January 29, 2012
Ethical theories can be thought of as broad philosophies attempting to classify good and bad behaviors in the human drama. Ethical theories such as subjectivism, relativism, egoism, utilitarianism, and deontological philosophies all serve as frameworks for observing behavior and experience. Making decisions calls for choosing which ethical theories the decision is made with. In my life, I have seen the ramifications of ethical relativism and the affects this ethical theory has had on the health of my friends, family and me. (http://www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/philosophy/heikes/202/IntroEthicalTheory.pdf)
Ethical relativism affected my upbringing as a kid. My grandparents picked up the consumer psychology of mass marketing and abided by the messages it taught them. They passed these ideas along to my parents who in turn raised me and my siblings in the same manner. Thus, ethical relativism affected my upbringing as a kid.
Consumerism has played a large role in my life, from television to the cereal box. There was a consumer paradise in the days of my youth as we would stroll along the shopping malls, department stores, and fast food chains. We ate junk food and went to the hotel swimming pool for holidays. Everything was okay because my parents never said it wasn’t. Society said it was okay too. Junk food, the swimming pool, all okay, nothing to worry about. Everything was fine back then when I was a kid, as long as the Butterfingers and Little Debbie’s were around.
As I got a little bit older my subjective and malleable little brain had new ideas: the chlorine in the swimming pool became noticeable, and that junk food wasn’t satisfying the same desire anymore. It wasn’t as good as it used to be. I’ve physically felt the repercussions from subscribing to the consumer lifestyle can have on a person. Cavities can wreak havoc on ones oral health when they are not cared for properly, resulting in a root canal, fillings, and hours upon hours in a chair with a drill. I now see ethical relativism may have been right there helping to inform new ideas of the right and wrong of junk food, chlorine, or any other behavior I had not thought about critically. Maybe it’s not ok to eat a whole bag of Doritos and chug a 2 liter of Mountain Dew every other day. This experience applies to the health of my family and friends as well. My Mother and father both have hypertension, which is generally associated to diet.
Because right and wrong are determined by ethical relativism, what a person’s society believes becomes a major factor in that person’s ethical decision making process. Society often follows blindly the advice of doctors, scientists, business people, politicians and other people in positions of authority. If society is to let them lead the way in determining what is right, their behavior is directly affected by a third party. They are not making decisions for themselves and are rather being manipulated by society’s demands, such as societies demand to vaccinate most all children. Even though most people in the United States are not ethical relativists according to Rosemarie Tong, it seems to me that ethical relativism is a part of many of the other aspects in our lives, like consumerism and health care. Just as Tong states in the opening of chapter two, “ethical theories are plural rather that singular in number is the feeling that, when all said and done, ethics is a very relative or highly subjective practice in all realms of human activity” (Tong, 2007).
I think that right and wrong are relative, subjective, and also universal to varying degrees. Everyone has their own opinions and feelings about ethical decisions, and there are many ethical theories that interplay amongst those opinions and feelings. Depending on the person and a whole host of other factors ethical decisions are generally made using some degree or variation of ethical relativism. Tong says “ethics is not a science; it is an art that requires every ounce of moral imagination, emotion, and thought we can muster.” Regardless of whether ethics is an art or science, to me it is like everything else, relative.
Tong, R. (2007). New perspectives in healthcare ethics, An interdisciplinary and crosscultural approach. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall.
University of Alabama, Huntsville (Online January 29, 2012) http://www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/philosophy/heikes/202/IntroEthicalTheory.pdf