Cultural Relativism Examples

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Introduction
There is no objective way to justify punishment; each person has their own subjective view on how it can be justified. It comes down to the two main branches of moral philosophy – meta-ethics and normative ethics.
Meta-ethics focus on the foundations and methodology of morals. Some examples of meta-ethical theories include cultural relativism; this holds the idea that “right” is what is accepted by the majority of a given culture; moral subjectivism; this holds the idea that if we personally like something, it is good, and it teaches us to follow our feelings regardless of rationale; moral hedonism; this tells us to base our judgement on the pleasure it would create (similar to subjectivism); and lastly, moral rationalism; this teaches us that all judgements should be based purely and solely on reason.
On the other hand, normative ethics focus on the societal norms of right and wrong. The two major theories of this are teleological, and deontological. Teleological …show more content…
This theory was strongly supported by John Stuart Mill, another English philosopher from the same century. The prime principle behind utilitarianism is that the goodness or badness of a particular action is justified by the consequences of said action and how everyone else is affected by it. Regarding the utilitarian principle, John Stuart Mill stated ‘Utility … holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness’ (J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863: 9). The principle goal of utilitarianism is to maximise total happiness of everyone involved, which is corresponding with the meta-ethical theory moral hedonism, as it is based upon the pleasure that is created from an action. This is a normative idea, considering the fact that it is stating we should act upon this

1st Responce Paper

Reflection Paper 1 In “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” James Rachels and Stuart Rachels offer the idea that three things follow from Cultural Relativism (20-22): 1. “We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior to our own” (20). 2. “We could no longer criticize the code of our own society” (21). 3. “The idea of moral progress is called into doubt” (21). I will object only to the second idea that from Cultural Relativism “We could no longer criticize the code…

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Examples Of Moral Relativism

Morality and Relativism Philosopher Jesse Prinz wrote the article “Death of Morality” in 2011. He was a much known Philosopher at CUNY. In his article he discusses morality and how it relates to culture. He finds morality to be cultural. According to dictionary.com, cultural relativismis”the concept that the importance of a particular cultural idea varies from onesociety or societal subgroup to another, the view that ethical and moralstandards are relative to what a particular society or culture…

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Cultural Relativism And Morality

Carlise Richmond World View Assignment #2 American History March 10, 2015 Cultural Relativism and Morality Cultural relativism was coined by Franz Boas, a anthropological researcher, who was fascinated by other cultures and languages of indigenous cultures of the Baffin Isle Inuit. Franz said that a "...civilization is not something absolute, but ... is relative, and ... our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes…

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Essay Surrounding Cultural Relativism

surrounding Cultural Relativism seem to be as numerous and as varied as the cultures studied themselves. There are all sorts of beliefs surrounding the idea. Many people staunchly defend relativism for all they're worth, while some people don't believe the idea holds any merit whatsoever, and that it may even oppose social and moral progress. There are supporters and there are detractors, and they include people from all sorts of different professions. One of the supporters of cultural relativism was Ruth…

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Essay Culture and Moral Code

PHI105 – Intro to Ethics Professor Millard Chapter 2 Cultural Relativism PART A: 1. A.) Page 16 Cultural Relativism challenges our belief in the objectivity and universality of moral truth. Cultural relativists have made all the following claims: 1. Different societies have different moral codes. 2. The moral code of a society determines what is right within that society; that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that action is right…

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Culture and Relativism Cultural Views Essay

Relativism Relativism pertains to what each individual culture defines as right or wrong. A great example was given that in some parts of the world capital punishment is wrong in France, but right in Saudi Arabia (Waller, 2008 pp. 24) Relativism is defined by the culture that you are in, at that present time. If you move or visit another country, you would need to pay close attention to their relativism views. The understanding of relativism is useful, because it reminds us of keeping an open mind…

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What Is Cultural Ethical Relativism

Trevar Boiarsky Phil 2306 Jenson 2/6/2017 Critique of Cultural Ethical Relativism The idea of Cultural Ethical Relativism is that there are many cultures throughout our world, but there does not lie an independent standard from which we may judge another culture. “The argument for Cultural Ethical Relativism is (Rachels, 2012: p.18): P1. If Different cultures have different moral codes, then there is no objective truth in morality. P2. Different cultures have different moral codes. C. Therefore…

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Pojman In The Diversity Thesis

principles, valid for all people at all times and climes" (p. 57). In order to demonstrate the pitfalls of such approach, Pojman examines the premises of ethical relativism, breaking it down to Diversity and Dependency Thesis and analyzes how it compares to a "very modest objectivism." In the Diversity Thesis Pojman points out that ethical relativism maintains that there are no universal moral principles because a definition of right or wrong varies widely among different societies. Moral rules differ from…

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Essay on Moral Skepticism Response

Ethical Relativism What constitutes right and wrong behavior is a highly debated concept, which differs among diverse cultures, societies, traditions, and beliefs when determining specific rules about those actions. Ethical relativism is the theory that some moral standards are true, but their truth is relative to societies/cultures or each individual person and thus those standards will only apply within a culture or to an individual. The theory is subject to a number of objections, two of which…

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Cultural Relativism In The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down

Cultural relativism, based of Chapter 14 of Haviland et al., can be defined as disregarding ones ignorance in order to accept another’s culture long enough to come to an educated understanding of their culture. It became fundamental for anthropologist to use this method when studying other cultures in order to overcome their ethnocentrism and obtain a better grasp of understanding. In order to evade ethnocentrism and, the extreme, nonchalant acceptance of cultures - Walter Goldschmidt, U.S. anthropologist…

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