In answering the age old question of how people know what decisions or practices are ethical or not we are introduced to three theories that are most relevant: ethical relativism, cultural relativism, and ethical absolutism. Standards of conduct differ from society to society, therefore there can never be a single standard that dictates what is ethical and what is not for people everywhere. When implying that a person from another culture is acting morally or immorally one must judge by the standards of the person they are judging’s culture not their own. This is ethical relativism. Similarly, cultural relativism argues that every society has a difference moral code explaining what acts are permitted and what acts are not and if the moral code of a society determines that the act is right then that act is right within that society. These definitions are very similar other than the use of the words culture and society; this is the key difference between these theories. A society can be defined as “an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another” . While a culture is defined as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations” For example, The United States is a society with a cultural element of shaking hands upon greeting while a cultural element of the society of Japan if bowing to the waist upon greeting. Although all societies are seen to have different cultures, that is not true; Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are different societies yet share the cultural elements of language and popular food preferences. Understanding the meanings and difference between culture and society are vital in understanding relativism. Cultural and societal relativism are similar in that they both refer to a subculture or specific group of people opposed to the...