Morality is understood as a set of norms, beliefs, values and customs that guide people’s behavior (Stanford University, 2011). Morality is what determines what is right and what is wrong and will allow us to distinguish which actions or thoughts are right or appropriate. and which don’t. However, something that seems so obvious on paper raises doubts when we start looking at it. One answer to these doubts and the apparent contradictions they cause is what is called moral relativism.
Morality is neither objective nor universal. Within the same culture you can find differences in morality, although they are generally smaller than those observed between different cultures, so if we compare the customs of two cultures, these differences can be much greater. In addition, within the same society, the Coexistence of Multiple Religions can also show many differences (Rachels and Rachels, 2011).
- The concept of ethics is intimately linked to the concept of morality.
- The Encyclopedia of Internet Philosophy is the search for universal principles of morality (although some authors.
- Such as Gustavo Bueno.
- Consider ethics and morality to be the same).
To do this, those who study ethics analyze morality in different cultures in order to find common ground, which would be universal principles. Ethical behavior around the world is officially established in the Declaration of Human Rights.
Years ago, Nietzsche (1996) called Western morality a slave morality, for that morality considered that the highest actions could not be the work of men, but of a God projected out of us. This morality, which Nietzsche rejected, is considered Judeo-Christian because of its origins.
Despite criticism from philosophers, this morality remains in place, even with some more liberal changes. Given colonialism and Western domination in the world, Judeo-Christian morality is the most widespread, which can sometimes cause problems.
This thought, which considers that each culture has a morality, is called cultural relativism, so there are people who reject human rights in favor of other codes of conduct, such as the Qur’aan or the Vedas of Hindu culture (Santos, 2002).
Analyzing other morality from the point of view of our morality can be a totalizing practice. Generally, when acting in this way, the evaluation tends to be negative and stereotypical. Therefore, we will almost always reject manners that do not suit our own, even questioning the moral competence of people who have other morals.
To understand how different morals interact, we will discuss the explanations of Wittgenstein (1989), who explains morality with a very simple scheme, to better understand, it is possible to perform a simple exercise: take a sheet and draw several circles at random. will represent a different morality. As for the relationships between circles, there are three possibilities:
Of course, the fact that two circles share the same space will indicate that two morals have aspects in common, and, depending on the proportion of shared space, they will have more or less in common, as some circles, different customs overlap although they differ from many positions. There are also larger circles, representing morals that have more standards, and smaller circles, which refer only to more specific aspects.
However, there is another paradigm that suggests that there is no morality in all cultures, moral relativism proposes that each person must have a different morality (Lukes, 2011), imagines that each circle in the previous scheme is the morality of a person without the morality of a culture. From this point of view, all ways are accepted, regardless of place of origin and context. In cultural relativism, there are three different positions:
The fact that a moral explains a wider range of behaviors or that more people agree with a certain moral does not imply that it is correct, but it does not define it as incorrect. Moral relativism assumes that there are several morals that will lead to disagreements, which will only lead to conflicts when there is dialogue and understanding (Santos, 2002). Therefore, finding common ground is the best way to establish a healthy relationship, both between people and between cultures.
bibliography
Gowans, C. (2015). Moral Relativism, Stanford University, Link: https://plato. stanford. edu/entries/moral-relativism/#ForArg
Internet Philosophy Encyclopedia. Link: http://www. iep. utm. edu/ethics
Lukes, S. (2011). Moral relativism. Barcelona: Paidas
Nietzsche, F. W. (1996). The genealogy of morality. Madrid: Editorial Alianza.
Rachels, J. Rachels, S. (2011). The elements of moral philosophy. New York: McGraw Hill.
Santos, B. S. (2002) Has a multicultural conception of human rights. The Other Right, (28), 59-83.
Stanford University (2011). The definition of morality. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Palo Alto: Stanford University.
Swoyer, C. (2003). Relativism Stanford University Link: https://plato. stanford. edu/entries/relativism/#1. 2
Wittgenstein, L. (1989). Ethics Day. Barcelona: Paidas.