Relativism is the idea that a person’s judgments about ethicsare dependent upon something else and ethical relativism can be defined as theskepticism that there are right and wrong answers to posed ethical questions (Mackinnon & Fiala, 2018).

In other words, morality can said to be relative to thenorms of an individual’s culture. Therefore since it is known that differentcultures have different moral values, whether an action is considered right orwrong on an individual level depends largely on the moral norms of the societyin which a person was raised. Three main reasons exist for believing that ethicalrelativism is true. These include the diversity of moral views, moraluncertainty, and situational differences.The first reason that will be discussed and explored thatgives support to the existence of ethical relativism is the concept ofdiversity that surrounds moral views, which encompasses tolerance andopen-mindness.

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Philosophers have been investigating the basics of morality fordecades and they are still unable to come to a collective agreement on ethicaltopics. This heightens the importance of tolerance and open-mindness towardsdifferent views and ideas. According to the textbook, arguments over moralmatters often the result of factual disagreements and that is where ethicaldiversity arises (Mackinnon& Fiala, 2018).The second reason that promotes the belief in ethicalrelativism is moral uncertainty. Morality is a highly subjective topic ofdiscussion and so, whether an action is right or wrong is dependent on themoral values of the society in which it is practiced. That is why itis hard decipher the bounds of morality and come to a conclusion of whatis morally the right thing the believe or do in a certain situation.

 The uncertaintyof morality makes people unsure of what the best course of action is whendealing with a moral concept since it is hard to predict the future.The third reason that lends support to ethical relativism issituational difference. The situational variance that exists amongst peoplemakes it dificult to draw conclusions from and make comparisons between peopleof different cultures. Not everyone has the same worldview, experiences, andinnate moral compass which ultimately makes it hard to explicitly say that oneculture is right or wrong in comparison to another and believe that the samethings that are right in one person’s mind would be considered right inanother.Even though all three of these reasons give support toethical relativism, differences exist between them. Each reason emphasizes adifferent point.

The first reason, diversity of moral views, argues that pointthat people disagree about what constitutes what is right or true becausepeople have different cultural values and principles that influence theirjudgement of morality. The second reason, moral uncertainity, asserts thatpeople are unable to know for sure whether an act is right or wrong. This ishow the first and second reasons differ.

Moreover, the third reason, situationaldifferences, highlights that because of cultural and time differences, allpeople do not share the same moral principles. The difference between the firstand third reason is that the fact of diversity in the first implies that thereis no objective good, while diversity in the third is because people’scircumstances differ.