...the widely held view of ethical relativism. Benedict writes, “Normality...is culturally defined,” and “the concept of the normal is properly a variant of the concept of [the] good” (Benedict [from“Anthropology and the Abnormal,]” qtd. in Rosenstand, p. 146*). So, in essence, what Benedict is saying is that what any culture or society deems to be good, right, or correct action and morally good, or at least morally appropriate, behavior will in fact be such with respect to that culture or society. This leaves the door open for a wide variety of ways of life, of ethical codes, of individual behavior to be acknowledged not only as acceptable, but also as morally good. By contrast, Christina Hoff Sommers (depicted on the left, above) argues that there are basic human virtues that are not relative to time, place, circumstance or situation. Sommers writes, “It is wrong to mistreat a child, to humiliate someone, to torment an animal. To think only of yourself, to steal, to lie, to break promises, And on the positive side: it is right to be considerate and respectful of others, to be charitable and generous.” (Sommers, qtd. in Rosenstand, p. 480*). You may want to read "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man," an article written by Sommers published in the March/April, 2008 issue of The American, a publication of the American Enterprise Institute. You can link to this article by entering the "Garden of Feminist Ethics" located in the Center for Ethics & Moral Philosophy. Explore the distinctions...
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...Some philosophers believe that the principle of neutralism cannot be widely held because, as is difficult to noticeably split the world into different social groups, it becomes impossible to demonstrate how relative a moral truth can be in a social group. A question can be morally good or bad depending on the facts and arguments to support this. Universal morality does not provide a definitive view of bad or good. Questions arise whether individuals should abide with some distinctive moral values. The relativism helps individuals to decide on the right way to follow and define the importance and implication of universal morality. Certain values promote the ideas of things that are socially viewed as bad. For instance, acts of killing and raping should be punishable as a way of mitigating such actions. On the other hand, it cannot be argued that universal morality promotes such actions or...
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...ANT 101 Final Exam Answers Buy Now From Below: http://www.homeworkarena.com/ant-101-final-timetest Question 1. Question : Your Final Research Paper will consist of two parts, which are Question 2. Question : Which of the following is an example of an etic statement about Americans? Question 3. Question : For your Final Research Paper, you will use an article by Miner entitled Body Ritual among the Nacirema. The following is a quotation from this article, “The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber” (Miner, 1956, p.504). Question 4. Question : According to your textbook, “Contrary to a popular misconception in the West, homosexuality is not universally stigmatized. Based on the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of 186 societies, Crapo (1995) found that only 31% of people stigmatized homosexual behavior, while the remainder either considered homosexual experimentation to be a normal developmental phase of preadult life (38%), accepted...
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...Why Corporations Should Set Strict Moral Standards More often than not, there are stories about the immorality of corporations and their decisions that impact not only their employees but the people in surrounding communities and the environment. Most corporations have more than one person in charge of making moral decisions. These selected few should set strict moral and ethical standards when conducting business for the benefit of the company, their employees and the rest of the world. In philosophy, there are several subsections that teach the various kinds of moral and ethics. Some of these subsections can be applied to the morality of a corporation while others, when applied, can cause controversy and harm. The following paper will discuss why corporations should be morally just and the benefits that can be derived from this. It will also discuss three different types of philosophical morals and ethics processes that may or may not compliment the benefits. A corporation with good morals have more important priorities that one that does not. One of the most important reasons why a corporation should be moral is because of the people, i.e. the people that work for the corporation, the people that want and use their services or products and the people that built the corporation. Employees might not always see the boss or the CEO every day at work but they should know and experience that their well-being is important to the CEO. Good morals for the employees mean that they...
