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Showing posts with the label Universality (philosophy)

Relativism is corrupt

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Image via Wikipedia This is essentially asking if there is a transcendent ethical standard that exists beyond the individual and if so, can we all know it. Our culture is deeply divided over such a question, though we never really ask it out loud, for to do so would expose our deep relativism and the folly of such thinking. Relativism supposes that there is no such thing as absolute truth and therefore no such thing as an absolute moral code .  Theoretically, every individual’s ethical standards are valid and unassailable as long as they remain personal. From the outside, we view each other’s moral standards as “ preferences ” for they do not apply beyond the self, nor can they. Now to the astute, the above description is immediately recognized as logically false for it expresses within itself an absolute ethical code . That is, it declares that it is “absolutely wrong” for you to impose your ethical standard on anyone outside of your own preferential boundary.