s told me this was good when I was four years old” but rather people grow up accepting, perhaps subconsciously, that there is an objective right and wrong that is bigger than their parental figures that enacts itself on them as well.
There are countless historical figures that, once having rejected their culture’s moral standards and the authority of their norms, have been labeled as heroes. There were officers in Nazi Germany who were bred and taught under the all-consuming regime of Hitler and yet still felt compelled to rebel. One such officer, Claus von Stauffenberg, was both a part of a German Scout association and a part of the German Youth movement as a child and teen. Despite complete saturation since youth in the Nazi world and ideals,
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After committing to the decision to try and live without objective moral principles, one should choose to make all of one’s decisions based on avoiding pain and increasing both emotional and physical contentment. Life becomes very much an “Every man for himself” kind of situation. However, if one’s morals are as fluid as the moral relativist supposes, then the question is why all of the self-proclaimed moral relativists are not able to fully rid themselves of such negatively affecting emotions as remorse when, for example, having stolen a car or empathy whilst seeing a fried struggle with depression. For example, if I were to become a moral relativist I would logically spend much of my time killing off my intuitive empathy and sensitivity to others’ anger and sadness simply because it interferes with my personal contentment and moral relativism tells me that it is perfectly ok, even advisable, to do so. However, even if I tell myself constantly that there is nothing objectively right about feeling remorseful that I failed in, for example, an attempt to console a friend in need, I am still going to feel that remorse because there is something ostensibly inhuman about implementing a Utilitarian calculus in order to judge whether or not I should feel empathy based on whether or not it will …show more content…
This is problematic because there are certainly better ways to respond to a given situation than others, and whether an action is made sensitive to the context can still mean that the action is objectively true in that context. Believing in an objective morality makes one feel like he or she has less of an all-encompassing control over what value systems he or she follows. This lack of control may not seem comforting to most people, but it is clear that every human, self-proclaimed moral relativist or no, in some ways holds him or herself to a set of standards outside what they may have been indoctrinated to believe. It can be seen in the cultures that have flourished historically similar moral principles that contribute to its growth and sustenance. Also important to note are the many people who, though adamant that there is no higher standard to which they set themselves, do not spend their lives committing felonies and stealing candy from babies. Therefore, looking at moral objectivity both from an empirical and intuitive point of view, it is clear that there are some standards that exist apart from our thoughts and beliefs as individuals and as cultures at
During this dark time in history, people like Miss. Breed from Dear Miss Breed took initial action on what she thought was right, and gave hope to Japanese Internment Camp children by supplying books and writing letters. What these heroes of the past have in common is that they took action for what they truly believe is right. The best way to respond to conflict is based on a person’s general judgment on what they think is right or wrong, this will show how they take action during conflict. In the story, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow, the thoughts of independence and judgement were shown by German student, Sophie Scholl.
The atrocities of war can take an “ordinary man” and turn him into a ruthless killer under the right circumstances. This is exactly what Browning argues happened to the “ordinary Germans” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the mass murders and deportations during the Final Solution in Poland. Browning argues that a superiority complex was instilled in the German soldiers because of the mass publications of Nazi propaganda and the ideological education provided to German soldiers, both of which were rooted in hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism. Browning provides proof of Nazi propaganda and first-hand witness accounts of commanders disobeying orders and excusing reservists from duties to convince the reader that many of the men contributing to the mass
On Hitler’s Mountain is a memoir of a child named Irmgard Hunt and her experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. She herself has had many experiences of living during that dark time, she actually met Hitler, had a grandfather who hated Hitler's rule, and had no thoughts or feelings about the Nazi rule until the end of WWII. Her memoir is a reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought. What has happened to the German people since then, what are they doing about it today and how do they feel about their past? Several decades later, with most Nazis now dead or in hiding, and despite how much Germany has done to prevent another Nazi rule, everyone is still ashamed of their ancestors’ pasts.
Heck’s admissions of his experience with the Hitler Youth lend the autobiography a unique perspective. A Child of Hitler blatantly points toward how the Nazi regime victimized not only jewish men and women, homosexual, or asexual citizens, but also how it devastated and destroyed a whole generation of children. Childhood was revoked an the burdens of war were placed directly on the shoulders of boys and girls just like Heck. This develops a new understanding of World War II that is not often disclosed. By addressing Nazi Germany from an insider’s view, Heck develops an argument against propagandizing children.
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
The contradictions imposed by the demands of conscience on the one hand and the norms of the battalion on the other are discussed. Ordinary Men provides a graphic portrayal of Police Battalion 101's involvement in the Holocaust. The major focus of the book focuses on reconstruction of the events this group of men participated in. According to Browning, the men of Police Battalion 101 were just that—ordinary. They were five hundred middle-aged, working-class men of German descent.
