What is the difference between moral relativism and cultural relativism

Now, let's talk about individualistic moral relativism also known as moral subjective and cultural moral relativism. Individualistic Moral Relativism. Individualistic moral relativism also known as moral subjectivism, argues that there are no universal standards.

With that says, what is right and wrong varies from person to person. For example; what Mrs. Jeanne Doe sees as the right thing may not be the right one for Mr. John Doe and vice versa. Strengths and Weaknesses. However, if what is right or wrong is a matter of personal belief, this means, cheating on an exam may not be okay for one student while it might be okay for another.

So, self-interest is the sole purpose of individualistic. Meaning, "I only see my interest and nothing else but my interest. Cultural Moral Relativism. Cultural moral relativism argues that there is no culture superior another, especially when comparing the system of morality, law, politics, customs, etc.

According to cultural relativists, all cultures are equal, there is no culture better or more moral than another. These people are brought up by animals and they learn the traits of these animals.

However when they are bought to human civilization it seems they have no moral beliefs or understanding. The sophists perhaps epitomise the diversity of different cultures. The sophists were travelling teachers who argued morality was relative. They felt right and wrong varied from place to place and person to person. They felt that truth was variable so when they arrived in a town they would simply tell the inhabitants what they wanted to hear.

The most famous sophist was a man named Protagoras. Moral relativism is the position that there is no universal truth. All principles are relative to a particular culture or age. Time, culture, peers, religion, place and society may influence morality. This is a teleogical or consequentialist approach. Consequentialism is the idea that moral decisions are based on results or consequences. This is similar to Instrumental ethics. This means that something is good because it leads to a desired result.

An egoist is someone wh0o does things for the best intentions of himself and himself only. If you did something that is seen as immoral but had a positive effect on the majority involved then this would be seen as utilitarianism.

The most famous utilitarian was John Stuart Mill. He believed that we have motivations to abide by the Utilitarian standard of morality. There are two classes of motivations for promoting general happiness.

There are external sanctions and internal sanctions. External sanctions arise from our hope of pleasing and fear of displeasing God and others whereas internal sanctions come from our desire of pleasing ourselves. This means that a person would get the choice to make a personal moral decision. The fundamental difference between Cultural and Moral relativism is that moral is more individual to a particular person. It is more down to that persons true beliefs.

It is almost absolutist as you are supposed to abide by the moral beliefs of that particular culture. One of the abundant reasons why people would agree with the statement above and believe that relative theories are unfair is because it can justify breaking the law.

This is their view due to the ethos behind Consequentialism. This means that people do whatever they need to do to reach a desired result including breaking the law. To use my analogy from earlier, if a parent needs to feed their children but cant afford too and so steal food, would be agreeable by a consequentialist but not by the law. Another reason is egoism. This would result in an incredibly selfish society, as everyone would be doing things for the greater good of themselves.

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Debunking evolutionary debunking. B Reason can discover truths. C it is in our interest to promote them. We should not make moral judgements concerning other individuals and societies. We do and should judge other individuals and societies with reason and with sympathy and understanding. Have you ever thought or heard and not challenged the idea that we should not make moral judgments of other people?

Have you ever thought that each person must make up his or her own mind about what his or her moral rules will be? Have you ever accepted the idea that "Unless you walk a mile in the other man's moccasins, you can not make a judgment concerning him"?

Have you ever thought that while some act might not be morally correct for you it might be correct for another person or conversely have you thought that while some act might be morally correct for you it might not be morally correct for another person? Have you thought that each person must make up his or her own morality? Well, if you answered, "Yes" to any of the above you have relativistic ideas operating in your thought system. Now you might ask yourself whether or not you really accept those ideas?

Do you believe that you must go out and kill several people in order to make the judgment that a serial killer is doing something wrong? Do you really believe that you need to kidnap, rape, kill and eat several young men in order to reach the conclusion that Jeffrey Dahmer did something wrong, morally wrong and horrible?

Do you think that killing newborn babies because they are females is wrong, even for the Chinese? Don't you think that once the Chinese and Indians and Africans have a higher quality of life and are better educated that they will and should stop doing those things that harm, kill or degrade women? If you do you have absolutist ideas working in you as well. How can you hold opposing ideas at the same time? Let us begin to think more clearly about these matters.

Let us move to some important distinctions. It is common to hear the following type of statement: It's wrong for us to impose our morality on them, because they have a different set of beliefs.

Rene Descartes, 17th-century French philosopher, notes in the following passage both the difference between the belief systems of different cultures, and the apparent reasonableness of each one:.

But I had become aware, even so early as during my college life, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible, can be imagined, which has not been maintained by some on of the philosophers; and afterwards in the course of my travels I remarked that all those whose opinions are decidedly repugnant to ours are not in that account barbarians and savages, but on the contrary that many of these nations make an equally good, if not better, use of their reason than we do.

Abortion is illegal in Ireland. More than that, the belief that abortion is a horrible moral crime is widespread. In Japan, not only is abortion legal, it is very frequently taken to be morally neutral. In answering the question: Is abortion morally wrong?