People also have the ability to think morally for themselves so morality is relative to someone’s point of view. The main point favoring the cultural relativism argument is that if there are no moral principles, then the principles can only be relative to culture. If someone were to express their opinion about the morals of a culture that they didn’t agree with, including what the culture already believed to be right, then that person would lose the argument without any question. This can be easily disproved because in one culture, not every person is going to have the same moral judgments about what is right or wrong and people can establish objective moral principles. A culture also can’t think of them as having the power to decide which is right and
Those who oppose cognitivists are called non cognitivists and they believe that when someone makes a moral statement they are not describing the world, but they are merely expressing their feelings and opinions, they believe that moral statements are not objective therefore they cannot be verified as true or false. In this essay I will be discussing the multiple branches of cognitive theories and non cognitive theories in order to answer the Janus-like question whether or not moral statements truly hold objective meaning. Ethical naturalism is just one branch of a cognitive theory in which naturalists believe that ethical statements are the same as non-ethical ones, meaning they are all factual and can
Ethical statements, Ayer said, cannot be verified analytically or synthetically so the truth of such phrases is unknowable and the language used is non-cognitive. Instead, ethical propositions can be no more that the expression of an emotion which will always be personal or subjective. For example to say “Abortion is good” is to express a subjective opinion about the moral issue of Abortion. For Ayer such statements can be no more than an expression of subjective emotion – leading some to label this approach to ethical language as the “boo hooray” theory. But does this strictly subjective understanding of ethical language and statements accurately reflect what is going on when we use such language?
Cultural Relativism is a theory stating the idea that cultural norms and ideas differ from culture to culture. In addition, Cultural Relativism says that there are no universal standards and truth in ethics. It is relative to the culture to determine whether a moral standard is right or wrong. There is no objective standards judging other cultures code as inferior or superior to another. Thus, since cultural relativism states that we can’t judge other cultures moral codes, then we must be tolerant of them.
Since every ethical system should evaluate itself as the best and only moral system, and every other system is flawed and immoral, it is assumed that moral judgements about ethical systems are meaningless. Moral Relativism rests on the belief that values are subjective. It is holds the belief that there is no objective morality, that there is no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil. Only that, moral systems are just made up and supported by the circumstances of the action. Moral Relativism cannot and does not accept the idea that an objective moral system exists.
Cultural Relativism Cultural Relativism is the theory that the different moral codes exist in all cultures; which means that what might be "correct" in one custom might be “wrong" in another. Because there is no worldly "right", no one, not even an authority in any society can judge a different culture. If cultural Relativism is taken serious, then every culture would have their own set of rules and actions that no one can judge or criticize, since for them everything is perfectly normal. This means no one, with a different belief, can decide what is really "right" or "wrong". As James Rachels said, “Cultural Relativism might be true, but it might lead to some consequences, such as no longer being able to say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to ours, or we could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by consulting the standards of our society and even the idea of moral progress would be called into doubt.” Cultural Relativism has some good advantages; it helps us to keep an open mind about other people´s beliefs.
Explain moral relativism. (25 marks) The theory of moral relativism is an ethical approach to situation ethics which asserts that there are no universally true moral principles, as all moral principles held by a person or society are relative to their circumstances, culture and religion - this means that there are no actions which are and will always be wrong. Instead, if an action seems good to you then for you it is morally right and vice versa, however there is no way that we are able to objectively identify which opinion is the correct one. A soft form of moral relativism is Cultural Relativism which states that moral codes differ from culture to culture or from religion to religion, for example some cultures believe polygamy or arranged marriages to be morally right, whereas a catholic society would believe that monogamy is the only moral way of life. Subjective Relativism on the other hand is a much more extreme stem of moral relativism as it is based on the view of an individual alone and therefore then can be absolutely no debate as all values are relative.
In the hard determinist’s judgement, this feeling of freedom is an illusion. (Pereboom, 2009:324). Another argument against hard determinism would be if it were true we could not be accounted for when it comes to our actions, therefore we could do a morally wrong act and if it was determined then we would could not to blame, we did not have the free will to do that act it was determined to be done anyway. Also if we do a morally good act should we be praised for this? Hard determinists would say that it was not our free will that chose us to do this good act we were determined to do it anyway.
1. Critically assess the case that values are relative to culture or religion and that therefore the International Bill of Rights has no applicability in some countries. The International Bill of Rights (IBR) composes the core of contemporary human rights doctrine, and, as an expression of the rights owed to every human by the fact of their humanity, its applicability should be universal. In this essay, I will explore the relationship, if one exists, between human rights and cultural relativism, to the end of substantiating the idea that the applicability of human rights doctrine is not limited by cultural relativism. In doing this, I hope to provide an evaluation of the weaknesses in the relativist argument, in addition to an exploration of an alternative account of why the IBR has failed to integrate into certain non-Western societies that does not depend on an assertion (radical or non-radical) of relative cultural values.
James Rachels, in his The Challenge of Cultural Moral Relativism, argues that cultural moral relativism, the standard y which people find things acceptable or not depending on their own cultures, is not a relevant and ethical way to judge cultures and their practices. His arguments aim at explaining why, just because a practice or belief is held to be true by a society or culture at large, does not make it right or ethical ultimately, or free from criticism. Perez 2 Upon learning of a certain ethnic or socioeconomic group discriminating or otherwise persecuting another group, weather drawing lines of distinction based on racial or other criteria, most people recoil in distaste and reproach. From the Indian caste system, which relegates some people to menial, undesirable positions of labor, to the German Third Reich, which decided weather people lived or died depending on their ethnic and religious background, exterminating millions of people, what is and has been seen