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Cultural Relativism In The United States

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If we take a look at the different cultures in the world, we will see that the idea of what is ethically acceptable is vastly different. When the United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they had attempted to provide the world with a guideline of how we should ethically treat people. In many cases this declaration did not succeed and different cultures have their own ethical guidelines which go against this declaration. These culture specific ethics are defined as cultural relativism (Brusseau, 2012). Cultural relativism is the belief that ethics are not the result of universal reason; they are solely based on the individual cultures history (Brusseau, 2012).
Here in America when you get pulled over for committing a traffic violation, the cop will write you a ticket. You then must appear in court to either fight the ticket, or agree to pay the fine. These fines can range from twenty dollars, to hundreds or even thousands. In Mexico City they have a dramatically different way of handling traffic violations. When you are pulled over you simply give the officer fifty pesos (five dollars) and then you are free to go (Brusseau, 2012). …show more content…

The salary of a Mexico City police officer is very low, and the job of a police officer is a very dangerous one. By giving the bribe of five dollars we are helping these police officer earn a little more money so that they can live more comfortably. We can also see how this system will save money for those being pulled over when compared to the tickets issued in America. This is an example of discourse ethics. The citizens and the police officers have found a peaceful solution to a problem, which benefits both

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