Cultural relativism is the idea that the moral principles someone has are solely determined by the culture one lives in. These ideas seem to make sense because we as a culture understand that the judgments people make in a different culture will differ from ours whether we choose to support it or not. Our culture has different moral judgments as well and does not look at something like killing someone for stealing as morally right since our culture values human life above theft. Cultural relativism does not exist because some principles are universal and not relative only to culture. People also have the ability to think morally for themselves so morality is relative to someone’s point of view.
A) Explain what is meant by sanctity of life (25) The Sanctity of life approach to ethics refers to the sacredness of human life, it sees our existence as a gift we should cherish and not wish to take away. The basic argument holds that God is the creator of life, people are made in or the image of God (image dei), that taking life is intrinsically evil and unborn life is to be protected. Proponents of this argument believe that all life is sacred, worthy of respect and reverence and is intrinsically worthwhile, and so people therefore have a duty to preserve it. This concept does not consider circumstances of the individual involved, even extreme situations where someone may be suffering from a disease with very little or no quality of life, proponents of the argument would respond by saying euthanasia would not be acceptable in such a circumstance as it may disrupt God’s plans for the individual. Because of these strict principles, the Sanctity of life is Absolute.
It would be even more "honourable" to free oneself from cultural conventions and set one's life to top priority. Honour is a rather abstract term; in modern society it should not be something to abandon life for. It is a matter of the appreciation of life. Life is precious and more important than any abstract or artificially created value. Therefore dying - or not dying - for honour is a question of self-respect and respect for life, whether it is one's own life or that of one’s family who might have to cope with the loss of a beloved
On the other hand its weakness is that human can affect it in other aspects besides deathless and birth less nature but in definition they do not recognize that. Prominence over human welfare and determinative nature regarding human experience –since both deal with human then they can be combined. The strength is that it when we put our lives according to the sacred we are likely to live a life free of problem associated to ungodliness. On the other hand it is important to perceive the true reality that underlies our religion .If we don’t do so we are likely to suffer and destroy what is already positive about our religion hence suffering. In that case religion will be the dividing factor instead of a bonding factor as it should
A follower of Natural Law would object to euthanasia, chiefly for this reason. A follower of Natural Law would argue that the sanctity of life is important, building up on what St. Thomas Aquinas asserted- that all life is sacred. Euthanasia denies a person’s natural course of life and this takes away sacredness of life. Euthanasia, although it could be used to end a person’s suffering is not taking into account that God set people’s lives out to be a certain way and only he can take and give life. A doctor does not have the right to do this because he or she is not God and should not ‘play God’.
Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society. Mill believed indivduality is what it is to be human and anything that takes away your indivuduality is wrong. Mill state in his book On Liberty “Whatever crushes indivduality is despotism.” Despostism is the idea of dictatorship so Mill is saying that anything that stops our indivduality for example religion is controlling us and not allowing us to be free, which is wrong. Althought we are free we must consider others, this means that we can use our freedom however we must make sure we are not spoiling the freedom of others. This is supported by Paul Kurtz who states humans have the right “to satisfy their tastes” but however they shold not “impose their values on others.” For example you may want to murder someone with your free will however if you go ahead and commit the crime you are negatively effecting others in society and this is wrong.
A Human Life Value Calculator establishes specific criteria for assigning monetary value to a person’s life. You might not fully agree or disagree with any of the texts’ essential claims about the value of life. This makes your voice an important contribution to this discussion about how we should value life. Where do your ideas fit into the terrain mapped by the other texts we have read? Is it right to assign dollar values to a person’s life?
According to hard determinism we are not free in the sense required for moral responsibility, and therefore, what happens cannot be affected by choices that are free in the sense. But what happens may nevertheless be caused by the decisions we chose and the choices we make. A reaction to hard determinism is that if it were true, we would have no reason to attempt to accomplish anything, to try and improve our lives because our decisions and choices would make no difference. If everything we do is pre determined then why try hard to achieve anything, if you are meant to do a certain something, it will happen, it is already determined for you, so the hard determinist would say. In the hard determinist’s judgement, this feeling of freedom is an illusion.
People often question how we should measure the value of life. Can life be calculated into dollars and cents? Should ones value be determined by their life’s accomplishments? Or does the value of one’s life depend solely upon how much that individual embraces and loves their existence? In my personal experience I have found the latter to be true.
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.