Pitfalls Of Relativism Essays (2294 words) - Relativism,

Pitfalls Of Relativism Pitfalls of Relativism The year was 1943. Hundreds of Jewish people were being marched into the gas chambers in accordance with Adolf Hitler's orders. In the two years that followed, millions of Jews were killed. Only a fraction survived the painful ordeals at the Nazi German prison camps. However, all of the chaos ended as World War II came to a close: the American and British soldiers had won and Hitler's Third Reich was no more. A certain ethical position would state that the anti-semantic Nazi German culture was neither right nor wrong in its actions. In fact, it is this view of the cultural relativist that assume all actions considered right in a culture to be good for that culture alone. Moreover, the relativist claims that these actions can not be judged according to their ethical correctness because there is no absolute standard by which they could be compared. In the above case, this position would not allow for the American and British soldiers to interfere with the Nazis; the relativist would claim that the Allies were wrong in fighting the Germans due to a cultural disagreement. In truth, it is the relativist position, which has both negative logical and practical consequences, and negligible benefits. The first logical consequence of relativism is that the believer must contradict himself in order to uphold his belief. The view states that all ethics are relative while putting forth the idea that no absolute standard of rightness exists. If this is the case, then what is cultural relativism relative to? From a purely logical point of view, this idea is absurd, for in assuming that something is relative one must first have some absolute by which it is judged. Let the reader consider this example to reinforce the point. A young woman is five feet tall, and her older friend is six feet tall. The younger female considers herself short because she looks at her friend and sees that her friend is taller than she is. It would be illogical to say that the first woman is short if she were the only female in existence; if this were the case then there would not be anyone for her to be relative to in height. However, this logical fallacy is what the relativist assumes by stating that there is no standard of rightness for relativity. Quite simply, the cultural relativist is stating that he is relative to an absolute, which he considers non-existent. Another logical error that the relativist makes lies in his Cultural Differences Argument (Rachels p.454). The premise of this argument is that different cultures have different moral codes (Rachels p.454). The conclusion that the relativist derives is that there is no objective 'truth' in morality, [and therefore] right and wrong are only matters of opinion [that] vary from culture to culture (Rachels p.454). The main logical problem with this argument is that the stated conclusion does not necessarily need to be the case if the premise is given. The premise states what different people believe to be true, and the conclusion jumps to the assumption that this belief must necessarily be the case. Let the reader consider this instance, which closely follows the form of the above given argument. Assume that there is a society that believes that sunning as much as possible in the nude can only benefit a person. Due to scientific study, it has been experimentally shown that overexposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays can cause skin cancer. Being in the American culture, people know this to be true and therefore would disagree with sunning too often. According to the relativist, since the two cultures disagree concerning the practice of sunning there is no objective truth about it. However, this is a faulty conclusion because empirical evidence shows that the first culture would be wrong in its beliefs. In truth, one cannot derive a substantive conclusion about a subject (morally) from the mere fact that people disagree about it (Rachel p.454). Having discussed the logical consequences of relativism, it is necessary to expound upon the effects of its practice. The first of these repercussions is that culture determines what is functionally right and wrong. This means that the individual has