1. Describe the main principles behind Cultural Relativism. In what way do you agree and/or disagree with them? Give an example to highlight your point

Cultural relativism is defined is a precept that believed that humans believe and behavior should be viewed in the contest of his or her own culture. The principle was established by Franz Boaz. It is believed that activities of other culture should not be condemned or compared with one culture since every culture has its own norms and values. The principle was based on two assumptions. The first one was that there is no common human nature shared by human being (Turin, 2005), where nature means that the constitution of mind and body that makes up human being in any culture, racial. The second assumption is that human ability to use language and construct meaning is not determined by human biology or brain structure but from culture.

Cultural relativism claims that all values arise from individual cultures and that there is no value that is universally accepted or shared except through borrowing of such values. This means that anything good or bad, right or wrong, proper or improper. Beautiful or ugly is within the confinement of a particular culture. For instance, murder might be a grievous offence in a particular culture whereas it might not be an offence in other culture.

I actually agree with them in the respect that no culture should judge other culture or condemn others because what they are doing is against their own belief. But even though there might be no universally accepted norms there are many values that are indirectly accepted by all culture. For instance there is no culture that will not see murder as something evil even if they attribute it to something else, and also, rape or any forms of violence sexual activities is also generally seen as wickedness and therefore condemned. Other offences like stealing, lying and disrespect for elders may be explained with reference to individual culture but they still have an unacceptable undertone.

2. What are the main ideas supporting Ethical Subjectivism and Psychological Egoism? What distinguishes these two theories? Formulate at least one argument for, and one against each of the theories.

Ethical subjectivism is the belief that human judgment, ethnical thought or activities are based on their own perception; it views the any true judgment as that which the individual approves or disapproves thereby making human being a perfect being that cannot make mistakes. The interpretation an individual or groups give to a particular situation is true basing the judgment on their personal experience, what they feel or their preference. For instance people’s opinion about gay marriage is not good but if you ask the gay they will have a good reason for it and so to the ethical subjectivism the act is good since the people involved in it say it is good, whereas, psychological egoism talked about the fact that every human activity or behavior is aimed at self satisfaction i.e. self-interest. It focuses not on what people ought to do but on what they actually do and the motive behind their behavior or their activity.

The psychological egoism works on two principles preference theory which recognizes self interest as the satisfaction of one’s desire while objective account talks about self-interest as the possession of virtues that are appreciated independent of whether they are desired. The psychological egoist discussed self-interest with respect to three main terms confusing self- interest with these terms for instance, self-interest is equated to pursuant of pleasure, it was equated to selfishness and having concern for ones welfare only without having concern for other people’s welfare.

The distinguishing feature between the ethnic subjectivism and psychological egoism is that the latter talks about how people behave and the notion behind there behavior while the formal talks about the judgmental basis of an individual.

The argument in support of the ethic subjectivism is that most decision reached by human have some level of sentiment in it if analyzed properly. So in reality the theory can be proven to be truth. The argument against it is that it is easy for human to give a wrong judgment based on his or her experience, how will the ethic subjectivist measure how truthful and logical people’s judgment is?

The argument for the psychological egoism is that if we analyze much behavior and the main reason for such behavior, it can be established that most behavior has self –interest undertone either. While the argument against it is the act of some person against their self interest so that they can follow their conscience, even if it will hut them.

3. Explain the Theory of Natural Law. In what way is the Natural Law Theory discussed by Aquinas different from that articulated by the ancient Greeks? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of Natural Law Theory? Give an example that highlights your point.

Natural law principle is that everything in nature has a purpose and has the in built ability to develop to its full nature. It can be described as a way of fulfilling Gods purpose in our lives, when God created us, he create in us the ability to reason out so as to develop to our fullest potentials, so if we look at our selves and the world we are in, we can easily work out what God wanted for our lives and by so doing we can develop set or regulation that we will follow for our daily living. The law has been applied by many great philosophers like Aristhotle, Aquinas, Plato, and the stoics. The two basic principle guiding the natural law are ‘good and evil’, i.e. to be doing good is describe as doing anything that can boost and promote one’s in built possibilities. On the other hand to avoid evil which is everything that can be stagnate or hinders one development into his or her full potentials. For instance, it is moral to maintain our environment, our health, and our spiritual life because all the can have effect on us later.

