Discuss the view that we cannot justify absolutist moral rules in a multi cultural society.

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Jonna Klockenhof                IB Philosophy Ethics

Discuss the view that ‘we cannot justify absolutist moral rules in a multi cultural society.’

“Follow the good and avoid the evil” can be seen as the perspective of an absolutist: Moral absolutism is the belief that there are universal standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Hence, actions are inherently moral or immoral regardless of the beliefs of the individual, society or culture that engages in the action. Absolutism holds that morals are ‘simply’ inherent in the nature of humanity or in the will of God. Therefore morals are objective intrinsic values, which are unchangeable. However in our present world we come across many different cultural societies. Is it possible to justify universal rules in such a multi cultural world we live in? Or do our moral values differ within our multi cultural society and are therefore relative?

 Since we’re all human beings I do belief that there has to be some universal truth, however I do not think that it is possible to justify all absolutist moral rules in our today’s world. Hence this essay sets out to explore to what extent absolutist moral rules can be justified in a multi cultural society and if an alternative view on moral rules could be justified better.

The philosopher Plato would argue that we can justify absolutist moral rules independent of the multi cultural society. He thought that moral absolutes such as goodness and justice really existed in some way, beyond our normal perceptions of the world. However except his strong belief that such an eternal world exists he does not have any evidential proof to justify his moral values. Therefore faith on its own does not seem to be sufficient enough to justify absolutist moral rules.

According to the philosopher Immanuel Kant our moral actions are just intrinsically right or wrong and therefore absolute. He believes that all humans, independent of their culture, have a moral obligation in life and there is something we ought to do. In terms to act morally right we should have a good will; good will is to do ones duty. One of our duties would be to always tell the truth (never lie), regardless of the circumstances, because the consequences are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Kant believes that all people process reason and so it is possible for everyone to arrive at an understanding of moral truth independent of experience. An advantage would be that therefore an agent’s duty is always the same, hence universal. This offers us a degree of certainty, as we would always arrive at the same conclusion of what to do. Moreover ethical judgment would not be dependent on personal likes or dislikes and therefore be impartial as it is based on logic, thus easy to justify. Worth noting that therefore humans are given dignity and value. Even though this sounds like a possible solution humans do not seem to agree in every moral decision they make in life. Hence an absolute moral theory, such as deontology, could not universally be justified in today’s world.

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“Moral relativism is the declaration that there are no fixed absolutes; or, if there are, they cannot be known by human beings.” This quote from the philosopher Alister McGrath gives a basic understanding of moral relativism, it points out the most important characteristic. Therefore it stands in contrast to the deontological theory. But maybe this view is wrong, maybe moral decisions should always take into account the different circumstances of each situation?

As said before moral relativism is mainly based on the precondition that there are no universal rules. Thus the morality of an action is “relative” to ...

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