Comparing Aquinas Ideas Of Cultural Relativism And Divine Command

When we talk about morality and decide to study it, we find many problems and difficulties especially with people who believe that they are experts in the field, but really, they do not have any formal preparation or any study on that topic. An example of these theories discredited by philosophy are Cultural Relativism and Divine Command. Although these theories are discredited, they are powerful in their cultural impact. Cultural Relativism is a stream of thought which posits the idea that every culture must be understood in its own terms and underlines the impossibility of establishing a unique and universal point of view on the interpretation of cultures. In other words, relativism forces respect cultures to the point of making you stop and do not make a judgment at all. Ethically, at least, it should allow us to say that something is right or wrong, no matter where or who is involved. On the other hand, Divine Command is a very primitive ethical theory which proposes …show more content…
This moral theory has remained influential in the public imagination even though many philosophers no longer taken it seriously. According to Aquinas, if God made nature and reason discloses how nature works, then reason reveals to us that this is the correct way because God made it like that. Hence, Aquinas’ Natural Law expresses fundamentally that natural equals good, and unnatural equals bad. For example, nowadays, most people take aspirin to alleviate the pain, but for Aquinas, that is bad because it is unnatural. Also, he said that something natural in life would be to die of Cancer, in pain and slowly, instead of taking chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and pain killers as many people do today. In my opinion, Aquinas’ Natural Law moral theory is not always practical and logical because although most treatments in Medicine are not natural, they have achieved to save millions of