9/4/2014

The author shared a great example of a morally relativistic setting in a modern society. It’s a successful use of second-person narrative to make the reader feel connected to the moral issue and almost glean empathy. I found myself nodding with many of the points especially the section “Does Morality Depend on Religion?”(pg. 8) The arguments the author outlined were sound and I agree with his conclusions. I do want to ask a question about moral relativism and religious relativism that the author did not speak on; if a child is raised away from all other people what will their moral and religious ideas be formulated from? If a child has no one to learn from, what method would it use to discern right and wrong? The existence of a “standard of morality”(pg. 9) seems rather pleasing right now, for the child would grow knowing killing another human would be wrong along with a plethora of other moral guidelines. What if this is found untrue? Even little children are capable of lying which is seen as a morally culpable offense. Is this indication that we learn ethical and moral institutions at a young age from our family or is lying of little important to a standard of morality? I will grant that many religions around the world have a somewhat universal code against murder and very few condone it but what of a child not raised knowing murder is wrong? Your religious ideology depends solely on who you’re born and raised by and this may be true of morality unless there is a “standard of morality” that exists outside of the human self. If morality is something generated by our intellect, then we’re governing ourselves with artificial laws that protect us from one another. It’s left to a nature vs nurture debate better left for another time. Morality of the individual is either solely dependent on our parents and those who raised us, or there is some cosmic standard for which morality is discerned and we’re recognizing it as thus. Neither view is particularly persuasive. My opinion is that there may be specific moral guidelines that would best benefit humankind and the world as a whole and this would be the “standard of morality.”