Growing Up In American Culture

Ethics are 100% linked to a person’s individual culture. We don’t always think about it but how we feel about morals has a lot to do with the culture that we grow up in. From birth we are taught things and showed things which all add up into our views on the world. This makes us act the way we do and what makes us know what is morally acceptable. People who grow up in America grow up in completely different lives than those who live in China or any other part of the world. It doesn’t seem like it but these differences go much further than just lifestyle. A culture is much more than just the way someone acts. It includes how someone makes decisions and what their moral beliefs are. It also effects what we view as right and wrong. Cultural relativism

The answer is no not really. When you go up to anyone who grew up in America and ask about a dog they are going to tell you how its “man’s best friend” and how they grow as a part of the family. According to a Purina pet survey 61 percent of woman talk to their dogs about issues. This outlines how important they are to people in America. Now let us think about Asian countries where they eat such animals. They kill dogs in the streets and even have fairs around the event. Even typing that sentence made my skin crawl and most Americans would feel the same. But why is that? If ethical relativism states that there is a valid difference between morals and that there is no “moral” rather “normal” (Ethics V5 N2 (Summer 1992) for

I can respect that cultures have been doing things in their own accord for many upon many years. I can even accept that things are done differently than I am used to. Yet with that being said I personally believe that there should be a universal set of certain morals which directly goes against ethical relativism. I am a strong animal activist and this is a large reason why this theory doesn’t sit well with me. In Asian countries they overfish, eat animals that aren’t necessary, kill things in inhumane ways and that isn’t moral to me in the slightest. I used Asian countries as an example but I am aware that those things happen in other places as well but for the sake of limiting examples I will use that. Killing people isn’t moral to me either and list can go on from there. These things in my opinion should be viewed as wrong no matter what place you come from. I am willing to accept the fact that I may feel this way as a direct result of being brought up in the United States but regardless it is how I feel. Even within the United States things happen that I think shouldn’t be morally accepted. As my previous example in Texas you can shoot at someone if they are just on your lawn. That in my opinion is not necessary. If they don’t leave call the cops no need to potentially kill them. In Florida you can legally hunt Alligators to consume. I find this morally wrong because we have not a necessity to take them out of the wild to eat. It harms