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Cultural relativism and the impact on society
Cultural relativism and the impact on society
Cultural relativism and the impact on society
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n this paper I will discuss cultural relativism, values and advantages of the U.S. and the Mexico City processes of getting and paying off traffic tickets. An individual person’s beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that person’s own culture.
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual’s personal beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture. It basically means morality is determined by the culture. So whatever the culture believes and accepts is what is moral. Therefore, morality is subjective and there is no objective morality. There is no one set of moral rules that the whole world should follow. According to cultural relativism, all the cultures
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The police officers live decently enough by adding bribes to their wages. The only value and advantage that I can think of is that the person who bribes the police officer does not need to deal with the ticket later. He/she does not need to go to court or go to a place that accepts the traffic ticket payments.
In the U.S., the salaries of the police officers are high, and there is no need for them to take bribes. Even if someone offered them money, they would not take it because they would be at risk of losing the job. We usually get our traffic tickets in mail and we can pay them online. It is an easy process, but it can be very expensive one for the drivers. My spouse received a traffic ticket in mail for running the red light. We paid it online and never received one after that incident. When a person gets a ticket in the U.S., it teaches the person a lesson to obey the traffic rules.
The Mexico City process of getting and paying off a traffic ticket is different from the U.S. process. If a person is viewing the Mexico City process from an ethnocentric point of view in the term of the U.S. culture that may seem outlandish and morally wrong, but if a person view this practice in the term of the Mexican culture, then it may be perfectly fine to them and it does not cause any
Perhaps this is part of the custom, always having currency on hand, lest one not come to a full stop in Mexico
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
...rs emigrating from Mexico may now pass those beliefs of strong relationships in all aspects of their lives onto their offspring and help create a similar attitude in the Mexican-American people.
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 position that I hold regarding the essay’s question is that I do not believe in an objective morality or in objective moral truths, I believe that all morality is entirely relative and subjective based on cultural norms because moral relativism is the philosophized meaning that right and wrong are not absolute values and that they are personalized based on the individual and the circumstances or cultural orientation. Morality applies within cultures but not across them. Ethical or cultural relativism and the various schools of pragmatism ignore the fact that certain ethical percepts probably grounded in human nature do appear to be universal and ancient, if not eternal. Ethical codes also vary in different societies, economies, and geographies
In his essay, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,” James Rachels argues that cultural relativism is an unsatisfactory moral theory because it is based upon an invalid argument, if cultural relativism were true, this would have some troubling and implausible consequences, and there are some moral rules common to all societies. In this short paper, I will argue that moral objectivism is a more satisfactory moral theory than ethical relativism. 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,
We see how cultural relativism affects laws as well because of what particular individuals or society wants to be enforced. All human laws involve some moral principle with the consequences if it be broken. Laws are enforced because of a moral conviction that risking other people’s lives is wrong. Applying the theory, relativism makes the laws just as opinions to which the only reason why they are followed is because of the consequences; which we see that it is sometimes ignored. Although the laws encourage people to not do such things without the result of being given a set of fines or jail time, it does not stop certain people. People who do not seem to think stealing is wrong may well still steal and later comes down to whether or not they will get caught. Moreover, ethical relativism focuses on what a specific culture sees to be right or
Every individual is taught what is right and what is wrong from a young age. It becomes innate of people to know how to react in situations of killings, injuries, sicknesses, and more. Humans have naturally developed a sense of morality, the “beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character,” (Vaughn 123). There are general issues such as genocide, which is deemed immoral by all; however, there are other issues as simple as etiquette, which are seen as right by one culture, but wrong and offense by another. Thus, morals and ethics can vary among regions and cultures known as cultural relativism.
...bly in the world today. The creation of global moral standards would start the slippery slope to imperialism where the dominating moral codes would rule the rest of the world and therefore corrode the cultures of the lesser states. Every society could take a lesson from moral relativism by being tolerant and understanding of other’s beliefs.
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits. The takeaway is that both theories share the guiding principle that morality is bounded by culture or society.
“Different cultures have different moral codes”, James Rachels discusses in his article Why Morality Is Not Relative? (Rachels, p. 160). A moral code is a set of rules that is considered to be the right behavior that may be accepted by a group of individuals within a society. Each culture tends to have their own individual standards and moral codes. Moral codes are guidelines laid out by a cultures ancestors. Standards are guidelines set forth by the individual themselves. Standards and morals don’t always have to be the same, but there are instances where they are. The moral codes claim what is “right” and what is “wrong”. Moral codes outline what behaviors individuals are supposed to make. These codes are basically laws, but specifically
There are different countries and cultures in the world, and as being claimed by cultural relativists, there is no such thing as “objective truth in morality” (Rachels, 2012). Cultural relativists are the people who believe in the Cultural Ethical Relativism, which declares that different cultures value different thing so common ethical truth does not exist. However, philosopher James Rachels argues against this theory due to its lack of invalidity and soundness. He introduced his Geographical Differences Argument to point out several mistakes in the CER theory. Cultural Ethical Relativism is not totally wrong because it guarantees people not to judge others’ cultures; but, Rachels’ viewpoints make a stronger argument that this theory should not be taken so far even though he does not reject it eventually.
In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is a weak argument. Cultural relativism is the theory that all ethical and moral claims are relative to culture and custom (Rachels, 56). Pertaining to that definition, I will present the idea that cultural relativism is flawed in the sense that it states that there is no universal standard of moral and ethical values. First, I will suggest that cultural relativism underestimates similarities between cultures. Second, I will use the overestimating differences perspective to explain the importance of understanding context, intention and purpose behind an act. Finally, referring to James Rachels’ “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” I will solidify my argument further using his theory that
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
Many theories attempt to explain ethical standards and how certain cultures perceive these standards or practices. When explaining certain ethical standards Cultural Relativism is an failed illogical theory for many reasons. Cultural Relativism is a theory that attempts to explain an idea that no culture is superior to any other culture and that all people’s perspectives are biased by their own cultural background. Generally, it is the opinion that all cultures are of equal value and equality to each other, therefore, there is no one culture is inferior to any other.