Many arguments have been raised concerning the issue of moral values contained in different societies and even communities. These arguments revolve around who is right or wrong. In the aim of trying to understand this, the concept of ethical relativism was developed. Ethical Relativism is the belief that moral statements are not universally true, but they are rather true relative to a given individual or society that are holding that belief. To be clear, the relative nature of moral beliefs means that whether they are wrong or right depends on what the involved societies believe in.
It is apparent that cultures are different when it comes to their moral practices. Ruth Benedict, one of the successful anthropologists in the world said that different societies hold different moral values in their own unique way even concerning those matters of morality where they are expected to agree. So, this theory of Ethical Relativism has always tried to explain that morality is relative to the beliefs of one's culture (Gowans, 2015). This simply means that for an action to be considered wrong or right it wholly depends on the society on which the norm is practiced. In other words, an action can be morally right in a particular culture but on the other hand, be morally wrong in another society. For this theory, there are no universal moral standards and each community is responsible for its own moral values. This means that if the ethical relativism is correct, then there is no commonness for resolving moral disputes among societies.
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In accordance to my opinion, I believe that the theory is correct and valid as described by John Ladd who clearly stated that for an action to be considered wrong or right depends on the society it is practiced in (Gowans, 2015). The reasons as to why I have considered it to be true is because of the fact that morality varies between cultures, religion, societies, traditions, and endless influential factors. Different cultures have grown up believing that their moral values are the ones that are right and whatever different the other society is doing are wrong according to them. The right given to an individual to act in a given way depends on whether it is relative to the society on which he or she belongs.
Ethical relativism theory acknowledges that people have different believes and practices that are familiar to them and what they are used to. So it cannot be universally standardized as one and create moral values that are expected to be accepted by all the different societies (Gowans, 2015). Thus, the question of right or wrong varies from society to society. This is considered to have truth in it because all cultures are clearly and evidently different meaning that what might be right in one society may not be morally acceptable in other societies. For instance, some cultures might consider slavery or female circumcision acceptable to them but other cultures might consider them to be a sin or wrong. So, it is now clear that societies will continue to have fundamental disagreements on what is right or wrong since it solely depends on the culture you are from and what they believe is right to them.
In conclusion, this theory and concept clearly raise important issues, and they must be acknowledged. Ethical relativism is there to keep on reminding us that different societies have different moral values where our beliefs are influenced by culture. These cultures must be respected and accepted since everyone has what he or she believes is right to them and to the societies that they have been brought up.
References
Gowans, C. (2015). Moral Relativism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved on 28 March 2019, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
