Ethics: #10 Relativism and Bribery

Final Test \o/. 36 / 40 respectively and the one I got wrong was a classic dyslexia one where pairs of words make no sense - I am OK with this. The readings were all to do with cultural and ethical relativism with a chunk devoted to bribery. It might be that health and energy is low but I'm not feeling it, I'm a bit disconnected from the material

• Cultural Relativism - different cultures have different beliefs (statement of fact)
• Ethical Relativism - moral diversity, what is considered right or wrong is relative to the ethical / cultural framework

We had a massive, inconclusive discussion about bribery. It sort of meandered around blatant bribery where you get your licence / ticket etc a lot faster (or at all) if you offer a bribe and more subtle embedded forms where if you pay a fee to get your process 'expedited' like getting your academic transcript fast through the university - or your passport ready in a shorter time. We talked a bit about how some cultures pay very low wages and the bribes make up the difference and how that impacts on efficiency. After the class that led to a discussion of tipping - linking reward to performance has some obvious benefits but does it outweigh the benefits of having a wage you can live on?

The rest of the class was a monster case study covering working out a strategy for dealing with being a manager in a firm that deals with factories using child labour.

( Incoherent notes )