Ethics Essays

Essays

1) Suppose a cultural relativist asserts that “One should always and everywhere tolerate other cultural practice.” Explain the delemma that confronts this cultural relativists. That is, explain the two options open to a cultural relativist and why each of these options is problematic for her assertion.

The problem with this statement: that one should always and everywhere tolerate other cultural practices, is the consistent relative view. This is relative to some societies e.g. Nazi, Germany we should not be toleratnt of other societies moral codes. There is at least one bit of universal moral truth; viz we should be tolerant of varying moral codes. The first view is problematic because according to the cultural relativist for any society, a practice, and time it is morally permissible or impermissible at a time relative to a society if and only if the society generally regards the practice and time as morally permissible or impermissible. So the society in Germany deemed the practice of killing and persecuting the Jews at that time as morally permissible. The other problem is that we shouldn’t be tolerant of them killing and persecuting the Jews because it is morally impermissible.

2) How does simple subjectivism differ from emotivism? According to emotivism, why is it that when Jones judges that “Abortion is wrong” and Smith judges that “Abortion