Running head: MORDIDAS
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Mordidas Anonymous University of the People
MORDIDAS
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Mordidas
This week we explore the issue of cultural relativism and how it applies to certain situations. The situation we will address here is that of “mordidas”, the practice of police officers in Mexico City supplementing their income through an institutional system of bribery (Brusseau, 2012). What are the ethical issues around this system, and how does cultural relativism apply?
What is cultural relativism, and how does the vision of ethics associated with it diverge from the traditional ethical theories?
Cultural relativism is the ethical theory that there are no universal ethics; rather, ethics should be adapted to the culture one finds themself in (Brusseau,
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How can it be justified in ethical terms?
In the USA, traffic tickets are generally considered a punitive/preventative measure to prevent traffic violations. The advantage here is that (at least in theory) justice is applied evenly and without prejudice, so lawbreakers have an extrinsic motivation not to break laws, and thereby benefits are seen both in social order and a reduction of dangerous car accidents. Ethically, this would seem to be Utilitarian, since it ought to provide the most happiness for the most people. The unhappiness of people who run stop
MORDIDAS 4 signs and receive traffic tickets is outweighed by the happiness of those whose cars and lives aren't ruined by jackanapes crashing into them while they have right-of-way at a stop. This, of course, isn't always the case: last year I fell prey to a speed trap along a rural highway passing through an Indian Reservation, where everyone around me was driving about 75 MPH but the speed limit had been reduced to 50 through a small stretch of highway, where a traffic cop waited to make money off travelers. And my father once had a policeman pull him over for expired tags in Northern California, whereupon the officer told him he could “pay the fine here” and put out his hand for cash. When my father refused, the officer grew aggressive and let him know that if he didn't pay the supposed fine, he'd be
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Social services ought to be funded through taxes and provided by the government using said taxes, not funded by systemic abuses of power by individual authority figures without legal backing. Further, I think Postmodernism at its heart is a sham philosophy. Ethical and philosophical frameworks exist partially as a means of promoting social order. Judging everything in terms of relativity can work on a personal level, but eventually such a system of ethics is unable to support the weight of seven billion people shrugging and saying that cultural values are more important than any greater system of values, and social progress screeches to a halt. Why, for instance, should we oppose female circumcision if we are to respect individual cultures where it is
Cultural Relativism is a moral theory which states that due to the vastly differing cultural norms held by people across the globe, morality cannot be judged objectively, and must instead be judged subjectively through the lense of an individuals own cultural norms. Because it is obvious that there are many different beliefs that are held by people around the world, cultural relativism can easily be seen as answer to the question of how to accurately and fairly judge the cultural morality of others, by not doing so at all. However Cultural Relativism is a lazy way to avoid the difficult task of evaluating one’s own values and weighing them against the values of other cultures. Many Cultural Relativist might abstain from making moral judgments about other cultures based on an assumed lack of understanding of other cultures, but I would argue that they do no favors to the cultures of others by assuming them to be so firmly ‘other’ that they would be unable to comprehend their moral decisions. Cultural Relativism as a moral theory fails to allow for critical thoughts on the nature of morality and encourages the stagnation
If moral principles are defined by cultures, how does one define a culture? If a social scientist were to dissect cultures into subcultures, and then divide those as well, he could logically continue making “cultural distinctions” until he comes to individuals as separate cultures. As a culture of one, each individual by relativism’s definition creates his own moral principles. This could be called ethical egoism (David Mills, personal communication). As logical conclusion extension of relativism, ethical egoism creates a world of moral lone rangers, with no one responsible to answer to any other.
Macklin, Ruth. "Ethical relativism in a multicultural society." Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 8.1 (1998): 1-22.
