Absolutism- there are absolute truths and, especially, absolute moral truths to which all human beings must adhere if they are to be moral. Relativism- there are no absolute of any kind, but that everything, especially morality, is relative to specific cultures, groups or even individuals. Proposition- A meaningful statement that asserts or claims something about reality and that has the characteristics of being true or false. Truth- applies only to propositions. Describes state of affairs that was, that is, or will be actual.
Falsity- applies only to propositions. Describes a state of affairs that was not, that is not, or will not be actual. State of Affairs- an occurrence or situation that either is or is not actual. Anthropological facts cited in support of cultural absolutism and relativism is: Cultural absolutism 1) Similar moral principles exist in all societies. 2) People in all cultures have similar needs. 3) There are a great many similarities in situations and relationships existing in all cultures.
4) There are many similarities in sentiments, emotions, and attitudes. Cultural relativism 1) There is extreme variation in customs, manners, taboos, religions, and so on, from culture to culture. 2) Moral beliefs and attitudes of human beings are learned essentially from their cultural environments. 3) People in different cultures tend to believe that their morality is the one true morality. The different types of propositions are: 1) Analytic Proposition.
The Essay on Culture Adaptation And Cultural Change
Culture refers to the lifestyle or rather a system of tradition that dictates the thought and even action of a given group of people in a society. It gets its expression in the language, beliefs, customs and even food thus offering a direction for effective successful living. Culture gives one identity of the everyday symbols, customs, body language; food and social cues which becomes very ...
These are truths that are known to be absolute because we know the definitions and meaning of words. 2) Internal Sense. These are propositions we know to be true merely because we have the experience. We alone truly know our own internal state. 3) External Sense. These are propositions that describe a state of affairs that occurs in the external world of which we have evidence through our external senses. 4) Moral Proposition. These are propositions about morality or those that have moral import.
Truth is absolute because it does not shift around depending upon belief, feelings, time, or even knowledge. We know for certain that Analytic and Internal State propositions are true because, Analytic propositions are truths known to be absolute and Internal State propositions can be known to be true in what John Hospers calls the strong sense of knowing if the latter fulfills the following requirements: 1) I must believe that the proposition must be true. 2) The proposition must actually be true. 3) I must have absolutely conclusive evidence that it is true.
I don’t think there are moral absolutes because to be absolute something must be complete and because different cultures have different views on what is moral there cannot be an absolute moral Moral propositions are propositions about morality or those that have moral import. They are different from other types of propositions because they cannot be known to be true or false because they are not facts. I believe that according to the facts stated by anthropologist on cultural relativism, that cultural relativist are correct in their assumptions an d that cultural absolutists are not completely correct.
