People Have Different Ethical Opinions

How does diversity of opinions arise?

- Some place great emphasis on religious tenets and sacred books-
- Consult their conscience,
- Think the consequence of their actions,
- Follows one’s duties or authorities like parents,
- Follow their virtues or culture
-
Effects of culture to people
- Culture is learned the moment person is immersed into it and becomes
inseparable to it
- Culture is passed throughout generation through socialization or
enculturation
- Culture influences seeing realities and way of understanding things
- Peoples different culture and behavior affects the moral code
- Culture influences morality, and morality influences culture so that’s
why they always clash

Culture raises question such as

- What are good and bad?
- What is proper and improper?
- What culture is better?
- What behavior is correct?

The Culture of ‘Social Media’

- Social media seep into the person’s life and community
- The world is very much influenced by ‘Internet culture’
- Our personal and cultural moral principles in life are being challenged
or tested by this fast global change.
 Objectivist
- Objectivism is a belief system that accepts the existence of an eternal and
permanent law which is obligatory for all to follow in any situation
Subjectivist
- Believes that laws are not permanent and eternal.

British poet, Samuel Butler (1835 -1902)

- morality is the way of life in one country and the present sentiment of a
friend
- Ethical codes, values, and way of thinking changes but it takes time

Cultural Relativism
- Relativist believes that an analogy from physical sciences does not accurately
reflect the situation in ethics
- All moral codes are equally valid, and no one is better than the other existing
moral principles
- Any view on morality is subject to the cultural point of view of a person
- Cultural perspective assists a person to know why certain human behaviors
are considered ‘good’ or ‘evil’ by a specific culture.
o For example, body-tattoos are used in one culture as symbols of
bravery and peculiarity of a certain tribe, whereas in other culture it is
linked to convicts or ex-convicts
- Cultural relativism is to begin with something objective or universal, that is, to
start with respect.
- Cultural relativists can’t simultaneously go with logic because there is no
room for to come together.
- Philosophers will admit that universal moral code does exist, and the world is
messy without it.
- Logical perspective is to start with something universal.

cultural relativism is impossible tool in making moral judgement because of

the following reasons:

1. cultural relativist loses the chance to make judgements, the right and wrong to a relativist
is different to a non-relativist
2. a cultural relativist accepts conflicting beliefs or practices which insinuates unclear
stands for all types of views, but some people disagree and that this is morally wrong.
3. a cultural relativist’s reasoning is illogical
4. A cultural relativist believes that there are right and wrong actions. If these are true, then
absolute or universal law exists.
 Danish Physicist Niels Bohr (1885 – 1962),
- Truth is never an objective reality

Popova, 2018
- Truth is a subjective to reality

Franz Boas (1858 – 1942)

- a German American
- Used cultural relativism during the 20th century in his research
- It is made to counter the concept of ethnocentrism, which depicts
discrimination of one group of people to another group of people by
saying that “my culture is the best among many cultures.”
- Uses the terms cultural relativism as a form of subjectivism

Unique Asian and Filipino Culture

(A Little Adrift Jr. by Ana, 2012).

- Asians have something in common
- Asians are family and duty-oriented people that bring about the virtues
of obedience and loyalty in them, which is vital for their survival in this
ever-changing world
- ‘respect’ is very tangible to Asian people, then we can say that the best
starting point of good ethics in Asia is ‘respect’
Anatomy of ‘Respect’

Cycle of respect: by Lito Ebia

- Respect is known as a basic human right

- derived from the Latin word “respectus.” It refers to a person’s

attentiveness to oneself, others, environment, and society.

- our ability to accepting the other person’s behavior and not just trying
to change them

- Respecting another person is not judging them by their attitudes,

behaviors, or thoughts.

- Equality keeps us in an equilibrium

- it is a call for us to be conscious of our “interconnectedness”.

- One Scientists say the human person is a microcosm in a macrocosm.

We are the little world in a bigger world.

- ethics and respect are linked together

- person who has ‘good conduct’ is considered ‘Ethical’. Thus, ethics
needs people who are respectable and knows how to respect. Thus,
respect and ethics are complimentary to each other.

- the only way to do it is approaching ethics from the vantage point of

‘respect’ It will give him or her a novel and lucid perspective and with
profound knowledge of what is really happening around him or her.

- there is no better tool to remove an oppressor, pacify an angry customer

or correct an unjust system than to respond with respect and
professionalism.
Bible (1 Corinthians 12:12-27 ),
- we are like one body with many parts. And if one part is in pain, the
whole body is affected.

Synonyms of Respect
o deference
o obedience
o attention
o courtesy
o tolerance
o compliance
o admiration