The concept or theory that has been the most informative and meaningful to me in helping me have a better understanding of ethics and humans rights in global politics is the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative states that “people should be treated as ends, never a means to an end” (Amstutz 74). Meaning that if intended result is moral, then the process in achieving that result should also be moral. I’m not a user of people and I wouldn’t myself use people as tools in order for a positive result to occur, I did think however, that if the intended result was for something good to occur, then sometimes one might have to play dirty in order to achieve the goal. However, upon learning about this term I came to realize internally that
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Before taking this class if heard about people doing certain things in faraway lands that seemed outrageous I probably would have felt that the United States should go over there to that land and put a stop to those practices and bring “democracy” to them. Although, I did develop some relativist viewpoints in regards to unilaterally invading another nation due to information that came out about the Bush (43) invasion of Iraq, for the most part I felt that the United States should intervene if people in other parts did things that didn’t seem normal to those of us on this side of the world. However, after learning about cultural relativism I began to feel that it was an important issue because it highlights the diversity of cultures on our planet and it demonstrates that what seems strange to one group of people might be cultural norm for others. For instance, in Abusharaf’s “Virtuous Cuts” she expresses in response to the western world’s viewpoint on female circumcision on Africa that cultural relativism plays an important role showing that world that in certain parts of Africa that female circumcision is a very important part of their culture and that it isn’t a form of oppression, which is how the West portrays it (Abusharaf 116). The ethical aspect of this is that if a cultural relativist perspective is used in how other cultures are viewed, then there will be greater understanding and more respect for different cultures, which in turn the desire to force cultural norms on different ethnic groups or even use the cover of bringing “democracy” to them, violating their
Before taking this class if heard about people doing certain things in faraway lands that seemed outrageous I probably would have felt that the United States should go over there to that land and put a stop to those practices and bring “democracy” to them. Although, I did develop some relativist viewpoints in regards to unilaterally invading another nation due to information that came out about the Bush (43) invasion of Iraq, for the most part I felt that the United States should intervene if people in other parts did things that didn’t seem normal to those of us on this side of the world. However, after learning about cultural relativism I began to feel that it was an important issue because it highlights the diversity of cultures on our planet and it demonstrates that what seems strange to one group of people might be cultural norm for others. For instance, in Abusharaf’s “Virtuous Cuts” she expresses in response to the western world’s viewpoint on female circumcision on Africa that cultural relativism plays an important role showing that world that in certain parts of Africa that female circumcision is a very important part of their culture and that it isn’t a form of oppression, which is how the West portrays it (Abusharaf 116). The ethical aspect of this is that if a cultural relativist perspective is used in how other cultures are viewed, then there will be greater understanding and more respect for different cultures, which in turn the desire to force cultural norms on different ethnic groups or even use the cover of bringing “democracy” to them, violating their