But for every country there is a different set of rules, a variation in social standard and conflicting religious beliefs. Moral relativists believe that there is no standard right or wrong which is universal. They depend on the culture in which we live in. It is accepted that different individuals can make their own choices about morals as long as they obey the laws of the land. According to them societies can make their own choices and voice without feeling immoral in some cases they believe that we should follow other cultures customs and beliefs when we find ourselves in a different country. For example the death penalty is allowed in America but is illegal in England. They would believe that we should not get involved in others countries affairs as we have no right to force our opinions on other cultures. Therefore a moral relativist would be against the war on Iraq.
J.L. Mackie says that moral beliefs don’t shape our society, society shapes our moral beliefs. For example the government says that murder is wrong so people don't murder. He also claims that if we believe morality has some kind of objective then it is difficult to know what form this absolute form must take. Relativists believe that you cannot say that one system is right or is better than the other. However sometimes society has to make rules that go one way or the other. Breaking these rules constitutes breaking a social contract.
However there are many criticisms of moral relativism. One is that however extreme a action is there will always be some way to justify that it is right. This type of thinking would lead to mayhem. It also never actually condemns anything no matter how evil the situation may be. Also as they are accepting of all cultures whatever there views are they would not be able to condemn the people responsible for 9/11. Another criticism is that it is constantly contradicting itself. For example people should not kill but in this case I suppose it would be ok to do it. They also run into problems when trying to tolerate an intolerating system for example, dictators that deny people with the most basic human rights. In some cases it also seems to be impractical, for example if your brother in the other side of the world thinks beating his wife is ok should we happily tolerate him?
Part two
Situation ethics is based in agape, which concentrates on what would be the most loving thing to do in a situation. It encourages people behave like adults and use their own common sense when making moral decisions.
The advantages of situation ethics are that it is easy to understand you follow a single principle. It also gives people responsibility for their own decision making by not treating people like adolescents. By doing this it creates freedom of choice and people being able to judge a situation on what they believe in. It enables emotional and rational response to determine what is right in any given situation. People would no longer have to follow conventional moral rule, if it goes against your deepest sense of what love requires. Also it is based on love that, rationally as well as emotionally is a key feature of all moral situations. For Christians it provides a way to make Christian decisions not mentioned in the bible e.g. fox hunting.
But on the other hand there are also some significant disadvantages to situation ethics. The simple rule of what would be the most loving thing to do can be broken easily with a lack of will power. Not everyone may have the strength in character or may just not be bothered to start asking, “where is the love ” for every situation they may face. Also you can’t trust all human beings with that amount of power for example people would be able to justify killing someone because they were born with a slight learning disability. Two people using situation ethics both claim to be acting out of love and come to different conclusions. It would be impossible to judge which one was right Roman Catholics would feel it is wrong to appeal to individual circumstances to justify decisions which go against the decisions of the church.
