Blog 2 _Ethics and Religion; Ethical Relativism

Ethics and Religion; Ethical Relativism

The major objection that I have with this piece of literature pertains to the cultural and moral relativism arguments. The author’s arguments against cultural and moral relativism are unsound because they contain obvious fallacies of false analogy. The author argues that moral standards are not relative despite the presence of cultural diversity because all cultures share the same most “basic moral principles” [15]. The author equates culture diversity to the different varieties of athleticism to illustrate that although diversity in sports and culture exist, they all share basic commonalities.  He says, “Beneath the diversity of rules governing different sports, there is a set of common underlying principles that are so basic to these activities that they are rarely made explicit …. Players on opposing teams are not allowed to hire assassins to dispatch members of opposing teams…pitchers and quarterbacks are not allowed to place explosive devices in their respective projectiles [14]. When I learned how to play sports as a child, I was not told that secret agent/007 conduct was prohibited. These absurd examples are not fundamental principles to any of these sports. I do think that the author could have successfully used the sports analogy if he stated legitimate principles that are common in all sports such as good sportsmanship, for example.  Another false analogy fallacy in this reading involves the historical disagreement of whether the sun orbits the earth or vice-versa.  He says that peoples opposing beliefs at the time were independent of the scientific truth. I don’t think this is an accurate comparison because earth’s orbit was scientifically verified whereas some moral principles will always be up for debate and subject to opinion. (I.e. they cannot be scientifically validated)