Cultural Relativism vs. Ethical Relativism

6. Explain the difference between cultural relativism and ethical relativism. Do you think that the fact that people disagree about moral right and wrong shows that ethical relativism is true?

In order to make the distinction between cultural relativism and ethical relativism, one must understand the term, the word that defines the study of morality—ethics. By definition ethics is a branch of philosophy that attempts decode which things are morally good, what actions are morally just, universally accepted (Vasquez). Ethics is the study of morality, the standards that an individual or a group has about what is right and wrong, good and evil, light and dark. Ethics allows the investigation of moral standards within a society, allowing questions to whether they are reasonable or unreasonable. Ethics is a justified hajj, a justified pilgrimage, a justified journey for the search of true morality.

Cultural relativism is an affirmation that holds that societies are dissimilar in their moral standards, their laws and culture protocols. To expand, cultural relativism holds that what one culture believes is immoral, another culture may believe is moral (Vasquez). In essence, cultural relativism is the view that morality is culture dependent. For example, Gaegogi, in English terms—dog meat, is considered a dish on the peninsula of South Korea. Due to the reason why there is a diversity of what is right or wrong among culture actions including slavery, polygamy, homosexuality, genocide, and numerous other topics, the term cultural relativism emerged.

Ethical relativism denies the existence of a one universal moral law. Ethical relativism supports the idea because cultures of societies are dissimilar in astronomical ways they accept, it follows that there is not one correct set of precepts everyone should adopt. According to the definition, instead, people should follow the moral laws and protocols that their own unique society sets forth or accepts. For instance, how the Western world is governed may not be appropriate (according to some viewers) for cultures in different cultures outside of the West.

Even though both cultural and ethical relativism sound similar, they do have inherited differences. Cultural relativism is seen as different societies that believe in different moralities. Cultural relativists see their view as a sociological fact where scholarly works proves the existence of different moralities. On the contrary, ethical relativists claim that the same action that is moral is immoral in another. For example, people living in the deserts of Saudi Arabia think that stoning a woman because she broke Sharia law (Islamic law) is not morally wrong, whereas people in the United States believe it is wrong. To surmise the difference between ethical relativism and cultural relativism is that in ethical relativism, whatever the denizens of a culture or society “think” is right for them to do is “in fact” what is right for them to do (Velasquez).

Because the fact that people disagree about moral right and wrong shows that ethical relativism is not true. There are several conflicts within ethical relativism. One problem emerges when one asks, “Is slavery morally right, if society as a whole accepts it?” The following are conflicts within the belief of ethical relativism: when there are two conflicting views on what is laws are morally just, which of the views are to be followed?; within ethical relativism, one has to accept society’s views and not question them; due to the fact that societies differ in moral laws they hold, it does not follow that there is one correct code of moral laws; there are universal moral values that societies must adopt in order to survive (Velasquez). However, even though ethical relativism inherits the preceding problems and conflicts, one of its main purposes is to knock down an approve solution for what a society believes is right and wrong. Due to the fact that people have come from different backgrounds and survived, no one, not one has the prerogative to say what is right or what is wrong.

The “Ultimate Ones”

The “Ultimate Ones”

Decisions that impact society, decisions that impact the old and the young, decisions that impact the poor and the rich, decisions that impact the young and the restless, are ought to be carried out and constructed by society, by the majority, by the people. In retrospect, the experts, the old men with expensive bottle neck, white collared suites, with crimson, blood-red ties are to remain silent, shunned out of the societal circle, as they helplessly watch as “acropolitan” decisions of the people are made “by the people and for the people.”

            Merriam-Webster defines society as a voluntary association of individuals for a commend end (Webster). Society is just that—a large mass. Rather than a small group of experts sitting around a round table, deciding whether to place a particular individual in the oval office of the White House, people with a hodgepodge of characteristics and ideas are the “ultimate ones” who decide what type of man is qualified to run a country that is consider a melting pot with numerous dissimilar concerns. In psychological terms, if a group of “experts” with the same thoughts, same political agendas, are seated high on the golden thrones of society, group polarization emerges. With group polarization, the government is not well-represented by the people. For example, if these experts were rich and were making decisions that only benefited the rich, the penniless lose and are casted out into the dark voids of society. Hypothetically, extremes are taken when a small group of experts call the decisions.

            If all major decisions were made by the majority, governmental extremes will not be taken due to the system of checks and balances. Society is represented well with different colored faces, acquiring the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Furthermore, the people, as a whole, have a “say-so” in the realm of politics. Take into consideration the following: if the small group of experts is considered to be the government and the majority as its citizens, then in the Libertarian spotlight, the function of the government is limited to the protection of human rights, limited to the protection of the citizen. To be more specific, the small group of experts, the government, should not be concocting laws that filch freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of peaceable assembly; this includes the censorship of ideas, books, films, and other forms of media. However, if the opposite were the case, where major decisions are trickled down from the higher of experts, society is knighted an oligarchy, rather than a democracy.

            Totalitarian, fascists, opposing views that hold that society should be run by the experts believe something else. There are, however, some valid reasons that support the reason why the white collared experts should make the decisions. To be blunt and succinct, experts are just that—experts. Experts on the State know what is most salutary, what is most beneficial for society as a whole.  In the Marxist spotlight, if the small group of experts were the government and decided for the majority that society is based off the socialist principle, where burdens and benefits are distributed according to the abilities and necessities of the people, still, the motley majority wins, due to the equal distribution of wealth. However, the majority, the people do not have the voice to make decisions; the people do not have a voice of what job or career they want to hold. In essence, the people are politically shackled and silenced with no voice.

            Major decisions that impact society, as whole should be made by the majority. The reasons that support the majority rule are superior, because they usher in what it truly means to be free within a State. Even though “Man is born free, [yet] everywhere in chains” (Rousseau), the citizen is part of the majority, the larger body, the general will. It is in this realm, this general will, where the majority is the State, and the State is the populous, and the populous in the State is the government that comes to a consensus to forming the moral “oughts” within the society. The major decisions are not left up to the small group of experts, but rather the majority, “ultimate ones.”