Essay About Human Morals And Immanuel Kant

Morality
Essay title: Morality
Morality differs in every society, and it is a convenient term of socially approved habits. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (1934) Human morals and morality have been pondered for hundreds of years by some of the most enlightened people in human existence. Morals are defined by the culture in which you are born. Peoples way of life, their cultural customs, and social norms differ greatly across the earth. Peoples morals are different in every society because cultures are all something that have evolved over time; changing with each generation within a society. After thousands of years of existence and hundreds of evolved languages, cultures have evolved different value systems or moral codes for living and communicating; all of which are referred to as morality. As humans we strive for perfection for something better then what weve got currently. It is amusing how we as humans strive for something non-existent, unknown and completely foreign to us. In achieving this foreign desire we are required to compare and contrast differences. When we look at the various societies evolving around the globe we look at the value system of the peoples, their cultures and means of supporting life. We judge their values against our own set of moral values and pass judgement on whether or not it is right to act in that way. Standards, like standards of conduct, are the inventions of man and are therefore all subjective and culture-bound. (Reason at Work p. 38) As described by the theory of Cultural Relativism, different societies have different moral codes and there is no objective standard by which to judge one societys code to be morally superior to another (Reason at Work p.36, 1996 ). A persons opinion on the subject of whether or not an act is morally right or wrong is entirely subjective and could never be objective. We as humans can distinguish between cruel acts and kind acts, helpful and harmful, but we can not objectively distinguish whether such and action is right or wrong. A societys views, and thus their values, are unique and part of their culture code. This is how Cultural Relativism maintains that there is no such thing as a universal truth in ethics; there are only the various culture codes and nothing more. This leaves us humans in a precarious situation, everyones values are subjective and no one has objective values. The moral codes of two societies can thus be a complete contradiction and still be an acceptable habit, in the respective society. The Greeks and the Callatians varied differently in the means of disposing the dead. The Greeks believed it was proper to bury the dead, while the Callatians believed that it was customary to eat the dead. Neither society is right or wrong, they just follow different cultural codes. So our existence on earth is not that as one single society of people, rather as unique groups of morally evolving people who are raised to be cultured and different. Immanuel Kant argues on the topic of Morality that people have ultimate worth and are intrinsically valuable. Not simply just because we live, but rather because we people are the ultimate source of our morality. Kant goes on to state his fundamental law of conduct, one should will to do an act only if one would will that that type of behavior be a law of human conduct. (Reason At Work, p.78 1996) This statement