Intro
There is a wide variety of customs and traditions around the world and throughout history. From the historical practice of Sati, where the wife of a recently deceased man was expected to commit suicide on his funeral pyre, to the human sacrifice of the Aztecs. The dangers of jumping to stereotypes is a prevalent one as we naturally want to put ourselves into us and them groups. You can’t judge another culture based on solely your own culture, but must understand the fundamental differences. Perspective and relativism is an important tool to help us understand other cultures but it is not an absolute and we must consider other ways to judge the morals and actions of different groups of people.
What is Morality
Every culture is fundamentally
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Our world today it is often good and okay to be different, in general we have become more tolerant and accepting. We often withhold judgement on people from different cultures or times because it was acceptable in their culture or time. There are actions that were considered good, or morally acceptable, in their time and place, but that now we see as wrong. What happens then if we judge someone who we consider good, but at the time was bad? Such as someone who freed slaves during the 1700s, they were probably not seen as a good person by most people during the time, but today we consider them to be doing the moral act. The idea of relativism is not a bad one, it is important, vital in fact, to have cultural perspective and to consider things from another viewpoint. However, it is not helpful when considering what is right or wrong. If morality is purely subjective there is nothing that can be done if a group is committing genocide, because it would be considered just their customs and what they think is right and even the group at the receiving end could not do anything about it. One way to consider and make judgments about others morals would be to judge a person’s actions by the morals of the people whose lives that person’s actions impact. That is, if someone considers genocide okay and moral perhaps the best way to make a judgement on it is by looking at those who it affects and what their morals consider to be
My conclusion on moral relativism is that it can do more harm than good as “it endorses social evils” and makes it hard to attain a utopia. If one culture endorses slavery, moral relativism will have no objection. This also “promotes moral apathy”, an idea which I disagree with. (Lecture 7. Moral Relativism-
Ethnocentrism is difficult to overcome in trying to understand the ways of others cultures. It usually leads people to believe that their own culture’s way of life is in some ways better or more natural than that of others. It is also hard to avoid this perspective because people are socialized to think in ways consistent with their cultural values and to evaluate practices in terms of how well they fit with a culture's views on what is good or bad. In general, cultures tend to value more those characteristics for which their own culture is particularly accomplished. The cultural variation in moral reasoning, described next would seem to behoove one to be slow to pass judgement on other cultures and first consider why the carious cultural differences exist as they do.
Ethical Relativism is, in fact, common goals, morals, values, traditions and ethics that cultures, small groups or societies share. Some different societies condemn individuals do to being involve in abortions, genocide, racism, sexism, torture or suicide (Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, S.J & Meyer, pp.45-46, Summer 1992). In certain tribes suicide, it is considered noble if one takes their life. In the
From a relativist's perspective, moral values are only applicable within certain cultures and societies. Something that may be viewed as morally correct in the United States could be unethical in Zimbabwe and vice versa. For example, in Somalia, it is acceptable, or moral for a family to kill a female family member if she is raped, while here in the United States the murder of a family member is viewed as extremely unethical and cruel. A more simplistic example of this is the fact that it is not unethical in American culture to consume beef, while in India it is viewed as unethical. The reason for this is because of the diverse cultures and their own set of moral standards. This theory states that there are many values and ideas that can be considered morally correct while disagreeing with one another. However, there are also few downsides to this theory. Relativism may lead to immorality because of opposing perspectives and cultures. Just because one culture views something as good or bad, right or wrong, does not mean this is true. This theory is based off of personal preferences and values, which can lead to conflict and clashing of values. Relativism also does a poor job of establishing an absolute set of ethics, and does not take into consideration that the values and norms of a society can change over time.
Morality exists throughout all cultures and religions of the world in some shape or form. In
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.
Moral relativism is a problematic idea that will lead to a global society with no rules. If it is believed that you can not judge another for what they find morally acceptable, then it is not a far reach to say that you can not stop another person from doing what they find morally acceptable as well. With actions such as that, the world we live in would be drastically different from what it is now.
From seeing the two videos that played to me it depend on what era one has lived whether morality is determined by the culture. The reason I state that is because it depends when you were born into this world if the old way is still relevant.
It is fair to agree with the idea of Moral Relativism. Each culture has their own views of right or wrong. Stepping into different cultures is similar to being a part of new societies, each with differing practices and ideals. There is no single definition of what is right or what is wrong. Individuals has their own opinions on separate topics and each reason for a belief is acceptable. For example, in some cultures it is important for a man to have multiple wives and women are not allowed to leave their homes without a man accompanying them. In the United States, it is not acceptable to have multiple wives and each woman has the freedom to go where ever they like whenever they please. When discussing the idea of abortion individuals have opposing views depending on what their morals are and if they believe in the life of an unborn child. While some people believe it is entirely up to the pregnant women whether they desire to abort their
Cultural Ethical Relativism is a theory that is used to explain differences among cultures, and thus their moral codes. According to cultural relativists, different cultures have different moral codes, and there is no objective truth in ethics. They believe there is no independent standard that can be used to judge one’s custom as better than another’s. In his article entitled “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” James Rachels offers his argument against the theory of Cultural Relativism by proving the Cultural Differences Argument is unsound and invalid. Further in his article, Rachels reasons against the claims made by cultural relativists, and he argues there are common values shared by all cultures and there exists an independent standard
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.
In this paper I will discuss Cultural Relativism and argue that the cultural difference argument is not a sound one, because its premise does not prove or disprove its conclusion. Further, I will use this to prove that morals can be objectively true and do not have to change on a culture to culture basis. Cultural Relativism theorizes the nature of morality and whether moral truths are correct even if they are not agreed on across all cultures.
The general study of humans and their ways of life is called Anthropology. Anthropology have four classic subdivisions: Cultural (or socio-cultural) Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics Anthropology and Biological (or physical) Anthropology. He or she who typically had some training in each of these four classic subdivisions in fact, have connected them to one another within a large field anthropology study. Moreover, he or she can use the theoretical knowledge and findings of anthropology to solve real-world problems surrounding human beings or human customs. Anthropologist has an idea that the beliefs and practices of a culture should be understood within the context that particular culture’s background, history and current events surrounding it called Cultural relativism. The main objective of this final research paper is examining my own culture from etic (i.e. outsider’s) perspective and another culture from emic (i.e. insider’s) perspective to clearly show my personal understanding of cultural relativism. Specifically, I will examine the rites of passage in African American girls/women lived reality and effects of the intersectional race, class and gender oppression in America coupled with discussing Japanese different rituals comparison to American outlook into death and the afterlife. All in all, rites of passage are done differently and makes a difference in its own society.
Within a span of 300 years, Europe found itself bombarded by domestic disputes and expansionist curiosity. From the initial expedition by Christopher Columbus in 1492 having sparked European interests in the Americas, a beacon of freedom sparked the minds of iconoclasts who sought the new land during a period of time marked by religious tyranny, ongoing wars, and the greed for resources. Colonial America from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries was shaped by the hunger for freedom from the English monarchy in terms of worship and self government.
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