It is undeniable that every individual has a criteria of what they would consider right or wrong. In Dr. Bezio’s podcast, normative and relative ethics seem to provide frameworks of philosophy that would best help guide someone in determining what is right and what is wrong. From a normative perspective, there is a right and wrong that must be upheld and respected. A relativist believes that you should do as much as you are capable of getting away with.  Dr. Bezio mentioned our society runs with a hybrid version of both schools, and I found that this idea in itself creates a very unique moral problem. How is it possible that we function in a society in which we both allow people to do as they please in some areas of life, and have complete control over actions in others? It seems as though we, as a society, have collectively participated in the normalization of some forms of morality and not others. I believe it can be argued further that even the morality our society has agreed on today will one day be seen as corrupt.

Take, for example, the morality of slavery. Today, the enslavement of people is viewed as morally corrupt (unless you are a sociopathic monster) right? We, as a society, believe that forcing someone to do labor against their will without any form of compensation is a form of enslavement. We even go so far as to tear down the statues of people that once owned enslaved people ( I completely agree with this notion, don’t get me wrong). Have you gone to Wendy’s recently? What about Walmart or McDonalds? Does your phone run on Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T? If you answered yes to any of these, you (including myself) are unknowingly supporting companies that use uncompensated and forced labor of inmates; AKA modern-day slavery. How does our normative ethicality compensate for that?

I feel as this “grey area” of ethics (seems like an oxymoron in itself) is something I find a great deal of trouble with, especially when it comes to the time period we exist in. As issues of racial and social justice are being discussed, the need for a normative ethicality increases. We, at some point, are going to have to agree on concrete and justifiable definitions of what we consider just and unjust. There are currently people suffering from racial and/or discriminatory violence because we just can’t seem to agree where the “line” of ethicality is. People, specifically marginalized groups, are falling victim to the unresolved debate of what is right and what is wrong. Dr. Bezio touched on this idea on the micro scale of our current political system. Because both parties continuously chose to play into an ethical gridlock, there are millions of Americans at risk of destitution. This has kind of turned into a bit of a ramble but I would almost say that arguing which ethicality is the most important seems, in itself, unethical in a normative sense, when there are people currently suffering.