PHI2600 Ethics Research Project Paper
Abbie Guile
Moral Relativism, Emrys Westacott
Morals have many components that play into what is considered right or wrong, and this is where moral relativism comes in. Moral relativism is the standpoint of where the morals are coming from. This gives us more of an explanation to where individual’s morals originate from and help us understand them. An example of this could be someone’s culture, because his or her standpoint is different from someone that was raised with a different culture. What person A may think is morally correct may be morally incorrect for person B, who is from a different culture, because what person A thinks is relative to them and their culture, not relative to person B. Person …show more content…
These are just four explanations. Descriptive relativism is solely based on a people’s culture and cultural diversity, and this theory comes from mostly anthropologists. This does not take into account a person’s race, religion, age, etc. An example from the article is homosexuality. Some cultures believe that homosexuality is not okay and never will be okay, while other cultures believe that a person can love whoever they want to love, male or female. Another kind of relativism is cultural relativism. This is probably my favorite kind of relativism because it is the act of looking at a person, and then looking at their cultural background and looking at it as a whole to better understand their morals. Like I mentioned earlier, when someone sees the reasoning behind something, they are less likely to judge. If someone has a moral that you do not agree with or understand, it really helps to understand the person first, and understand his or her thought process and cultural influence behind it. Anthropologists such as Sumner and Boas helped put this theory together and also helped researchers understand the people that they were studying because they then stepped back and took the time to understand their patients cultural background instead of just looking at them as a human. Another relativism is ethical non-realism, which is the belief that nothing or no one influences ones morals. This basically means that people can do whatever they please because there are no morals to follow or to tell them that they are right or wrong. This kind of relativism seems kind of insane and like it would cause chaos because if everyone believed in this theory, then there would be no order in the world and we would all be wild animals fending for ourselves at whatever circumstance. People that believe in non ethical-relativism also do not believe in things like the law or rules. This theory
Abbie Guile
Moral Relativism, Emrys Westacott
Morals have many components that play into what is considered right or wrong, and this is where moral relativism comes in. Moral relativism is the standpoint of where the morals are coming from. This gives us more of an explanation to where individual’s morals originate from and help us understand them. An example of this could be someone’s culture, because his or her standpoint is different from someone that was raised with a different culture. What person A may think is morally correct may be morally incorrect for person B, who is from a different culture, because what person A thinks is relative to them and their culture, not relative to person B. Person …show more content…
These are just four explanations. Descriptive relativism is solely based on a people’s culture and cultural diversity, and this theory comes from mostly anthropologists. This does not take into account a person’s race, religion, age, etc. An example from the article is homosexuality. Some cultures believe that homosexuality is not okay and never will be okay, while other cultures believe that a person can love whoever they want to love, male or female. Another kind of relativism is cultural relativism. This is probably my favorite kind of relativism because it is the act of looking at a person, and then looking at their cultural background and looking at it as a whole to better understand their morals. Like I mentioned earlier, when someone sees the reasoning behind something, they are less likely to judge. If someone has a moral that you do not agree with or understand, it really helps to understand the person first, and understand his or her thought process and cultural influence behind it. Anthropologists such as Sumner and Boas helped put this theory together and also helped researchers understand the people that they were studying because they then stepped back and took the time to understand their patients cultural background instead of just looking at them as a human. Another relativism is ethical non-realism, which is the belief that nothing or no one influences ones morals. This basically means that people can do whatever they please because there are no morals to follow or to tell them that they are right or wrong. This kind of relativism seems kind of insane and like it would cause chaos because if everyone believed in this theory, then there would be no order in the world and we would all be wild animals fending for ourselves at whatever circumstance. People that believe in non ethical-relativism also do not believe in things like the law or rules. This theory