One of the ideas that Kant has is that morality is universal. He comes to this conclusion because he believes that the concept of reason is universal to all men and therefore morality can be derived from just thinking about it. I find this interesting because according to this school of thought everyone should value the same things and have similar if not the same thought processes. If that was true, then there would be nobody to disagree with this process of thinking, which was obviously not the case at the time.
But in today’s western world, we have moved away from the idea that everyone should find value the same things, and moved to a holistic view of morality. Now, we understand the your environment influences your idea from morality. Every culture places an emphasis on different things that are important, therefore different places/cultures would come to have a different set of morals. We have moved away from the idea that morality is a single way of thinking and if they do not follow this universal way then they should be shamed. Instead, we have more understanding for the differences that arise due to cultural differences. The link below explores the idea of how worldview and social groups affect one’s set of morals.
Great post Siara! I definitely agree with you, that Kant’s view of morality being universal is no longer what we support. We as a society now, have different values on things because we all have our ideas influenced by different sources. When you think about it, it’s quite impossible to find someone who has the same complete mindset as you because although you find things in common there will always be underlying topics that you won’t agree on completely.
Another thing I agree with you on is, the idea that our society now is more understanding of the cultural differences that we have. Sure, there are some who are not as accepting as others but we are more accepting of our differences than the society before us.