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Let's have fun with Ethics...... ;)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sol System: [QB] I sincerely doubt we're going to be able to solve the issue of ethical relativism, cultural relativism, and/or ethical subjectivism (And possibly emotivism!) in this thread. Besides, as an on again/off again philosophy pseudomajor, I can ensure that you cannot have fun with ethics. [IMG]http://flare.solareclipse.net/smile.gif[/IMG] Also, I'm not sure this really needs to be in the Flameboard. Doesn't seem that inflammatory to me. Well, not yet anyway. Ok, fine. Ethics. Well, let's look at it this way. Before we can address the issue of crosscultural ethics, we first need to decide whether there is anything for them to be concerned about. In other words, are there moral facts that can be classified as true? (Keep in mind that I'm not asking if there are universal moral facts. We'll get to that later.) The answer to this question is usually, but not always, yes. The very existance of ethics as an area of study confirms our belief that it can be understood through inquiry. That is, there are indeed moral facts. I believe that X is wrong, and live my life accordingly. For me, the wrongness of X constitutes a fact. This belief may or may not be shared by the rest of my culture. For instance, in the United States, and indeed throughout the western world, killing a female member of your family because she has dishonored the family name is viewed as wrong. This value is not shared universally. But within our culture, such an action is wrong, and we agree about this enough to codify it in law. Now then, the problem is that while I can believe that X is wrong, and that there is a moral fact that says that X is wrong, it does not logically follow that said fact is universal in application. Nor is it necessary for it to be so, at least from the viewpoint of an ethical relativist. Of course, there is another angle to pursue. Namely, that there are no moral facts at all. Or at least that what we call morality is different for every person and hence useless as a tool to resolve conflicts in our everyday lives. What we know about human nature seems to disprove this idea. Everytime a child says that a punishment is unfair, they are appealing to a shared moral framework. (Of course, the fact that such an appeal doesn't work that often might be used to argue that there is no such universal ideal of fairness. A parent's idea is different from a child's, and so on.) So, you tell me whether there can be shared moral facts or not and then we can move on. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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