1. According to Berkeley’s idealism, how does your desk continue to exist with no one in the room to perceive it?
To understand why the desk continues to exist according to Berkeley’s idealism first one needs to understand Berkeley’s idealism theory. Idealism is the belief that reality is basically composed of minds and their ideas rather than matter. There are two variables of idealism, subjective and objective.
Subjective idealism which is reality made up of our minds’ own ideas. Humans must perceive something for it to be real, and the perception does not need to physically exist as matter. For example, I can envision a Pegasus, a horse with wings, flying through the sky weaving over and under bridges. The reality of the Pegasus is dependent …show more content…
Ethical relativists believe there are no universal moral rules, and that the belief of what is right and wrong and how one ought to behave is dependent on one’s cultural norms. I do not believe that what is actually morally right or wrong is different from one society to another. I believe that descriptive relativism that societies and cultures differ in their beliefs about what is moral. If we cannot judge other society’s ethics, then how can we evaluate their actions to determine whether this is an action they morally ought to do or not do. We would just have to accept that their actions are morally right for their culture. For example, if slavery is morally right in my culture, then I would have no right to question its ethical validity. As a member of the culture this cultural norm is what I ought to do and/or believe. If this is the case and I cannot question this norm then slavery and the oppression of women more than likely would still be morally …show more content…
For example, is female genital mutilation (FGM) morally right in a country where it is the social norm? According to ethical relativism it is. But, just because FGM is a long standing tradition handed down from generation to generation and is the cultural norm does not make it morally right. Performing a medical procedure that has no benefit and will likely cause physical and psychological pain to women and girls is not morally right in western cultures. If I believed in ethical relativism, then I could not have moral disagreements with someone about FCM from a culture that finds it morally acceptable. There would be no point to the
To understand why the desk continues to exist according to Berkeley’s idealism first one needs to understand Berkeley’s idealism theory. Idealism is the belief that reality is basically composed of minds and their ideas rather than matter. There are two variables of idealism, subjective and objective.
Subjective idealism which is reality made up of our minds’ own ideas. Humans must perceive something for it to be real, and the perception does not need to physically exist as matter. For example, I can envision a Pegasus, a horse with wings, flying through the sky weaving over and under bridges. The reality of the Pegasus is dependent …show more content…
Ethical relativists believe there are no universal moral rules, and that the belief of what is right and wrong and how one ought to behave is dependent on one’s cultural norms. I do not believe that what is actually morally right or wrong is different from one society to another. I believe that descriptive relativism that societies and cultures differ in their beliefs about what is moral. If we cannot judge other society’s ethics, then how can we evaluate their actions to determine whether this is an action they morally ought to do or not do. We would just have to accept that their actions are morally right for their culture. For example, if slavery is morally right in my culture, then I would have no right to question its ethical validity. As a member of the culture this cultural norm is what I ought to do and/or believe. If this is the case and I cannot question this norm then slavery and the oppression of women more than likely would still be morally …show more content…
For example, is female genital mutilation (FGM) morally right in a country where it is the social norm? According to ethical relativism it is. But, just because FGM is a long standing tradition handed down from generation to generation and is the cultural norm does not make it morally right. Performing a medical procedure that has no benefit and will likely cause physical and psychological pain to women and girls is not morally right in western cultures. If I believed in ethical relativism, then I could not have moral disagreements with someone about FCM from a culture that finds it morally acceptable. There would be no point to the