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Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist.
Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. [1]
The book argues for both psychological relativism (the verifiable observation that norms differ between cultures) and ethical relativism, and attempts to base ethics on the biological basis for emotions. Westermarck argues for ethical relativism by emphasizing that there is no empirical basis for objective standards in ethical theory. [2]
Cultural relativism involves specific epistemological and methodological claims. Whether or not these claims necessitate a specific ethical stance is a matter of debate. Cultural relativism became popularized after World War II in reaction to historical events such as "Nazism, and to colonialism, ethnocentrism and racism more generally." [7]
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that examines right and wrong moral behavior, moral concepts (such as justice, virtue, duty) and moral language. Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".
As such, it is a form of moral relativism in which the truth of moral claims is relative to the attitudes of individuals [9] (as opposed to, for instance, communities). Consider the case this way — to a person imagining what it's like to be a cat, catching and eating mice is perfectly natural and morally sound.
The history of ethics studies how moral philosophy has developed and evolved in the course of history. [193] It has its origin in ancient civilizations. In ancient Egypt, the concept of Maat was used as an ethical principle to guide behavior and maintain order by emphasizing the importance of truth, balance, and harmony.
Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is, features independent of subjective opinion), some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately.