Juan Carlos Gorbea MH100 Portico Reading Questions Week 5 Class B 1 According to Rand how does never passing moral judgment allow for the spread of evil in the world Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept It is not justice or equal treatment that you grabbed him and when you abstain staying equally from praising men s virtues and condemning men s vices 2 Explain why there is no escape from moral values Rand article There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices so long have men have to make choices there is no escape from moral values If morality is at stake no moral neutrality is possible 3 Explain why the relativist can never disagree with anyone Woodruff article A relativist can never disagree with anyone because they would always grant that your opinions are as well grounded as theirs 4 Based on the Woodruff article why would someone choose to become a relativist Woodruff believes that Relativism is an evasion of responsibility Thus the person who wouldn t want to agree about a matter like Rick would become a relativist but just to avoid disagreements and responsibilities 5 Are we to judge practices in other cultures as right or wrong Woodruff article Woodruff believes that accepting a society s way of being reverent is as good for its people as yours is for you is a form a relativism which he believes is wrong A society has no better claim than an individual to being immune from criticism and argument and the customs of all societies cry out from time to time to be changed 6 How does relativism allow for the dilemma of both slaveholders and abolitionists to be viewed as right Woodruff article An abolitionist would complain that the system of justice protects the rights of the slaveholder but not those of the slaves The slaveholder s would complain that justice forbids taking property away by force slaves are property liberating slaves is taking property away from their owners by force therefore it follows that justice forbids the liberation of slaves Relativism would declare both sides right it is unjust to suppress the rights of people who are enslave and it is equally unjust to liberate them 7 How easy is it for you to disagree with someone Why Every person has a common truth to disagree about Even if a person like Rick deems that there is no common truth to any disagreement we all have our values and ideas thus we cannot disagree But one could even disagree with this relativistic hypothesis and thus any defense on this position would be an admission of defeat