Uber is a transportation company that was created in 2009. It is a new way for people in cities to have transportation by connecting customers directly to drivers through an app (“About Uber”). Uber divers are paid through a surge pricing model. Surge pricing occurs when the demand for drivers rises, causing the price for the drivers to rise accordingly. Uber claims surge pricing helps to motivate drivers to work in bad conditions. Sometimes New Yorkers are expected to pay as much as eight times the base line price for a driver when demand increases, such as during bad weather or holidays (Inae Oh). This tactic became very controversial when Uber’s surge pricing went into effect during Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012. As people were trying …show more content…
According to this theory, there are no absolute right or wrong answers to ethical questions, only standards set in each and every unique culture. So one person cannot judge another person’s actions as morally wrong if those actions are acceptable to the other person’s culture. Within this theory, decisions about right and wrong only depend on the social norms in a culture, and these social norms cannot be imposed on people from outside one’s culture. No culture can be superior to another culture, and no culture’s practices can be judged immoral by comparison to other …show more content…
But there seem to be a few different sets of norms that could have influenced this decision. First, there is the expectation that during a national emergency, people would come together and help each other as much as possible. This would have influenced Uber to keep the prices low during the hurricane. But another expectation prevalent in the US is that businesses are cutthroat and often take advantage of their customers to maximize their profits. So if Uber were influenced by this expectation, we would see the prices to continue to rise, even during a hurricane. So Cultural Relativism could have a number of outcomes for Uber’s decision. The second ethical system to examine is Ethical Egoism. In this theory, the main influence for decisions is to create a better life for oneself. Ethical Egoism promotes selfish behavior and rejects altruism because it claims altruism is the opposite of the natural order of things. According to this theory, altruism provides help to those who don’t deserve it, and it can create a dependence on others. But if people pursue their own interests and focus on bettering themselves, society will benefit as a
How did Uber and Lyft become more popular in 2016-2017? Because people love the latest and greatest trends once popular. As a result, many of us, especially young people, are unaware of the many reasonable safety standards that these companies are not required to follow, like in-depth background checks, vehicle safety and valid insurance policies. According to an article in Forbes Magazine titled, “Uber's Background Checks Failed to Catch a Murderer and Other Felons, Prosecutors Say”, prosecutors from San Francisco and Los Angeles contends that ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft continue to mislead their customers by selling the notion that the company conduct in-depth background checks on all of their drivers. Despite the fact records show that drivers are intentionally providing false personal information to these companies, hiding incidents of sexual assault, assault, pedophilia, robbery, theft, kidnapping and murder. Recently, both Uber and Lyft settle lawsuits, requiring them to change the wording in their message to customers. Prosecutors maintained that the “gold standard” for criminal background check must include fingerprinting or other biometric identifier; therefore, Uber and Lyft cannot claim “industry-leading”
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
For many years now, people have always wondered what ethical principle is the right one to follow. These individuals are all seeking the answer to the question that the ethical principles are trying to clarify: What defines moral behavior? The Divine Command Theory and the theories of cultural relativism are two principles of many out there that provide us with explanations on what our ethical decisions are based on and what we consider to be our moral compass in life. Even though these two theories make well-supported arguments on why they are the right principle to follow, it is hard to pinpoint which one should guide our choices because of the wide array of ethical systems. Therefore, what is morally right or wrong differs greatly depending
Altruism regards the individual life as something one may be required to sacrifice for the sake of
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,
Uber is unarguably an innovative company. However, it’s debatable if it is an ethically sound company as well. Uber has effectively filled a niche in the transportation market and is valued at more than 40 billion dollars. It a tech company that hooks up consumers with drivers. The company makes transportation quick, low cost, and high quality. Economists agree that Uber is driving the economy forward with its innovation and job creation (“Uber isn’t Just Good For…”).
Before a case can be made for the causes of altruism, altruism itself must first be defined. Most leading psychologists agree that the definition of altruism is “a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.” (Batson, 1981). The only way for a person to be truly altruistic is if their intent is to help the community before themselves. However, the only thing humans can see is the actions themselves, and so, selfish intent may seem the same as altruistic intent. Alas, the only way that altruism can be judged is if the intent is obvious. Through that, we must conclude that only certain intents can be defined as altruistic, and as intent stemming from nature benefits the group while other intent benefits yourself, only actions caused by nature are truly altruistic.
Cultural relativism is the philosophical approach which suggests that it is difficult to make assessments and judgments against other cultures. What might be considered as morally right or wrong in one culture can be different from what is accepted in another For example, the Greeks believed it was immoral to eat the dead whereas the Callatians believed it was right to eat the death. Here, eating of the dead is neither wrong nor right. It is simply a matter of opinion. Different cultures follow different moral codes and it varies from one culture to another.
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.
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.
Uber needs to focus its entry into densely populated areas of Canada lacking a well developed public transit system. These opportunities can easily be taken advantage of if Uber was to further develop its existing strengths.
Monopolistic competition was also being undertaking in the circumstance of competing against taxi cab. Uber's lower the price for each rides so that drivers would gain more passenger to which it would have an increase in demand. Allowing more consumers to use uber than taxi cab. That's one of the biggest advantage uber has and still the reason why is not yet
How do you determine what is right or what is wrong? Personally, I feel that from within ourselves, we know when we have done right and when we have done wrong. This may not stop someone from doing wrong, but, within themselves, I believe that they know they are doing wrong. I believe that someone knows when they have hurt someone else feelings or caused harm to someone. Consequently, I do not make up a culture, which has merits on determining right or wrong. Within this report, ethical relativism will be define and discussed how it relates to right and wrong as well as the corruption that I discussed in the previous assignment.
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
Road pricing-is charging the road users for the costs they impose to others road users or to non-road users