Relativism traces back to ancient Greece
Introduction
Relativism is a philosophical umbrella that traces back to ancient Greece. In recent centuries, however, the term relativism has been co-opted by different philosophers and thinkers in various fields of knowledge to advance different thoughts on issues about their discipline of interest. As a result, many philosophers and thinkers give a different but yet similar definition of the term. There is a concurrence that the theory of relativism confirms that there is no absolute truth on every phenomenon and that truth is relative to the context in which it occurs (Volf, 2017). Critically, the theory has been incorporated to explain mores and ethical values, the relationship between two variables to another among other areas where it is used. It is within this premise that this paper attempts to discuss the following domains that incorporate the foundational ideals of the theory into real practices as discussed below.
Personal Relativism
In this sub-branch, a person decides on what to consider as wrong or right regarding a subject at hand (Sankey, 2018). For instance, in most cultures, children are looked to be a blessing to society a significant factor for the transfer of custom from one generation to another. Upon the death of parents, relatives and friends find it morally right to take care of them and try to fill the missing gap of parenting because that is what they believe is morally and ethically correct. On the other end, a relative can decide to abandon such children and let them suffer. This can be rooted in the belief that moral values are subject to individual interpretation. The individual relativism receives an objection from its lack of logical conscientiousness in their formulation and application of thoughts. For example, in the case where relatives refuse to support orphaned children based on their deceased, it lacks logical fronting because there is no direct relationship between the children and the activities that were committed by the mother. In case there is.
Cultural relativism
Here, the argument is that norms and values that guide a group of people are born out of the convention. Accordingly, different cultures of the world have different ways of behaving and doing things which are different from one culture to another (Mitropoulos, 2017). This behavioural tendencies and manner of doing things are inherited and passed from one generation to another, thereby ensures that there is a continuation of the practices that define one cultural group as different from the other. For example, the Torajan people of Indonesia keeps the dead body of their relative at home with them. In another culture governed by Christian belief, many consider burying of the dead bodies as humane and vital in showing the last respect to the deceased. This different practices on burial ceremonies are guided by the cultures and their metaphysics that shapes their understanding of the dead.
However, the exercise of cultural relativity is faced with numerous challenges. One of them is their lack of moral judgement. According to cultural relativists, there is no moral judgement that can be passed on another culture. To many people, this looks to be total biasness because people may disagree with some cultural practices based on psychological and mental effects the method has for a given people, for instance, in the case of Torajan burying of the dead at homes.
Conceptual Relativism
Conceptual relativism holds the idea of sound doctrine that different individuals have different conceptual schemes, thus living in a different mental world in the same physical universe. As a result of these differences, each person has the construction of realities of the world (Facoetti, 2019). Besides the differences in development, a mutual translation is given to justify if really what they say or practice is false or not. For instance, in America, the eugenics and Social Darwinists had the thought that the people from Southern and Eastern Europe in 19th century had low intelligence and unfit to be among the people of the superior white race. In their interpretation of Darwinism, they conceptualize the ideas of natural selection into understanding the existing racial differences as that they have favourable characteristics and therefore naturally superior. One of the objections to this school of thought is it justifies inhumanity and subjection of torture to people based on the mental constructions that are made regarding a people a given phenomenon.
Relativist’s Petard
Relativist’s Petard is considered as a concept in relativism that emphasizes the dualism of phenomena. Crucially, it reasserts relativists ideologies that every aspect of life can be viewed as real or not genuine. The problem with this belief is that it discredits the idea of universal facts (Sankey, 2018). Which implies that to declare something like murder as immoral, one must first contextualize the occurrence of crime. In this sense, it dismisses the notions of universal generalizations of truth that death is an unacceptable practice among humanity.
In truth, the ideas of relativism remain to be appreciated especially in a world that has become diversified and encompassed with various cultures. The ideological tendencies of this theory are critical in creating tolerance in practice and how we view different aspects of life that constitutes the overall cultures of the world. However, the approach is marked with the underlying denial of universalization of truth as one that cannot be absolute and therefore makes the topic to be one of the very contentious issues that need further extensive research.