Ethical Relativism

Ethical relativism has always been a controversial issue in the history of philosophy to this day. It is a moral theory according to which there is no universal way to know what’s good and what’s not, which are from the perspective of moral relativism have different moral systems equal, ie, equal or no value.

Ethical values are a set of beliefs and guidelines that guide human behavior and allow them to distinguish between good and evil.

Ethical in society play high importance in determining the nature of a society or a culture. Its define who we are and what we believe, come from who we really are inside. Ethics are more than just human nature, even this becomes evident in the animal world. Losing the sense of moral obligation is losing consciousness of oneself, losing the sense of being human as well as the value of life. Ethical consciousness depends on the conditions of physical activities, the benefits necessary to the level of satisfying people’s daily needs. Moral values are understood as values that make a person good according to his nature as a person.

Ethical Relativism is the human person is intrinsically oriented towards moral ideals, inclinations, goodness, connaturality with the good traditional, ethical and spiritual values of each individual and each culture they belong to are relative. It’s mean the absolute truth does not exist. In other words, truth is relative. at all times and in all places, morals evolve and change with social norms over a period of time.. Thus, the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘ethical’ or ‘immoral’, ‘cultural’ or ‘non-cultural’ are only relative, a value can be ‘true’ to the background. this culture, but it may be ‘wrong’ with another culture.

For example: abortion as a moral good? People may force a mother to perform an abortion that she does not want to do, maybe they cannot make her want to do it unless she chooses to do so herself. As for abortion alone, there are many witnesses that support or oppose, depending on how to justify. For example, when a mother is planning to have an abortion for fear of affecting her reputation and future career and when the answer is negative, pregnancy is immoral. The above example shows that if the mother wanted to have an abortion, she considered the child in the womb as a means to help her avoid affecting her reputation and career. If you put yourself in the shoes of the unborn child, does the mother want to have others treat her the same way?

However, if the problem of abortion is not merely related to the life of the fetus, but also to the life of the mother. when the women was diagnosed with uterine cancer so much that if it were not removed, she might die before the baby is born. In order to save the life of the mother, one has to sacrifice the life of the fetus; and this cannot be ‘a universal rule for everyone’ because not all rational mothers will accept it. These above problem has been shown in the face of conflict between fundamental goodies, namely the life of the fetus as well as of the mother.

Ethical relativism reminds us that we live in a society of people who have different points of view and different ways of judging behavior.