Analyzing Ethics: Moral Relativism, Absolutism & 9/11 Attack Ethics

This essay delves into the complexities of moral conflicts in history and contemporary society, questioning the universal acceptability of diverse views and beliefs. It analyzes the ethical dilemma presented by the 9/11 attack, exploring religious, political, and moral perspectives. The essay examines the concepts of righteous war versus the ethical justification of killing innocent people, and whether the source of beliefs justifying misdeeds should be respected. It further explores ethical relativism, absolutism, and pluralism to understand the multifaceted ethics behind the 9/11 attack, highlighting that each perspective holds a part of the truth, with no single theory providing a complete answer. Desklib offers a variety of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to aid students in their studies.

Running head: ETHICS
Ethics
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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The essay concentrates on the moral conflict that occurred in the history and the
contemporary society. It has been argued that not any kind of view or belief should be viewed
as morally acceptable. This brings the different perspectives that include the religious
perspectives, the political perspectives and the moral perspectives. By analyzing the attack of
the world Trade Centre an ethical dilemma rises. The people doing this with the objective of
establishing the religious belief is right to some extent and the other school of belief, opines
the fact that they are wrong. The debate can give rise to different angles. This gives to the
idea of righteous war whereas the other angle that can be analyzed is whether it is ethical and
justified that the innocent are being killed. The argument grows with the fact whether the
source of the belief of the act of misdeeds should be respected or not. Usually every
individual becomes intolerant of the unjustified behavior. It is however a matter of fact that
no one understands the reason of intolerance of others. With the study of the effects of the
attack of 9/11 this can be mentioned that some important ethical questions comes up to the
mind of the individuals and that should be analyzed. There is a parity between the theory of
ethical relativism, ethical absolutism and ethical pluralism (Pearson, 2016).
In understanding the ethics behind the attack of 9/11 all the three theories of ethics
should be analyzed. The ethical relativism reveals that every individuals belong to one
specific culture and that specific culture have certain specific belief. The individual is born
and brought up in that particular belief so according to him that particular belief is correct. He
judge the culture of other religion or any other cultural group from the other point of view.
He views the culture of other from the point of view of an outsider (Peters, 2015). The other
point is the ethical absolutism. According to this belief, there is no one and there is one single
moral truth. It includes that those who support absolutism usually believe that they know
what this absolute truth is. The individual’s belief in one single truth and that is the belief
which he is used to. It includes the truth that the individual is used to belief from his

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childhood (Vaughn, 2015). He is not concerned about the fact whether his belief is right or
wrong, whether it might harm other individuals or not. The other concept is the ethical
pluralism. It includes the multiple perspectives on any issue. Each issue contains part of the
truth but none of them is the whole truth. None of the theories in this have the entire truth or
the entire answer. They have multiple truth that captures truth of the moral life. The argument
cannot be summed up with a single conclusion. Both the perspectives are correct from their
own point of views. The victim and the person responsible for the crime are both correct from
their own angles (Rooney, 2016).

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Reference
Pearson, R. (2016). Beyond ethical relativism in public relations: Coorientation, rules, and
the idea of communication symmetry. In Public relations research annual (pp. 77-
96). Routledge.
Peters, R. S. (2015). Psychology and Ethical Development (Routledge Revivals): A
Collection of Articles on Psychological Theories, Ethical Development and Human
Understanding. Routledge.
Rooney, E. (2016). Seductive reasoning: Pluralism as the problematic of contemporary
literary theory. Cornell University Press.
Vaughn, L. (2015). Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton &
Company.