Thomas Aquinas form of the natural law is that the goal of human nature is not only determined by ones possibility but also by God. To the Aquinas, natural law is doing what God wanted us to do. That was why he incorporated the divine command theory in which anything god approved to be morally good is good and anything otherwise is bad, into the natural law. In the ancient Greeks era, Aristotle’s opinion about the creation of the universe in which he described a prime matter setting in motion by a prime mover and recognize the prime mover as an uncaused cause.  Though he did not attribute this to anything, Aquinas made it clear that the uncaused cause is God. So,’ good’ to Aquinas means living up to God giving potentials. Lastly, Aristotle recognize that we have final destination which he called eudemonia which is a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous, but for Aquinas our final destination is to reach God.

One of the strengths of the law is that many things have been deposited in us by God to reach our full potentials, so if we are not exploring those things it will be under-utilization of the gift of God for us. Also, doing good and avoiding evil is for our benefit. But, can human beings have a fixed human nature without being influences by the national world, so there will always be diverse in form of nature and behavior. The involvement of the divine theory can be argued that most of the scriptural moral guidance does not explicitly talked about the moral pertaining to scientific revolution like DNA manipulations and many more scientific breakthrough.

4. With advances in medical technology the practice gender selection, the ability to determine and select, if desired, the sex of one’s offspring before birth, is becoming more common. Which of the ethical theories from this unit would tend to support this practice, and which would not. In your opinion, what are the most important ethical considerations of this practice, and do you agree with it.

From what I have discussed earlier, sex selection can be explained as a part of cultural relativism, ethical subjectivism and psychological egoism. It is part of cultural relativism because individual culture can determine whether someone will want to do sex selection or not .for instance in some culture if you have not given birth to a male child, you will lose all your reputation and will not be considered as part of such culture, there will be so much pressure by the community to find a means of getting the desired child, in which sex selection before birth can be an option. In terms of ethical subjectivism it can be described as the experience that the families concerned have on sex selection. Since they did not see it as an avenue for racial discrimination, they can decide to go for it. so it depends on their own interpretations.

It can be explained as one of the example of psychology egoism because it involves and it concerns their personal interest. For instance, having their desired child through sex selection will bring them happiness since if they had given birth to the any child that is not their choice will not go well with them, also since one of the main reasons for doing the sex selection is to avert future chromosome-linked disease which is also in the interest of the parents.

 With the theory of natural law, the story is different because everything on earth has the ability of developing into its full potential. So, by terminating or changing the genes of a child you have changed or interfered with the aim of God as pertaining to reaching his or her full possibilities.

                                                        REFERENCES:

 Subjectivism in Ethics: http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/NQuinn/ENGR019_301Winter2002/RachelsChap3.pdf.   Retrieval date: July 15, 2008

Ethics subjectivism:  http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/103/eoes.html. Retrieval date: July 15, 2008

Turin (2005): Values (6) Cultural Relativism, http://shroudedindoubt.typepad.com/bag_of_worms_yet_words/2005/02/values_6_cultur.html. Retrieval date: July 15, 2008

Ethical Subjectivism: http://www83.homepage.villanova.edu/richard.jacobs/MPA%208300/theories/subjectivism.html. Retrieval date: July 15, 2008.

Why start with Aristotle:  http://faculty.mc3.edu/gpasquar/NUR_120/StartWithAristotle.htm. Retrieval date: July 15, 2008.

K. Cloonan, C. Crumley, S. Kiymaz: Sex Selection: Ethical Issues http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=177 Retrieval date: July 15, 2008.