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...explain moral principles. It is concerned with the question of right or wrong in human behavior. It explains how men ought to behave and why it is wrong or right to behave in a certain way. Ethics weighs human actions or inactions on a moral scale to determine whether the action is morally good or morally bad. Thomas Hobbes on ethics explained it as the science of “virtue and vice.”1 Morality and ethics cannot be divorced. Morality is the basis of ethics, the latter is the explicit reflection on, and the systematic study of the former (Joseph Omoregbe 1993 p.3)2. How then do we decide what is morally right? Is it based on universal laws or divine instructions? Are laws truly universal? If they are not, how then can the rightness or wrongness of culturally divergent societies be determined? Philosophers agree and disagree in varied proportions on answers to these questions. It is normal if you disagree too. For the purpose of this paper, an attempt will be made to look into the concept of ethical relativism, its importance and areas of deviation from ethical absolutism. History of Ethical Relativism Though moral relativism did not become a prominent topic in philosophy or elsewhere until the twentieth century, it has ancient origins. In the classical Greek world, both the historian Herodotus and the sophist Protagoras appeared to endorse some form of relativism. The early Sophist Greek philosopher Protagoras provides an early philosophical precursor to modern Moral Relativism...
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...Cultural Relativism and Problems Associated with This Approach Cultural anthropology is the study of cultural variation among people. An essential concept that professional anthropologists apply in their fieldworks is - cultural relativism - an approach to study of the nature and role of values in a culture without judgment and comparison to their own. According to the Study Guide, Smillie and Kenny state that major contribution to the study of the concept of cultural relativism can be attributed to Boas and his students, who challenged a wide-spread idea that societies are staged along a line from the most undeveloped to most “civilized.” Rather, they suggested that each individual culture should be understood in terms of its unique beliefs and ideals. That is, in order to observe and understand how people live and operate in a particular culture, it is important to consider the way other view the world within the framework of their culture. A great example of this idea is depicted by Laura Bohannan in her work “Shakespeare in the bush.” With an argument in mind, that human nature is more or less universal, she travels to Africa and discusses a famous Shakespeare’s tragic play with native people of a tribe Tiv, expecting only slight variations in its interpretation accounted for discrepancies in culture. To her surprise, Bohannan finds out that customs, beliefs, translations and culture have an enormous role in the perception and interpretation of Shakespeare’s play and that...
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...Ethical Relativism Vs. Utilitarianism Last time we saw Jim, he was returning from a day hike through the rainforest in South America. Unfortunately, he was captured by government troops along with rebel fighters who were being detained for execution. Fortunate enough for him, the government commander put Jim in a life changing situation, kill the rebel leader himself and he along with the remaining rebels get let go. If he failed to do so, the commander and his troops will execute all the rebels, sack their village for anything of value, and leave Jim stranded in the rainforest with no supplies, resulting in almost certain death. Through analyzing the theory of ethical relativism, we were able to decide that Jim should in fact kill the rebel leader, but what if we analyze another ethical theory? Will we come up with the same answer as we did before? Or is it possible that through the research of different theories and ideas we can come up with a completely different response to Jim’s unusual predicament? Using a new theory, utilitarianism, or, the idea that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority, we can further analyze why Jim should still kill the rebel leader and why it is a better answer than if we were to use relativism. This paper will describe the ethical theory of utilitarianism in great detail, it will than be applied to Jim’s situation just like before, challenge opposing viewpoints of utilitarianism, refresh ourselves on why we originally...
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...Shon Fortner Moral Minima SOC 120 Introduction to Ethics & Social Responsibility Instructor Alicia Brown July, 01, 2013 Some Moral Minima The purpose of this essay is to inform you of my beliefs about an author named Lenn Goodman, who wrote a journal, called In “Some Moral Minima. This essay will explain his remarks about when he states and argues that there are certain things that are simply wrong. And I will explain my reason for if I agree with him or not. I will also share with you the challenges of the explore of Goodman presents to relativism, and which will determine whether I think there are such universal moral requirements. When reading Lenn Goodman journal I have to strongly (agree/disagree?) with him when he argues about that there are certain things that are simply wrong. There are so many things that goes on in this world that are just simply wrong like for example, raping, killing, discrimination, abuse, the justice system and so on. Goodman also discusses that every person whether they are man, woman, or child has the right to live and to be free from any and all inhumane treatments. In my opinion it's just wrong to act upon certain crimes and then also if you are accused of the crime you may or may not get the proper conviction time that should be granted to you. These issues are not just going to simply go away, we are born into sin so the wrongful things that we have done are in us, you simply don’t have to make...
