Moral Relativism Vs Absolutism

Across all spectrums there have been different beliefs, thoughts, opinions, perceptions, and experiences. These ways in which people interpret the world help to conclude what people might think as “right” and “wrong”. But really, there is no such thing as a “right” or “wrong” that all people live by. One could say instead, that these ways in which we interpret the world are actually guidelines that people live by, partially uniquely subjective input and partially societal input all control an outcome of how human behavior works. This refers to the ideas of morality and specifically relativism and absolutism. Often, there are many misunderstandings or confusions around the two, especially moral relativism. Simply put, moral relativism refers …show more content…
And if we do, we are being ignorant. It isn’t our fault necessarily, but this tiny detail makes it hard to talk about cultural relativism without thinking about how our own experience and upbringing creates a one sided argument. More often than not, we categorize other people’s morals that are different than our own as “backward” or “primitive”. Cultural relativism is the idea that says there are different moral codes amongst different cultures. For example, the Greeks and Callatians funeral process. The Greeks, where they bury their dead, found it hard to except the Callatians funeral process where they eat their dead, and vice versa. Outside of each culture the practices are seen as “wrong” by the other, but inside the culture, they are fine with it. This rule explains differences between different people, and is supported by relativism. Relativism says that because of these differences, there is no way an absolutistic, universal law could account for all people of all times, because simply it can’t. An absolutist might argue that the differences between cultures are not that big or say that the cultural relativism argument is lazy, however, there are some cases that would prove this very wrong. …show more content…
But it did not and does not encourage a place of discovery, especially individual discovery. Relativism says that in some cases at some times it is pointless to have one answer. Relativism allows for us to use our opinions about moral issues based on feelings and experience. There is no general statement we can make that expresses an opinion that will ever be verifiable or true by all. This method helps discern a code of conduct, and creates and promotes self discovery and expression. Moral relativism promotes tolerance to understand other cultures. The thing we should ask ourselves is does absolutism encourage an environment that allows for growth? If the answer is no than it is flawed for that reason. Relativism allows the greatest flexibility to help answer the most complicated of problems. And it allows for people to ask difficult questions and decide for themselves what they