If there are deep differences in the moral standards of different Essay

If there are deep differences in the moral standards of different cultures, what implications would this have for the nature of morality - Essay Example In this light, all persons are entitled to decide what is right for them. Thus, an act becomes true for one person if he or she believes it to be so. Moral relativism is a widely held position in a post-modern world, especially in places where people use it to excuse or allow certain actions. Furthermore, moral relativism comes in several forms: utilitarianism, evolutionism, existentialism, ‘emotivism’, and ‘situationism’. All of these variations of moral relativism share a single unifying theme, as highlighted in Moral Relativism – Neutral Thinking?, that rightness or wrongness is a product of human preference, which highly depends on cultural and historical circumstances. According to another online article entitled Book Review: Morality Matters, there are four essential consequences of moral relativism to human societies: cross-cultural criticism, intra-cultural criticism, intra-cultural conflict, and moral degradation. Firstly, cross-cultural conflict points at the difficulty of judging morally objectionable acts of one culture, such as murder and terrorism. Although such acts are inherently and naturally abhorred by human nature, these acts are deemed to be beyond the evaluation of another culture. Secondly, intra-cultural criticism underscores the problem in consulting one’s ethical standards to the moral codes of society since, more often than not, these codes are subject to the ruler’s subjective viewpoints which may be logically and morally erroneous. Thirdly, intra-cultural conflict states the impossibility of solving disagreements within a culture since all beliefs are morally equal. Thus, choosing one belief over another is difficult for there is no moral standard. Lastly, moral degradation claims that the perfection of moral standards is hardly attainable since it is the cultural circumstance and not the conceptual quality of the moral code that