Finally, in Beckwith’s fourth point, he evaluates the absurd consequences that follow moral relativist’s arguments. In his final critique, Beckwith uses typical philosophical examples that Mother Teresa was morally better than Adolf Hitler, rape is always wrong, and it is wrong to torture babies. Beckwith argues that for anyone to deny these universal claims is seen as absurd, yet it concludes with moral objectivism that there are in fact universally valid moral positions no matter the culture from which those individuals
For instance, after the July 8th Jewish raid and shooting of twenty-two people, the commander of the Order Police Kurt Daluege, commended the police in the proud moment of saving the world by the “defeat of the world enemy” (Browning, 13). This not only promoted racism and war, it also promoted the idea of community and that the Nazis were doing well in their careers. The reminder of the importance of the ‘sacrifice’ were making combined with the positive reinforcement from superiors was the type of propaganda that helped further the Nazi ideas.
...ts set for them. Children are constantly aware of adults’ choices, and they begin to formulate their own understanding of general values at a young age. When adults are hypocritical of their pre-set standards, it sends children into a state of discombobulation. Staying true to one’s values as an example for children will be beneficial to them as they travel along the highway of childhood and come upon the exit necessary to reach the interstate of adulthood.
Moral relativism maintains that objective moral truth does not exist, and there need not be any contradiction in saying a single action is both moral and immoral depending on the relative vantage point of the judge. Moral relativism, by denying the existence of any absolute moral truths, both allows for differing moral opinions to exist and withholds assent to any moral position even if universally or nearly universally shared. Strictly speaking, moral relativism and only evaluates an action’s moral worth in the context of a particular group or perspective. The basic logical formulation for the moral relativist position states that different societies have empirically different moral codes that govern each respective society, and because there does not exist an objective moral standard of judgment, no society’s moral code possesses any special status or maintains any moral superiority over any other society’s moral code. The moral relativist concludes that cultures cannot evaluate or criticize other cultural perspectives in the absence of any objective standard of morality, essentially leveling all moral systems and limiting their scope to within a given society.
Joseph Campbell’s definition of a hero states that “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” (Campbell 123). The concept of the hero has been present and in active use by storytellers since humans first began telling stories. Myths and legends of every culture and tradition have heroes whose purpose is to serve as role models and character lessons to those who hear or read their stories. The hero of a story can take many forms depending on the purpose of the story, reflecting the society of the writer. The purpose of post WWII German literature is largely to tell the story of those world-changing events as the individual authors felt it needed or deserved to be told at a particular point in time. As time passed, however, that purpose shifted in focus as the society shifted its focus in how the war era was to be remembered and dealt with in both politics and society. A look at the heroes of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus and Jurek Becker’s Jacob the Liar shows how the concept of the hero in post WWII German literature changed from the mid 1940s to the late 1960s in parallel to the societal changes in the interpretations and memories of the war that took place over the same years.
From when a child is born, to adulthood, everything done because of them, to them, or in front of them leaves a “puzzle piece” in their brain. By the time they have reached the age of 16 and up, they most likely have already decided or already have become the kind of person they want to be. What they have witnessed and experienced throughout the years of their upbringing has left enough puzzle pieces for them to piece together the type of person they will be. If the child witnesses abuse, they will remember that. If the child witnesses prejudice and racism, they will remember that. If the child witnesses the complete opposite of that, such as acceptance, fairness, and acts of love; they will remember that. From the ages of ten to fifteen, research shows that “early adolescent brain goes through a growth...
Morals are not objective because morals are response-dependent—derived from our emotions, or passions, rather than reason. In his argument on the basis of morals in A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume states, “Philosophy is commonly divided into speculative and practical; and as morality is always comprehended under the latter division, ‘tis supposed to influence our passions and actions.” He later argues, “Since morals, therefore, have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows, that they cannot be deriv’d from reason[…]Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions” (Hume 1978). At the root of every one of our actions, we find that we will always trace it back to a feeling that caused it. For example, I chose not to lie to my parents about my spending a lot of money because I knew that it would be wrong. It would not only be wrong because my parents have raised me to believe that lying is wrong, but also because I would feel guilty for disrespecting them. Thus, we judge as wrong or bad a...
Moral relativism is the concept that people’s moral judgement can only goes as far a one person’s standpoint in a matter. Also, one person’s view on a particular subject carries no extra weight than another person. What I hope to prove in my thesis statement are inner judgements, moral disagreements, and science are what defend and define moral relativism.
Cultural relativism is the idea that moral and ethical systems varying from culture to culture, are all equally credible and no one system is morally greater than any other. Cultural relativism is based on the concept that there is no “ultimate” standard of good and evil, so the judgement of what is seen as moral, or immoral, is simply a product of one’s society and/or culture. The general consensus of this view is that there is no ethical position that may be considered “right” or “wrong” in terms of society and culture (Cultural Relativism). In this paper I will argue that cultural relativism is not an adequate view of morality by providing evidence of its most common logical problems and faulty reasoning.