Ethics in its fine points can be viewed as relative but a general connecting goal or string can be found when one views different societies. I believe this is the goal of humanitarians and global charities. To make a global or universal theory of ethics may be impossible because of so many variations in lifestyles, generations, cultures but this does not mean we should not try. The act of trying to unify people under a general umberella of ethics helps us to understand one another better but the end will never be reached in the progression but then again its the journey that matters not the destination right?
I believe that ethics are fairly concrete. I'm going to say that it's wrong to murder, steal, cheat, etc. However, there are situations in which it would be more wrong (I suppose) not to do one of the above. Say one's family is starving to death. Is it more wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed them or is it more wrong to allow them to all die of starvation?
sorry came back to this after a long time- thought id contribute. i used to think morals were all relative- cant judge another culture by my own standards etc. but now i dont think an entirely relative/ subjective morality works.
i mean if you look at it as other people being responsible for entirely their own choices, it all seems to fall apart. to use the infamous (and rather boring) example of if you lie to save a life, since your're not responsible for the other persons moral choices you are free to act morally and not lie. which obviously doent work because the poor persons been murdered in a dark alley or something.
relativism means we cannot criticise the behaviour within our own society. i think there are some actions that you cant condone even if a society lives by it. to say its all subjective is allowing to many things to be justified by our feelings which is the cause of so many crappy things.
but then nothing is concrete really so where does that leave us....
It is not unusual for widescale changes in views on morality to occur, morality may derive from historical circumstances no longer common or relevant in society.
However, morality is one of those concepts that we all have an accepted understanding of, but the moment you try to define it in any way, the meaning is hard to capture.
Defining morality in such a way as to gain general agreement is, at best, difficult. At worst, it is impossible, at least in part because any definition precise enough to be useful is likely to offend proponents of one moral theory or another.