Good Pluralism And Relativism Essay Example

Ethics shows the rights ways of doing things. Pluralism and relativism become significant in the context of ethics. Pluralism is a philosophy that considers multiplicity as a good thing. It views different accounts of the same subject as “equally correct, equally good, equally legitimate or even equally true” (Shapiro 2011).When pluralism becomes a metaphysical doctrine, relativism strongly supports any dominant culture, practice, norm or ethics in a given place for a given person. Pluralists embrace diversity in all sorts of actions. Relativism doesn’t explicitly tell what is right and what is wrong as applicable to all people all over the world. Instead, it finds that anything can be right or wrong and that is relative to the culture and individual aspects of ethics.
In a society, individuals may belong to different cultures, personalities or religious beliefs. In their personal life, they may want to lead a ‘good’ life and do the ‘right’ things. But , most times what they perceive as ‘good’ and ‘right’ may contradict with the ‘good’ and ‘right’ of others which finally leads to uncomfortable life situations. Some people’s dreams and life goals may clash with those of others in the society. When a pluralistic view accepts all as equally good, it cannot prevent the clashes that may be aroused in a diverse culture or society. The diversity in the goals and dreams of individuals may not be tolerated by a completely different thinking society which makes a peaceful co-existence almost impossible. In such instances, relativism is a better alternative. This is because individual relativism tells that if a particular goal is right and suitable for an individual he should go for it and others should not argue or criticize about it. A person’s aims or dreams are based on his desire, upbringing, individuality and status which may not be comprehensible to others in the society.

Reference

Shapiro, Stewart. (2011).Varieties of pluralism and relativism for logic. In Steven D. Hales (ed.), A Companion to Relativism (pp.526-552).Oxford, England : Blackwell.