Subjectivism/ Cultural Relativism

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Joshua Salter

Philosophical Inquiry

Dr. Jacuzzo

10/29/07

        In Philosophy, there are certain theories that deal with the ethical issues that come up everyday about society, culture, and the individual. These theories deal with the moral aspects of how right or wrong a group or an individual’s action is, based on that cultures standards and what they feel is right or wrong in a particular situation; or based on each persons individual perspective. Two ethical theories that coincide with these ideas and each other are Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism. Subjectivism is the claim that beliefs are relative to each person’s individual perspective, while Cultural Relativism is the claim that all beliefs are relative to a particular culture. While both theories and methodology’s are similar in many ways, Cultural Relativism seems to be the more controversial topic, however, when dealing with ethics.

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        First off, in the world of Philosophy, there are skeptics, and there are relativists. For different reasons, they both reject the possibility of arriving at objectively true answers to philosophical questions. Skeptics believe that there is a possibility for a philosophical question to have one true answer, but claim that it’s impossible for us to know the exact truth about the matter. Relativists on the other hand, believe that there is no one true answer to any philosophical question. They believe that truth claims are always relative to the beliefs of the individual or society; which certainly plays a hand ...

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