Egoism and relativism - Assignment Example

Egoism And Relativism Explain And Evaluate Egoism With Examples The term egoism in philosophy refers to the theory that morality of an individual is dependent on the precedence given to the self-interest while making a decision and taking actions (Birsch 69). This means that all those actions and decisions should be considered as ethical if these actions and decisions were made while giving precedence to one’s own interest. One of the major strengths of egoism is that it has the factor of certainty associated with it and unlike other philosophical theories it does not promote uncertainty (Birsch 70).

The theory has certainty associated with it because it promotes that individuals should take actions that provide the highest degree of happiness to oneself and the individual should try to avoid actions and decisions that result in unhappiness. The element of certainty exists because an individual can easily be sure about the elements and the outcomes that will make him or her happy and unhappy and thus can easily make decisions. For example: as an individual I may lie to another individual if I perceive that in a given situation lying will result in higher benefits to me as compared to costs.

The main weakness associated with egoism is that it ignores the fact that other individuals within a society may end up being impacted negatively if an individual only makes decisions based on his/her self-interest. This means that egoism disregards the idea that those actions are ethical that result in benefiting the overall society and not just a few individuals within the society. For example: a stock exchange agent may lie to its clients that investing in a certain share will benefit them when actually it may result in losses.

This means that the agent is hurting others by lying and only benefiting himself in terms of commission he earns from selling certain stocks. Explain And Evaluate Relativism With Examples The theory of relativism states that actions as well as decisions that may be ethical for a particular society are not necessarily ethical for another society or group (Birsch 18). Relativists are of the position that no actions and decisions are universally ethical or unethical and vary in compliance from one society to another.

One of the major strengths of relativism is that it promotes tolerance between different groups and well as different members of these groups (Birsch 28). The theory holds that one cannot simply reject the values of another society or culture if those values are conflicting with values of people from their own society. This in turns helps in ensuring that members from different societies tolerate each other. For example: wearing hijab may be considered by the western society as an element that suppresses women and takes away their right to freely express themselves.

But if the western society starts generating perception regarding hijab by following the theory of relativism they may not criticize hijab and accept that people from the Eastern side of the world find hijab to be a proper code of clothes as their cultural values promote wearing hijab. A major weakness of relativism is that it fails to recognize that certain actions as well as decisions should be considered as universally ethical or unethical. These acts need to be considered as universally unethical or ethical in order to maintain peace and harmony.

For example: people belonging from a particular gang may perceive that murder is acceptable since murdering another individual may be one of their moral values. If relativists start accepting murder as an ethical act from the viewpoint of gang members, then the gang members may continue to kill and the peace and harmony of the world will be disrupted. Works CitedBirsch, Douglas. Introduction to Ethical Theories: A Procedural Approach. , 2014. Print.