Spaemann Paper

Spaemann, Robert (1993). Basic moral concepts.

Introduction
In this book Robert Spaemann carries out an approximation to what he considers the basic moral concepts of ethics in the current cultural context. In it, he answers to many basic ethics questions presenting his own point of view. He analyzes topics such as: good and evil relativism; education as a science that teaches to chooseappropriately, as a sense of values; justice since an ethics life is to make justice to reality, the unconditional, what makes an action good; conviction and responsibility whether the end justify the means…
However, from all the topics R.Spaemann discusses, I consider one of the most interesting ones; whether are good and evil relative, and thereby I will focus my essay to solve the question from theauthor’s perspective.
Moral philosophy: are good and evil relative?
Here the classical dichotomy, subject of questions that can be applied to many areas in people’s lives: the meaning of “good” and “evil”, “good” and “bad” as such. In general terms we can consider the word “good” as something good for a particular person in some particular aspect, in a relative sense. Meaning, for instance,when the doctor’s advice is not to smoke because it is not good, it can interpreted in two senses. First, meaning that is not good for you and second, that it is not a good idea for you if your first priority is not to die of lung cancer.
Although, there is another sense of the word “good” in an absolute sense which entails a conflict between different interests or points of view, even whentalking about the same person. Here are presented, thus two sorts of questions that arise as the conflict does, on one hand: what is the correct way of giving an order of priority to the different points of view? On the other: in case of conflicts, whose interests and whose goods should have priority? None of these couple of questions can be answered independently due to the fact that both arephilosophical reflections.
There are some situations when the term “good” as an absolute level derives to relative sense, depending upon particular cultures, social class or characters of whoever is making them. As an example I may present the contrast between Islamic cultures where polygamy is acceptable whereas Christianity is not.
The fact that ethical codes are to a large extent culture-relative isvery often cited as a reason for rejecting the possibility of moral philosophy, that is, the possibility of reasoned discussion about the meaning of the word good in an absolute rather than a relative sense. Despite this extended generality, moral philosophy does not disregard the term itself, furthermore since the fifth century B.C in Greece, philosophers decided to state a single standard whichcould evaluate different ethical codes and forms of life. They called it “physis” or Nature. We can affirm that cultural differences do not constitute a valid argument against attempting to find such a standard. Moreover, the desire to find a generally valid standard for talking about a good or bad life, or good or bad actions, actually arises out of the observation that moral and ethical codesdiffers one from another.
Now we should start considering why should we establish standard which is not able to remain constant, which may vary depending on the situation? What is an issue here is not a supposition or assumption, but a certainty we all sense, so as long as we do not start specifically to reflect on it. Through times, human beings have proved to have a very similar understandingof the term good, the moral outlooks of different cultures and epochs have more in common than we often think.
Yet, taking into account the great variety of cultures differences, the challenge is presented in order to find whether a universal standard by which judgments can be made exists. Without further ado, I will introduce two possible arguments which will be examined for answering the...