Just wondering if anyone has taken an ethics class. Im having trouble understanding ethical relativism and how its different from ethical objectivism? Ethical absolutism?

 

If you had a class like this or for some reason are an ethics buff mind helping me out understanding this whole concept. Any comments would be helpful..

 

Thanks

I took philosophy, which at my college was lumped with ethics and civics. Not in the same class, but in a collection. Like, you had to take all 3 to get any real uses out of them.

 

In philosophy, moral relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths but instead exist relative to social, cultural, historical or personal references, and that no single standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory.

 

Moral objectivism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion.

 

Models of objective morality may be atheistic, monotheistic (in the case of the Abrahamic religions), or pantheistic (in the case of Hinduism). The moral codes may stem from reason, from the divine, or from a combination of the two. These various systems differ as to the nature of the objective morality, but agree on its existence. It is this diversity between codes of objective morality, and the seemingly endless debates between people over irreconcilably different claims to objective morality that lead many to reject the concept entirely, in favor of subjective morality.

 

In their effort to overcome these difficulties, advocates of objective morality have proposed a number of means to bridge the gap between the objective and subjective.

 

 

Look here and here.

 

Hope that helps, I turned in my philosophy text book already so had to use something else.

^^

 

Thanks for taking the time and posting some useful stuff man, aprreciate it!

Heh.

 

Is this an intro course? Man, I hope you guys read some Hobbes, because getting into the Relativism/Objectivism debate before a classic like that, sucks.

 

Oh, and just wait until you get into all the different versions of utilitarianism. Not sure I know some of the subtle nuances of all of those...

Heh.

 

Is this an intro course? Man, I hope you guys read some Hobbes, because getting into the Relativism/Objectivism debate before a classic like that, sucks.

 

Oh, and just wait until you get into all the different versions of utilitarianism. Not sure I know some of the subtle nuances of all of those...

 

 

Yes its an Intro and yes the utilitarianism has already long started! :lol

Heh.

 

Is this an intro course? Man, I hope you guys read some Hobbes, because getting into the Relativism/Objectivism debate before a classic like that, sucks.

 

Oh, and just wait until you get into all the different versions of utilitarianism. Not sure I know some of the subtle nuances of all of those...

 

 

Yes its an Intro and yes the utilitarianism has already long started! :lol

 

If you don't mind my asking, who all have you read?

^^

 

Well she began talking J. Bethham, J.S. Miller, Kant, and some others... she focused on those though

^^

 

Thanks for taking the time and posting some useful stuff man, aprreciate it!

 

 

No problem. I wrote a paper along these lines once.

 

It dealt with what is percieved as good and evil, and how different people put good and evil into context. And the balance that exists between the two. Theres kind of like an elemental balance, good cannot exist without good or evil, an absolute balance is always there and always necessary.

 

I think that ties right in with this subject.

 

Philosophy and all related classes are pretty awesome. I enjoyed them.

Yea im actually getting prepared for a paper that I soon have to write! Some of these topics really cofuse the sh*t out of me!

^^

 

Well she began talking J. Bethham, J.S. Miller, Kant, and some others... she focused on those though

 

 

Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill, Immanuel Kant and no Hobbes.

 

Boo.

 

My best ethics class the guy was a Hobbesian, so I'm biased. Plus, I don't know how you do an intro to ethics course and NOT read, at least, some of Plato's the Republic or the Euthyphro. But that's me.

 

Over the next three days I got an eight page democratic peace theory paper where I criticize Kant, 8-10 on the four definitions of Justice in the early part of the Republic and 8-10 on some unknown Philosophy of Science topic. Graduation can't get here soon enough.

As for good vs evil and the necessary balance(if you want to use this)...

 

They cannot exist without eachother, because total dominance by one and total evaporation of the other give humans nothing to fight for, nothing to live for.

 

Good cannot truly triumph because that would lead to a utopian society which can never truly last.

 

Evil can never truly triumph because there would always be someone willing to fight the oppression, to make things better.

 

There always has to be something for human beings to stand up for, to fight for. It's the human spirit.

 

It is also a complex theory because different religions, ethnicities, every different fragment of society has ideals which differ. So truly telling what is good and what is evil can never be accomplished. It's the reason that a coexistence must always be present.

 

Think about Robin Hood, he stole, which is widley considered an evil act, yet did it to benefit the poor, as a charity, something that is universially considered a good and noble act.

Ethics was a fun course, much more fun than Intro into Philosophy.

 

 

Best part of Ethics was skipping over it and taking the upper division courses and putting that off until my final year of college mostly cause I was just a bit lazy.

 

 

Its always nice to get a good bit of insight into Ethical thinking and writings.

Hobbs is coming BUckeye.. :lol

 

Working on paper now, due tomorrow :crying

i took a media law & ethics class 2 years ago, i loved the law part but the ethics part was boring as hell. took a philosophy course the year before, that was horrible.