell does not disregard the moral theory nor the Master Factor and Question all together. He goes on to talk about how there can be many sub-questions, and with these sub-questions, moral theory can become sophisticated. The problem does not lie with moral theory in general, but rather it is a problem about crudity of thought. We must be willing to be open-minded with thinking of the moral theory, for it not to corrupt our minds.

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

He is comparing and trying to relate two things so dissimilar that it boggles the mind to think of comparing them in the first place. To begin with, Rachels seems to be implying that since, one is obviously wrong and that we have factual evidence to the contrary, that is what makes them wrong. That works, but when it's applied to something like morality and ethics like he is trying to do, it makes no sense. Since when and where has there ever been a fact based moral code? Who says morally what is correct and what is not within society or for that matter for the good of humankind? Reading further, he states that the whole point is that the original conclusion does not follow from the premise laid forth by the cultural relativists. This is true based on what he gives in the second example, but his example is construed in order to get such results. Next Rachels goes on to further try and prove cultural relativism has some problems. In the next section, he evaluates the seriousness of the cultural relativist and what that exactly entails. Looking at the consequences, he says that we, as cultural relativists, would have to condone the actions of another culture as not being less inferior. There is no problem there. Where the problem begins is when he brings up slavery and genocide, things that are considered immoral to our society in particular. On a personal

After reading “Young Goodman Brown” I believe the theme of the story is the weakness of public morality. I came up with this theme, because we see in this story that Brown seeks out to the devil, because he finds out that his father and grandfather both follow the devil. By Brown copying his father and grandfathers beliefs we see his faith become weak. This story shows us how one cannot judge others if they are good or bad, by looking at their religious beliefs.

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.

Relativism is the philosophical viewpoint that there are no actions that are innately immoral or moral, and that the morality of actions must be measured against the individual circumstances, from a multitude of perspectives that include the actor as well as the myriad consequences (and victims, potentially) of such an action. After reading Lenn Goodman's "Some moral minima", it becomes fairly apparent that Goodman is far from a relativist. After a lengthy, meandering introduction in which the author spans a variety of topics and nothing too much in particular, he posits the notion that there are certain acts which are in and of themselves morally wrong. Specifically, the author proposes the notion that there are four categories for such acts including genocide, terrorism, slavery, and female genital cutting and rape. A careful preponderance of Goodman's article and the challenges the author presents to relativism indicates that such moral requirements are actually valid.

Given the increasing globalization of modern society, combined with the influence of postmodernism, the philosophy of moral relativism has become increasingly popular and accepted within the academy. However, according to Lenn E. Goodman's essay "Some moral minima," some things are 'just wrong.' Goodman writes: "All living beings make claims to life" (Goodman 2010: 88). In other words, to protect the sanctity of human life, sometimes it is necessary to lay down certain absolute ground rules of morality that, regardless of cultural differences, must be obeyed. These include prohibiting: terrorism; hostage taking and child warriors; slavery, polygamy, and incest; and rape and female genital cutting (Goodman 2010: 88).

This type of moral absolutism leads to oppression and an inability to progress into a more culturally diverse society. Fuller explains the opposition as relativism which, defines morals based on cultural views and states that nothing is an absolute in terms of morality. Furthermore, living in a world without absolutes can be tedious task that could lead to a dysfunctional society. In light of these insights, he comes to the conclusion that the opposition is not relativism, but rather model building (Fuller). This revelation brings some insight into how a society should develop its cultural norms and values. The more practical model building theory still maintains some moral absolutes, but allows some morals to be shaped and molded to become more inclusive of various cultures and beliefs.

In the last part of the course, we studied different forms of relativism and how they can be applied to morality. Relativism is in contrast to the universal laws that we studied when we were studying Kant’s Groundwork earlier in the semester. Instead, relativism makes the claim that there are no universal laws that can be applied to morality because every point of view is equally valid and therefore nothing can be said to be morally right or wrong. What we perceive to be right or wrong is based on our own perception and is shaped by our cultural upbringing (Drogalis, Lecture, March 31). In this paper I intend on describing the three kinds of relativism and demonstrating how they can be applied in a real world context. I will then focus on normative relativism in particular and describe two arguments in support of normative relativism as well as three arguments in opposition to normative relativism. I will wrap up the paper by summarizing why I believe normative relativism seems to be incorrect when applied to morally complex circumstances.