I found the first podcast to be very concise and understandable. The main point that I thought was the most thought-provoking was the different impact that cultural relativism has on every single person in the world. Going off of the circumcision debate, I have never looked at that argument from the other side of the lens, meaning that those women who do choose to get circumcised in fact do not see the practice as genital mutilation. My main question about cultural relativism is whether or not people use this tactic to their advantage to justify actions? Specifically, do people use cultural relativism as a crutch to get away with doing or saying whatever they want?
The reading was also very eye-opening to me as I learned more about the correlation between morality and the truth. I made connections to 2020 in several ways, but the two main connections were the BLM movement and COVID-19. The BLM movement was heavily criticized and politicized when in reality, people failed to acknowledge the lack of morality in regards to police brutality. People fail to admit that whether or not a person did something illegal or not, it is morally incorrect to use the power of being a police officer to kill the people you are sworn to protect and serve. Mask wearing is another thing. Many people still feel that wearing masks is pointless and that COVID-19 is not as bad as it seems to be. The fact of the matter is it is morally correct to wear a mask because it protects both yourself and others. Regardless of a person’s view on the pandemic, wearing a mask is morally correct in this detrimental time. Finally, I drew connections to various arguments that we have studied over the course of this semester but this time was more critical of the way in which we evaluated premises and beliefs. It is extremely difficult to put personal beliefs to the side in order to successfully diagram and understand an argument.
I really appreciate the examples you came up with related to our readings, I totally agree with what you have said. To answer the question you included, I think people definitely use cultural relativism to justify their actions. How could they not? Cultural relativism helps define what a person believes to be right or wrong and thus how to act. Obviously though, if we allow for one person to always justify their actions based on their own beliefs that would be relativism and thus anarchy. But it would be interesting to know, especially in the context of female circumcision, how a justice system weighs between one person’s cultural relativism and normative ethics the larger society holds.
I like your blog post as it connects what the podcast talks about to real life occurrences. This is important as there are many events in present day that make the truth and morality conflicting. Events such as BLM and the Coronavirus are important to analyze as they are severe events in history that have impacted many people. I like how you related these events to cultural relativism and brought it full circle to the evaluation of arguments. Good Job!
I think the point you made about people using “cultural relativism as a crutch” was awesome. I agree that cultural relativism has its place in our world. Otherwise our we would lack the diversity of culture necessary for our society to be successful. However, its so interesting to think about when it may be taken too far, or also when it can be used as reason to justify potentially questionable actions. The BLM and covid topics were great ways to connect this to our world today!
I think your discussion around cultural relativism is an interesting one to raise. On one hand, we want to respect other individuals cultures and allow them to live accordingly; however, there could be a danger of people justifying their actions and claim that it is a part of their culture. in looking at this dilemma, I think it is important to try and view the culture a a whole, and from the perspective of the individuals who are a part of it. For example, the Quran has been utilized by some as a reason to commit acts of violence, citing the Quran, or their culture, as supporting their actions; however, almost all Muslims disagree with this interpretation, and do not claim this violence as part of their culture. Thus, I think via is important to go back to the everyday individuals within the culture, and see if the act in question is acceptable to their cultural expectations, and evaluate from there.
I think your connection to the BLM movement as well and the COVID pandemic was really strong. It seems as if people are picking and choosing what morals to follow in regards to this – acting in self interest rather than the whole. While technically egoism is a form of basing whether or not you should do an act, how can people deny that some personal beliefs and actions hurt a lot of people? If you bring morality into the argument, you have to look at both sides, not just the one that benefits your narrative.