Moral luck coexists with moral skepticism to support moral relativism. If a person cannot have any moral knowledge then it is luck that will determine the outcome. If a person had vast moral knowledge, they would be able to see or predict a close shot of the outcome of a situation that involves moral choices. If this person does not know anything about morals, then it is up to that persons luck to determine the outcome of the moral choice. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Moral luck occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control.”(Nelkin,2004); Since it is up to moral luck to choose in moral choices, there cannot be any moral facts because it is luck that determines what the outcome will be. There is more than one type of luck, there is Circumstantial Luck, Resultant Luck Causal, Luck Constitutive Luck, and Everybody’s luck is different so there can be no moral facts, therefore supporting moral relativism. To begin with, in Allegory of the cave in the book A Guided Tour of Five Works by Plato, written by Christopher Biffle, there is a scenario that follows moral luck leading into moral luck. The children from the allegory that were chosen to live in this cave had no idea that they were going to be subjected to such living conditions. They did not have the choice to choose how they were going to be treated, but they
The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer tells of how three men set out on a journey to kill Death, giving it human-like characteristics. On their journey, they arrive at an oak tree where an older man had left several gold coins, which they decide to try to take and keep for themselves. In fact, on page 128-129, the wickedest of the three said, “Brothers, you listen to what I say. I’m pretty sharp although I joke away. It’s clear that Fortune has bestowed this treasure to let us live in jollity and pleasure.” The rioters, as Chaucer describes them, are all out to seek nothing but fortune because they of the greed they are filled with. A trail of unfortunate events then followed their poor choice to try to steal the gold, resulting in them turning on each other and discovering what they set out to find in the first place. With all of this in mind, the gold coins symbolize some important things throughout this tale.
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.
The thesis of meta-ethical cultural relativism is the philosophical viewpoint that there are no absolute moral truths, only truths relative to the cultural context in which they exist. From this it is therefore presumed that what one society considers to be morally right, another society may consider to be morally wrong, therefore, moral right's and wrongs are only relative to a particular society. Thus cultural relativism implies that what is 'good' is what is 'socially approved' in a given culture. Two arguments in favour of cultural relativism are the 'Cultural Differences argument' and the 'Argument from the virtue of tolerance', the following essay will look at and evaluate both of these
In the article “Moral Relativism Defended,” Gilbert Harman argues for moral relativism in that, when an agreement is reached, morality becomes apparent in accordance with an understanding of one another. Ultimately, Harman molds his “logical” thesis towards one title within his relativism “inner judgments” (page 36) in morally absorbing what constitutes a right or wrong judgment while also considering all aspects of a situation implying reason to an individual and affirmation from society, for example. Defending these moral judgments relates to motivating and changing attitudes of which procure from an agreement, in other words, a form of the term moral relativism. Overall a case against judgments rationally defending what someone a part of society should or should not do and how moral judgments can be established through intentions, goals, and mere desires.
word moral luck to describe these indescribably incidents. Moral luck, as Nagel defines it, is the aspect that people judge someone based on their actions which relies heavily on the factors beyond their control. Nagel also states that due to these circumstances that will alter the final result we should not be scrutinized for our results.
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.
The media portrays me as a terrorist. After 9/11, being Muslim in America meant that you had to live in fear, conceal your faith, or pay the price of retaliation by someone who reacted out of ignorance. It meant you had to constantly apologize for acts of terrorism committed by criminals that use Islam as a banner to progress their vendettas. However, being Muslim also meant that you could learn self-disciple through the five-daily prayers, patience, and tolerance as I tried to understand the reasons why so many Americans feared Muslims. Unfortunately, I did not see the benefit of expressing my faith until I was much older.
For instance, in America, it is not uncommon to see a child spanked for misbehaving or disobeying his or her parent. However, in Sweden, this action is not only illegal, not also frowned upon. A moral relativist would explain that this is because moral facts can exist and be objective in America, but can be still objective and independent of Sweden’s morals. Lastly, disagreeing with both moral realist and relativists, moral skeptics believe there are no moral facts; all morals are equivalent to opinions, and they are different for everyone. Moral skepticism says that all morals are simply rules created to control humans and their behaviors. For example, the moral skeptic would argue that the reason controversy exists over issues such as abortion is that each person has opinions that are independent of others. Skeptics would also say that there are no right answers to moral dilemmas, because each person will come to a different conclusion.
There are disadvantages to having a presence of moral relativism. There is a chance that people will abuse their power to have individual perceptions of right and wrong. Since each culture has their own
James Rachels' article, "Morality is Not Relative," is incorrect, he provides arguments that cannot logically be applied or have no bearing on the statement of contention. His argument, seems to favor some of the ideas set forth in cultural relativism, but he has issues with other parts that make cultural relativism what it is.
The point of this conflict is that even within our own society, there is a
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.
Ethical Relativism What is right and wrong is a widely opinionated discrepancy among the human race. It varies between cultures, societies, religion, traditions, and endless influential factors. Ethical relativism is described by John Ladd as the “doctrine that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions varies from society and that there are no absolute universal moral standards binding on all men at all times. Accordingly, it holds that whether or not it is right for an individual to act in a certain way depends on or is relative to the society to which he belongs”(Pojman, 24).
Now that both sides have been established, those stakeholders who favor and those who oppose the policy in question, each of their argument 's evidence and reasoning will be analyzed. The corresponding pages which follow will provide an understanding of each side through three developed sections: a critical analysis, moral reasoning, and a tentative solution. The critical analysis will thoroughly measure to what level an argument 's authoritative, accuracy, reliability, precision, applicability, and etc. is able to represent their claims. At the same time the critical analysis includes a judgement call on whether or not a side 'wins ' or 'loses ' each of their arguments based upon the strength and weakness of the argument 's claims and evidence. The moral reasoning section will then secondary the value of each side 's evidence, and focus on analyzing each side 's moral reasoning, or rather, evaluating what "values, obligations, consequences, and normative principles" present reasonableness to their position on morality. Following these two sections of analysis, a conclusion will be made on which of the two sides makes an overall stronger, more conclusive and moral argued solution to the normative question.
Different societies have different moral codes. Cultural relativism claims that ethics is relative to individuals, groups, cultures and societies. Relativism resists universal moral normal. The moral code of society determines what is right or wrong in that society. There’s no objective standard that can be used to judge one’s society code against another. Its arrogant to judge others cultures. We should always be tolerant of them. Cultural relativism for many people is a response to the complexity of moral issues and the number of different responses various. Groups our cultures have given to moral issues so for many when we look at just how different cultures have responded two different issues the way different cultures. All this diversity that there seems to be a response where we want to say well, maybe there isn 't some sort of absolute right or wrong maybe morality really is just relative to a different group that different people believe different things. In this paper, I will discuss the aspect of my culture from an outside perspective and discuss another culture from an inside perspective. In sociology, the principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one 's own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism is related to but often distinguished from moral relativism, the view that morality is relative to