Cultural Relativism - Essay Example

For example, it is considered morally wrong for a Muslim to eat pork while for person from another religion, eating pork has no negative impact on his/her morals. Cultural diversity is the variety of cultures globally and locally too. The different ways in which people dress, their religion and also their morality brings about cultural diversity. Respect for cultural diversity is when other people do not interfere or judge people from different ethnic backgrounds as theirs, or when they fail to understand why other peopled do what they do.

As opposed to cultural relativism where different societies practice what they want, respect for cultural diversity is what makes people live cohesively without disagreements or other people thinking that they are better off than others. Respect for cultural diversity is the understanding and acceptance that we are all different in one way or another, while cultural relativism shows how different we all are and this concept allows for people to have different opinions on the different cultures as best suits them.

The concept of the moral community is described as people of the same moral backgrounds drawn together by similar philosophies. They are mostly associated with having a particular religion. Christians, Muslims and Jews are examples of moral communities. Marginalized groups, from a moral community perspective, refer to the minority members of other religions, such as Muslims is the U.S. Having a smaller number in comparison to the number of Christians in the United States, they are considered as a marginalized group or as groups on the fringe of the moral community.

A moral community can also be defined by lines such as people of the same race, color, family members and same social class. The concept of the moral community has led to the continual and increased misunderstanding of the other religions that are minorities. This is because of the failure to stop marginalizing them, for instance, jihad, a Muslim term, meaning the Holy War, is a largely misunderstood term that has led to the belief that all Muslims are terrorists. This has also brought about racism; this refers to when people of different races from ours are mistreated and discriminated against.

The moral community of the United States is subject to opinion. Most People in the center fringes, in the U.S, are trying to break the boundaries in order to accommodate those between the center and the fringes. Moral communities are beginning to diversify for example in the U.S, people are no longer discriminated against because of their ethnicity, and an example is the voting in of a black president for a second term, Barrack Obama. People are no longer judged as communities but as individuals, for instance, not all Arabs are terrorists, and as such they are not prejudiced against in most cases.

This is an improvement since the 9/11 attacks. They are beginning to be open to the fact that there is cultural diversity and are learning to respect that. Though some people in the center fringes continue to believe in their superiority above the minorities, there is an increase in the number of accommodative Americans, who are respect cultural diversity. Moral communities in the U.S are now being seen to include profession, sexual orientation, immediate family members and also social classes, where the rich rarely or never mingle with the poor.

Marginalized groups view cultural relativism as a term that allows for prejudice as well as racism.