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...fatal in the sense of reprisals accustomed to it. In any case, international criminal activities are largely based geopolitical factors rather than the genuine purpose of ending human to human barbarism. This paper will attempt to prove that ‘global community’ commitment to end genocide events is categorically challenged by lack of sufficient devotion to ‘the pledge’ to eradicate the vice. The paper is structured into three main parts and one secondary part. The background will attempt to examine the scholarly effort attempting to relate the basis of global community pledge and the general act of genocide. A further sub category of this part will introduce the role played by United Nations in minimizing genocide. The second section will be substantial in analyzing past genocide events; courtesy of three relevant examples, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Rwanda. In this section, the document will examine the various roles played by United Nations in fueling the genocide. The third section will examine 21 century events, and how United Nations has chosen a back player in preventing the occurrences of these genocides. The secondary section will attempt to examine the role played by International Criminal Court and how it has been challenged in limiting genocide events. Background Research has attempted relate the end of the holocaust and the emergence of non-allied political movements and arms race to contemporary genocide. Besides, a close consideration of this discussion is the commencement...
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...Ethics & Social Responsibility Ashley Arends September 10, 2012 Stalemate Scientific research has come a long way since the first use of human embryos to treat and prevent diseases. The polio vaccine was invented in the 1950’s from the use of human fetal kidney cells, fetuses in uteri were used to develop techniques like amniocenteses and improving knowledge about congenital heart disease in the 1970’s, and in the 1980’s the transplantation of fetal tissue into adults to help with serious conditions like, diabetes or Parkinson’s (Gold, 2004). While there has always been concern and controversy over the use of human embryonic cells, today the debate is ethical. This ethical debate lies within the destruction of human embryos in order to use them for medical research. This paper will talk about how two different theories; utilitarianism and relativism view this ethical issue and the problem it presents, as well as my personal views on use of embryonic stem cell research. The theory of utilitarianism determines what is best by looking at the results of an act. According to Mosser (2010, section 1.7), “utilitarianism argues that, given a set of choices, the act we should choose is that which produces the best results for the greatest number affected by that choice.” When looking at the use of embryonic stem cells for research, utilitarianism looks at the end result. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to save lives by curing diseases and through...
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...CHAPTER 3 – Social Responsibility and Ethics in Strategic Management 6/8/11 3.1 Social Responsibilities of Strategic Decision Makers: 1. The concept of social responsibility proposes that a private corporation has responsibilities to society that extend beyond making a profit. A. As shown in Figure 3-1, Archie Carroll proposes that the managers of business organizations have four responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary. 1. Economic responsibilities of a business organization’s management are to produce goods and services of value to society so that the firm may repay its creditors and shareholders. 2. Legal responsibilities are defined by governments in laws that management is expected to obey. (ie: U.S. business firms are required to hire and promote people based on their credentials rather than to discriminate on non-job-related characteristics such as race, gender, or religion). 3. Ethical responsibilities of an organization’s management are to follow the generally held beliefs about behavior in a society. (society generally expects firms to work with the employees and the community in planning for layoffs, even though no law may require this; because the affected people can get upset if an organization’s management fails to act according to generally prevailing ethical values). 4. Discretionary responsibilities are the purely voluntary...
