Refutation Of Popular Arguments About Values And Culture

Popular Arguments

1. Values are relatives to cultures. Different cultures have different values. It is provincial to deny this. Values are related to how different cultures act on the way they do. It became the basic norms that cultures depend on. If you possess values, automatically you own and it practiced it sometimes became part of your everyday doings.
2. Values come from society, by a process now called “conditioning. ” It used to be called “education, ” but “education” is done to free human beings, while “conditioning” is done to rats. B. F Skinner operant-conditioning used rats as an example of how someone’s behavior will represent based on your actions through consequences. You learned through your actions, so if we are going to connect it within the real meaning of education, that is far different from the so-called “conditioning”. Education is learning in a free manner and having knowledge with specific things while conditioning will always be based on your actions. If you practice values and thinking that if you do it, you automatically followed the said values of the society. But in today's’ generation, our actions and learnings will be dependable on society’s reaction towards it. If it will affect your life or the people around you. So we can conclude that human beings nowadays was detained to the society’s values.
3. If you want to be free, you must “create your own values”. If values are “imposed on you, ” you are not free. - Owning and following values is the foundation if you will be considered as free because you are able to choose on what you are going to believe in. But when values are required on you it means that you are not free to make your own decisions.
4. Absolutist and absolutism are intolerant, hard, and uncompassionate. Relativism and relativists are humane and tolerant. Absolutism is someone’s views on what is right and wrong for his/her. It is deemed as biased while being relativists and practicing relativism is action will be right or wrong depends on what’s the moral norms of the society.
5. Morality is a matter of individual conscience and subjective motive, not of some impersonal objective law of do’s don’ts that is the same for everyone. Having a sense of guilt is one of the factors of being morally good. Individual’s intention in telling the truth and knowing what is right and wrong still falls on it. Rules such as do’s and don’ts is applicable for everyone, it doesn’t mean that you're practicing it you automatically exempted to experience those consequences of it. It’s being a rationale for your feelings and decisions.
6. What’s right and wrong varies depending on the situation. The result of your actions is pedestal on what your doings, it will going to matter on what kind of situation you will fall into. It is common in today’s era, if you do good then for someone who sees himself/herself as superior and if he/she thinks that it’s not good for his/her sake, it will bias to his/her judgment.
7. Scientific thinking discovers no moral absolutes. They do not appear to the senses, and denying them does not violate any law of logic. As Science believed on the saying that “to see is to believe. ” They will react and agree to such things if they are going to witness it personally or by through scientific evidence. They first observe then go along with it, if it is proven.

Refutation of the Arguments

1. This text proves that belonging in a culture, means you are obliged to do it's valued and following it accordingly. As those situations example is given, if one in your community refuses to act on what is the order then it follows that other people in the community do so. It is common that if you are against on something behind on the cultures of your society, it means that you are not brave and strong enough to be part of this so-called living. It is inevitable in the society that once you are opposing on something, you already lack respect or honor with your culture.
2. It doesn’t mean that if you already followed what’s the “condition” of your society, you will do it continuously. There are times in our life that once we experienced something, we learn from it. So there is a possibility that if you’ve done it before, you will not let it happen because you already know its consequences. Just like with the conditioning of the society, it is natural that people change over time and choose what’s good and beneficial for them. Social relatives are not applicable for all of the people out there, we need to remind to ourselves that have our own will to decide on things about what actions that will fulfill our self.
3. It’s a matter of do or die in life. If you decide to live in a morally good way then it’s your choice and if you decided to live doing “unlawfully” acts or disobey those rules you need to be ready on its outcome. As freedom is self-rule and choosing what makes you happy is one of the effects of following what you believed in.
4. Factual things are as accurate as it is. If absolutes are held as hard and unyielding it is because it is true to a life situation that can be proven and witness. Recognizing fault when you’re truly in fault is assessing and not condoning situations to be worse. When relativism said to be inhumane maybe because it is abuse by the people who frequently do it. There’s no such thing as moral law that will contradict on it, it will depends on the means of the said action.
5. Morality is the ability to distinguish right from the wrong and to behave accordingly. There are establish rule so we need to obey it in order to considered as good and accept by the society. Society is the standard whether you're doing is good and bad but you can make decision and contract the law if it’s for betterment of everything like you go the car even its red in the stoplight because there is emergency. “Morality is the ability to see an issue from point of view of others than just your own. ” - Lawrence Kohlberg.
6. Our moral judgement is primarily based on our values. We have been raised in the different settings which bears different culture, values and ideas and so that is why we may have different judgement on the situations because moral law is not absolute and it is not something that is universal. In the same way, with religions that teach and hold different values. It can be seen in the saying “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” which condones that for every wrong done there should be a compensating measure of justice. Another example is the death penalty a cruel and degrading punishment for people who committed such crimes that is against the law. This involves 50 plus and so on countries in the world.
7. Poetic thinking, musical thinking provokes morality by appealing to emotion. There are times we get to grasp the right or wrong just by reading a poem or listening on music. Feeling one’s own conscience is within itself.

Examples for Popular Arguments

1. One of the examples is when you are in a situation with a romantic relationship. Love is one of the attributes in values, then why people cheat and betray their loved ones? As we all know loving and entering a relationship involves kindness, compassion, and trust. If values were undeniable to one’s culture, what is the essence of those characteristics? Also respect coincide values, we know that respecting someone regardless of who or what they are said to be important. If the trust was valued why there’s an issue about broken family and single parenting.
2. Example of it is when you are in a situation that you were "grounded" because you didn’t follow your mother to go home as early as possible. Because of it, you are locked up in your room maybe days or a week without gadgets or something that enjoys you. It tells that the process of conditioning was done in a family situation. It became common that it is the effective way of disciplining a child. But if you just say and tell first to your child that you must not do it again rather than to ground his/her.
3. Example of it is when you choose if you are going to support the LGBT community if your religion is Roman Catholic it is similarly reflected that you need to follow it. But then you choose to oppose it and choose your free will. Then for someone who is a believer and devoted to his/her religion, he/she can see it as against to moral absolute.
4. One example is about stealing, regardless of what is the reason behind it like it was done because someone’s family is staring or in need of financial help. It is considered still stealing because of following the so-called absolutism. But in other countries, they understand and try to help the thief because they became subjective in their decision making.
5. The one that is a related example for it is the scenario where you kill someone if it’s true that we are moral and we need to obey such things as laws and order. Why there is always a news about crimes and others.
6. Just like in the social media sites, if an artist bash or do something inappropriate for someone, some will just say that it’s okay that it doesn’t matter. But when a normal citizen/person do it, it became a big deal and sometimes their human rights were abused.
7. How about the situations where there is an illness that they can’t cure or identified. Many issues are not solved by science sometimes it came from personal religions or beliefs of someone. So why things for them that have no tangible evidence or first and evidence will be considered as supernatural or unexplainable.