Posted: May 13th, 2021

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy
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Introduction to Philosophy
Question 1
Moral relativism is concerned with the peoples’ decision making mechanism which is to a significant extent influenced by people’s culture. Herodotus argued that people’s decision was biased towards their culture and indicates this by his metaphorical statement that indicated that culture was the king (Rawlinson, 1859). In addition to Herodotus argument, that people consider something right or wrong depending on their culture, he also added that people would view their culture as being better than others. They would do something that is permitted by their culture and consider others permitted by other cultures as wrong. Benedict views culture as having been curved as a result of communities interaction with their histories and environment and therefore being very different among communities. However, she outlines the importance it has in determining choices made by individuals within a society while each group of people consider their culture more superior over others. Benedict likens culture to the work of art where the artist select colors, themes and details that need to be highlighted in the complete masterpiece. Similarly, social systems are developed from the tendencies, cycles and behaviors that a given community would like to emphasize among its members. Both Herodotus and Ruth benedict support moral relativism through illustrating that no choice or decision by a person or group can be perfect for all. Additionally, considering how many groups consider their culture to be supreme over others, moral relativism supports that something is either right or wrong depending on societies’ culture. This means that it can be hard to determine what is good for a large and multicultural group in which it would be important to let each individual have his/her views. Cultural relativity alludes to a situation where there are no universal truths to evaluate societies moral behavior: There are no universal moral truths or ethics (Benedict, n.d.).
Question 2
James Rachels on the other hand think that cultural relativity is wrong as it only offers a loose conclusion from observations made in different cultures but does not seek to establish the true case. Rachels argue that it would be much more beneficial to seek what is true between the societies. For instance, if infanticide was accepted among Eskimos and rejected among Americans, it does not follow that the two groups disagree and no one should seem in a hurry to draw a consensus. Moral relativism may conclude that both cultures are neither right nor wrong and should be accepted due to lack of ‘universal truth’ about the mater (Rachels, 1989). Note that it does not offer way research essay homework forward but a hurried conclusion. Taking moral relativism very seriously would lead to a situation where the world would be forced to just observe and not stop practices that break the rights of some groups. For instance, there would not be reasons to stop practices such as slavery, slave trade or anti-Semitism because some cultures believe they are right. Rachels’ views are right since they point out to the fact that moral relativism may be used to augment or perpetuate practices that would undermine equality and human rights as seen earlier.
Question 3
Suituationism in describing people’s behaviors assume that general traits are non-existent with the exception of intelligence. As a result, each behavior is seen as a reaction to external situations rather than a person’s traits. Under situationism, a person’s behavior or choices is determined by a situation, for instance, Miller (2004) observed that people would administer what they thought to be very painful electric shock to others if they were instructed by authoritative people (Miller, 2004). This formed a basis for in-depth research in situationism as it was discovered that people’s behavior were dependent on their situations. Situationism recognizes that human behavior is influenced by the situation they are in while moral relativism states that there are no universals truths in morals and ethics and that people’s behaviors can be justified simply by their cultural believes.

References
Rawlinson, G., (1859). The history of Herodotus. New york, Appleton.
Benedict, R. (n.d.). Anthropology and the abnormal. Readings in Anthropology / Morton H . Fried.
Rachels, J. (1989). The Right thing to do: Basic readings in moral philosophy. New York: Random House.
Miller, A. G. (2004). The social psychology of good and evil. New York: Guilford Press.

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