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I’m studying for my Philosophy class and need an explanation.

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Elizabeth Aleman said:

A moral issue can be defined as a concern that poses implications, either positive or negative, on the individual or another individual. According to the video, moral issues vary from time to time and from one culture to another. The video has several

indications
of various moral issues as perceived from different cultures such as in the Maasai culture of east Africa where the Maasai community is known for syphoning blood from cows. Secondly, we have the widespread prejudice against homosexuals where some societies still demonize the act and discriminate against the gay community. Thirdly there is the issue of death sentence as effected by countries such as Singapore as illustrated in the video about the historical death sentence of a Dutch, Johannes Van Damme in 1994 for drug trafficking (Elosegui,2012).

The fourth moral issue in the video was the Rwandese genocide when the Hutu and the Tutsi collided over political concerns leading to widespread genocide across the country. The fifth moral issue is slavery; where many individuals in Asian communities are subjected to extreme unpaid labor. The video also defines the issue of gender roles in most societies as being an ethical issue where it is difficult to define the roles of the woman and the man in the family. Lastly, the video also illustrates child labor as a moral issue where a child after the death of his father and ailing of his mother is forced to work for a total of forty four hours a week at the mines to support himself and his mother (Elosegui,2012). The core of ethics according to J.Rachels is that individuals should act in a way that they promote the interests and the

welfare
of the people affected by the actions such that each of the affected individuals has weight (Elosegui,2012).

Moral relativism can be defined as the perception that moral evaluations are not based on absolute standards and can only be defined to be true or false according to the context (Horell, 2013). According to moral relativism, no particular standpoint can be unique over others. In the video, the incidence of child labor can be evaluated with the moral relativism approach. In the child labor case, Andres is a child who lost his father and happened to live with an ailing mother. The fact that Andres is forced to work in the mines for a total of forty four hours a week raises a moral debate in from most people’s perception since a child should have adequate time to play with their peers and also to go to school (Elosegui,2012). Using moral relativism, we can justify Andres’s work at the mines as moral since it’s the only way he can be able to bring food on the table and also take care of his ailing mother. Moral relativism in this case, therefore, also puts into perspective the situation of the child.

Moral absolutism, on the other hand, unlike moral relativism, is a moral notion that absolute scales exist from which we can evaluate whether or not an act is moral or immoral (Horell,2013). The concept of moral absolutism, therefore, overlooks the context and declares actions inherently as moral or immoral without considering factors such as beliefs and the motives of the individual. From the video, the incidence of Rwandese genocide can be evaluated with the absolute relativism. The Rwandese genocide that took place in 1994 between the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes of Rwanda led to an estimated loss of eight hundred thousand lives. Intentionally murdering another person especially on ideological grounds can never be justified and thus using the moral absolutist’s perspective, we can hold that it was morally wrong for the people to kill each other as there several other methods of conflict resolution other than death.