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...as Rothschild and Miethe (1999) note, “some see whistleblowers as traitorous violators of organizational loyalty norms; other see whistleblowers as heroic defenders of values considered more important than company loyalty”. In addition, whistleblowing is a “new form of worker resistance” relevant to the “unending battle between labor and management to control the workplace” (Rothschild, et.al, 1999). But with the right motives in place, whistleblowing is good for an organization or agency because it protects that organization and agency from fraud, misconduct, and in most cases, failure. And, when affective communication is in place, the organization’s goals are kept in clear focus which can only be beneficial as an end result. This paper will focus on what ethical theories and perspectives the whistleblower chooses to use in order to validate their motives when reporting the misconduct. Whistleblowers are often facing a dilemma in terms of acting ethically which is why they are motivated by one of the three ethical theories: utilitarian, deontology and...
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...incidents ranging from ethnic slurs to hate crimes to violence carried out in the name of ideology. Such incidents of violence tend to be easily seen as they fall within the public domain. Less visible, however, but often more devastating, is the domestic violence that occurs within the family and often against women. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) (2001) notes in a summary of research done on four continents that as many as 20 to 50 percent of all women in the studies reported experiencing partner violence. But what are the links among domestic violence, health care profession, nurses, and ethics? In moral philosophy, there is a long tradition of debate on whether true moral dilemmas can exist, some arguing that it will always be possible to decide which obligation should prevail. On this concept regardless of the abstract possibility of an ideal resolution and the pragmatic reality that decisions are made and people have to live with them. An ethical dilemma presents a choice that must be made between two mutually exclusive courses of action, each of which is perceived to rest on a moral obligation that carries significant weight for the actor confronting the dilemma. According to Draucker (2002} addresses intimate partner abuse as repeatable and increasing patterns of violence against women by men in their attempts to gain power. She notes that because this abuse occurs in a continuing relationship, or in a newly severed one, the perpetrator may have long-term access...
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...Free from Error Abstract The type of Moral Error theory I shall defend in the following essay is the kind proposed by J. L. Mackie and later by Richard Joyce. Mackie first advances “error theory” by stating that when most people speak of their moral judgements they are implicitly claiming “ to be pointing to something objectively prescriptive,” but “these claims are false” (1977, p.35). In the first section of this essay i shall introduce and clarify the constituent of error theory I aim to defend. In the next section I consider and rebut stephen finlays recent attack on moral error theory. Finlay takes aim at Mackies conceptual claim that many moral judgements entail categorical reasons, but I find his shots misguided. Consequently I shall consider finlays most powerful rejoinders with the view of again refuting them and arriving at the conclusion that Mackies conceptual and ontological claims hold and moral error theory stands. Mackie endorses a second order moral theory regarding the essence of moral valuing and the character of moral values. Mackie believes that many of the moral judgements we make contain a catergorical imperative element and his thesis that “ there are no objective values” (1977, pg 58) is an explicit rebuttal denying that “ any such categorically imperative element is objectively valid” (1977, pg 69).[1] The objective values that Mackie wishes to refute would be action-guiding unconditionally, not contingently upon any particular agents desired...
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... New York, New York, USA Abstract Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the ethical dilemmas that emerge when offering microfinance services in BOP markets. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing the ethical lenses of deontology, teleology, virtue ethics and moral relativism, the paper builds on prior research on ethical issues in BOP markets and the ethics of microfinance to highlight the specific stakeholder impacts facing MFIs. Relevant literature and examples from practice are utilized to illustrate the different ethical perspectives. Findings – In general, many of the key dilemmas represent themselves in the extreme poverty segment of the BOP where commercial business models have the least traction. Research limitations/implications – Propositions are developed for the corrective actions in the paper which might allow future research to uncover differences in intervention success in different BOP markets. Practical implications – The discussion of potential interventions for the various stakeholders may ameliorate criticisms of MFIs, suggest opportunities for cross-sectoral partnerships and improve outreach to the poorest of the poor. Social implications – For each issue addressed, this paper looks at the types of corrections that are made or called for through markets, government actions and civil society to respond to the negative impacts uncovered through our analysis. Originality/value – The analysis in this paper contributes to the theoretical ethical literature with...
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