A Short Primer on Ethical Theory

A Short Primer on Ethical Theory

Relativism -- different cultures have different cultural practices. This observation is hardly new; ancient philosophers already distinguished between customary law which differed among peoples and natural law which purportedly held for all peoples. Still, with the development of modern anthropological research awareness of cultural relativity became more widespread. In response, a group of 20th century thinkers, the most famous of whom is Ruth Benedict, took these empirical observations as the basis for a somewhat different view, ethical relativism. Ethical relativism holds that there are no universal, or absolute, or objective ethical standards which apply across cultures. cultural relativity is not sufficient to establish ethical relativism. no elaboration is sufficient to determine what ought to be. most philosophers reject ethical relativism while admitting that moral practices differ markedly from one culture to another.

Regardless of cultural context the holocaust, the actions of Jeffrey Dahmer and torturing innocent children for fun are wrong. The question typically is not whether or not these types of actions are wrong but what makes them wrong. The out-and-out relativist will have trouble saying why these things are wrong.

An apparent contradiction and further difficulty with ethical relativism is that it actually seems to require at least one universal norm: tolerance.

Given the fact of growing pluralism (political, religious, cultural, ethnic) many people have given up on reaching moral consensus on most questions of behavior. Even so, any theory of human rights which seeks to establish a rational basis for the principles of tolerance and respect must rely on universal principles or it will have no answer to rival political systems which claim that every culture can define human rights the way it wants.

description of cultural relativity or a prescription for ethical relativism.

Americans drive on the right...