What Is Morally Right
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In “Some Moral Minima” I believe Lenn Goodman is right when he says certain things are simply wrong. I agree with Goodman on the issues he discusses such as slavery, genocide, terrorism, murder, rape, polygamy, and incest. Looking at the whole Relativism theory makes you wonder about everything that is considered right and wrong.
Relativism is “regards values as determined by ones own ethical standards, often those provided by ones own culture and background. Rather than insisting that there are moral absolutes, moral claims must be interpreted in terms of how they reflect a persons viewpoint; moral claims are then said to be “right in a given culture” or “wrong for a given society.”(Mosser 2010) However, killing in one culture may be right however, it is wrong in most society.
I agree that killing is wrong for my culture, and believe that there is no real good time for killing of people, in any culture. Goodmans main understanding is not to be quick on judging things we dont understand, but to judge those things that are not morally right. I understand that people should live their lives as they see fit but not to the extent that they take another life just for the pure joy of it.
“Famine is a form of genocide, and germ warfare shares the shame with famine (Goodman, 2010). Racial prejudice is wrong, it strips a person of their culture and it is inhumane and morally wrong to do so. We can look at it several different ways everyone has the right to live their own lives but taking out a whole culture or race is just wrong to do so. With genocide you are really taking out a whole culture or race, and that is just morally wrong by the relativism theory. Some people have that tendency to take out the whole entire group they are aiming at for instance the Native Americans they was here way before any Americans moved to the United States. Genocide has been going on for over a decade or more, with the taking out of the Native Americans either by murder, or making them move onto reservations to live. The Native Americans were either killed or they died from diseases.
We can look at rape just to have sex, which in my opinion is wrong to do so. And it is morally wrong is most cultures and society. It violates the person own rights to give sex to another person yet if you take it just because you can then you are hurting that person or persons. It is actually degrading to the person that the act was committed to. A person that was raped could feel all sorts of feeling, for example, degraded, violated, and worse of all less than a person they wonder why did this happen to me.
The acts of terrorism could be defined as a group that is causing violence to threaten or intimated for political reasons. Lenn states that “terrorism is willful targeting of non-combatants, aiming to intimidate and attract attention.” (Goodman 2010).