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Pitfalls Of Relativism

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Pitfalls of Relativism

The year was 1943. Hundreds of Jewish people were being

marched into the gas chambers in accordance with Adolf Hitler's

orders. In the two years that followed, millions of Jews were killed

and only a fraction survived the painful ordeals at the Nazi German

prison camps. However, all of the chaos ended as World War II came to

a close: the American and British soldiers had won and Hitler's Third

Reich was no more. A certain ethical position would state that the

anti-sematic Nazi German culture was neither right nor wrong in its

actions. In fact, it is this view of the cultural relativist that

assumes all actions considered right in a culture to be good for that

culture alone. Moreover, the relativist claims that these actions

cannot be judged according to their ethical correctness because there

is no absolute ezdard by which they could be compared. In the above

case, this position would not allow for the American and British

soldiers to interfere with the Nazis; the relativist would claim that

the Allies were wrong in fighting the Germans due to a cultural

disagreement. In truth, it is the relativist position which has both

negative logical and practical consequences, and negligible benefits.

The first logical consequence of relativism is that the

believer must contradict himself in order to uphold his belief. The

view states that all ethics are relative while putting forth the idea

that no...

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Submitted by: 123student
Date Submitted: 08-27-1998
Category: Social Issues
Words: 2370
Pages: 9.48