ETHICAL RELATIVISM

Ethics

seeks to resolve questions of human morality be defining concepts such as good and vil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime

• Virtue Ethics

• Utilitarianism

• Natural Law

Ethical Schools of Thought

Ethical Relativism

This holds that ethical or moral values/beliefs are relative to the various individuals or societies that hold them.

No objective right or wrong

According to the ethical relativists, there is __________

• Personal or Individual Ethical Relativism

• Social or Cultural Ethical Relativism

Two Forms of Ethical Relativism

Personal or Individual Ethical Relativism

Ethical judgments and beliefs are the expressions of the moral outlook and attitudes of individual persons.

senicide or geronticide

the abandonment to death or killing of the elderly

• Diversity of Moral Values

• Moral Uncertainty

• Situational Differences

Three Possible Reasons that Support Ethical Relativism

diversity of moral values

the ethical relativists may have argued that the presence of disagreements on many ethical issues or even on basic moral values or principles will prove the point that we cannot attain objctive truth

moral uncertainty

Because of ____________, the ethical relativists would have argued that because there is great difficulty in knowing what is morally right thing to do or believe, then again we cannot attain objective right or wrong

situational differences

the situations and life world of different people vary so much that it is diffcult to believe that the same thing that would be right for one would be right for another

• Self-contradictory

• It goes against reality

• removes possibility of consensus

Criticisms against Ethical Relativism

Self-contradictory

Ethical relativism is ________________ because it creates a new form of normative ethics by placing the criteria of right and wrong in the hands of the moral agent

It goes against reality

these evils could not be justified by ethical relativism as it simply ncessitate the rule of law and justice

removes possibilities of consensus

Ethical relativism removes all forms of consensus becauses the individual or groups of individual would opt to insist on his theory of personal ethical rule.