Cultural relativism is a theory, which entails what a culture, believes is what is correct for that particular culture, each culture has different views on moral issues. For example, abortion is permissible by American culture and is tolerated by the majority of the culture. While, Catholic culture is against abortion, and is not tolerated by those who belong to the culture. Cultural relativism is a theory a lot of individuals obey when it comes to making moral decisions. What their culture believes is instilled over generations, and frequently has an enormous influence since their families with those cultural beliefs have raised them. With these beliefs, certain cultures have different answers for different moral dilemmas and at times, it is difficult to decide on a specific moral issue because the individual may belong to multiple
The Challenge of Culture Relativism written by James Rachels argues the downsides and upsides to the idea of Cultural Relativism. This is the idea of Cultural Relativism: the principle that an individual human 's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual 's own culture. It was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by his students.
Relativism is the belief that there is no absolute truth, that the only truth is what an individual or culture happen to believe. People who believe in relativism often think different people can have different views about what's moral and immoral. Cultural relativism, like moral relativism, filter through today's society. People often believe that as long no one gets hurt, everything will be okay. Realistically, the truth about relativism has been discarded along with God.
After analyzing cultural relativism over the semester, I have come to the conclusion that cultural relativism under anthropological analysis defines every single culture with some aspect of worth as viewed by an individual within that society. Franz Boas, termed the “Father of American Anthropology”, first introduced the concept of cultural relativism. He wanted people to understand the way certain cultures conditioned people to interact with the world around them, which created a necessity to understand the culture being studied. In my words, cultural relativism is the concept that cultures should be viewed from the people among that culture. When studied by anthropologists, cultural relativism is employed to give all cultures an equal
We live in a world society that is changing rapidly. It is causing people of various cultures likely to interact with each other. This interaction can be positive or negative depending on respect people have for other cultural groups and the level of sensitivity. These behaviors are directly related to the two very important concept in sociology, which are known as Ethnocentrism and Culture relativism. Negative attitudes toward other ethnic group or cultures can be result of ethnocentrism. On the other hand, positive attitude can be the result of the culture relativism approach. The purpose of the paper is to show why people need to move from ethnocentrism mindset to culture relativism .As America is becoming more and more diversit,we need
The practices of many cultures are varied from one another, considering we live in a diverse environment. For example, some cultures may be viewed as similar in comparison while others may have significant differences. The concept of Cultural Relativism can be best viewed as our ideas, morals, and decisions being dependent on the individual itself and how we have been culturally influenced. This leads to many conflict in where it prompts us to believe there is no objectivity when it comes to morality. Some questions pertaining to Cultural Relativism may consists of, “Are there universal truths of morality?” “Can we judge
Vaughn first defines ethical relativism by stating that moral standards are not objective, but are relative to what individuals or cultures believe (Vaughn 13). Rachels says that cultural relativism states “that there is no such thing as universal truth in ethics; there are only various cultural codes,
Culture Relativism; what is it? Culture Relativism states that we cannot absolute say what is right and what is wrong because it all depends in the society we live in. James Rachels however, does not believe that we cannot absolute know that there is no right and wrong for the mere reason that cultures are different. Rachels as well believes that “certain basic values are common to all cultures.” I agree with Rachels in that culture relativism cannot assure us that there is no knowledge of what is right or wrong. I believe that different cultures must know what is right and what is wrong to do. Cultures are said to be different but if we look at them closely we can actually find that they are not so much different from one’s own culture. Religion for example is a right given to us and that many cultures around the world practices. Of course there are different types of religion but they all are worshipped and practice among the different culture.
Rachels, J. (1986). The Challenge of Cultural Relativism. The elements of moral philosophy (pp. 20-36). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
First of all, Rachels outlined the argument of the CER theory so that it can be easily to understood and critiqued. The argument for Cultural Ethical Relativism
For Cultural Relativism, it is perfectly normal that something one culture sees as moral, another may see as immoral. There is no connection between them so they are never in conflict relative to their moral beliefs. However, within the context of Ethical Relativism there’s a significant difference. Normally, two cultures will possess varying proportions of the same normal and abnormal habits yet from a cross-cultural standpoint, what is abnormal in one culture can be seen as properly normal in an...
Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.