Moral Relativism By Osama Bin Laden

This world is the abundant soil in which we plant our roots, but the quality and quantity of our growth often falls upon the virtues instilled by our environment. We exist in a society that blossoms with morals based on politics, geography, religion, and countless other variables. In such a society, it is virtually impossible for an entire world to agree on a set of morals to abide by, and therefore our world is saturated with the ideals of moral relativism, whether or not we see it blatantly. Moral relativism is often given the stigma of sprouting impurity or immorality, given the fact that it does not accept that there is a universal moral codex. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, the “most serious objection to moral relativism
Osama Bin Laden is a figure that almost all in western society agreed had to be stopped in his tracks, which is not a particularly immoral idea to have. Although the idea of purposely ending a human life goes specifically against their initial creed, the common good of the country was in their best interests. Although moral relativism also clashes with the ideas of Christianity or many other religions, it is sometimes not recognized how prominent it is in many reasonings. “Morals and ethics can be altered from one situation, person, or circumstance to the next. Essentially, moral relativism says that anything goes, because life is ultimately without meaning. Words like "ought" and "should" are rendered meaningless. In this way, moral relativism makes the claim that it is morally neutral.” (“Moral Relativism”, 2015). This exemplifies Moral Relativism’s distance between Religion and unity with ideas such as atheism or existentialism, but it is not synonymous with
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” often alludes to the still-blossoming ideas of moral relativism, especially concerning a conversation that acts as a precursor to Raskolnikov's crime. Within this dispute between two men in a bar, they discuss a woman, Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister Lizaveta: one states that the world would be better off without Alyona, who continuously beats her sister and “wearing out the lives of others”, and the other states that there is a natural order to the world. The man against Alyona declares, “A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money….kill her, take her money… would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?” (Dostoevsky, 67). In this, we see two sides to one’s moral compass: one harvests the idea that the killing of Alyona is completely justified due to the fact that she is greedy and spiteful towards others, especially her kind, gentle sister. The other sows the seed of doubt for this idea, agreeing that this action could help, but natural order must be kept at all costs. These ideas are very close to existentialism and moral relativism (who often go hand-in-hand) in the sense that these men’s morals and virtue differ, presumably due to nature and