Ethical relativism is defined by The Encyclopedia Britannica as, "the doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society"("ethical relativism,"(04 Mar 2013). This is what I believe that author Lenn Goodman is talking about in his article, "Some Moral Minima." In the article he discusses several topics that should be judged just because they are simply wrong and should be wrong by anyone's standards. I agree with Goodman on the all the issues he discusses however I will only discuss a few such as slavery, genocide, terrorism, murder, rape, and incest. I agree with these issues because there is never a good reason to take away ones rights for the sake of gaining respect and wealth, kill for the sake of killing, or rape for the sake of sex. I agree with Goodman that these issues should be universally considered as wrong doings or acts of violence. He is basically discussing that every man, woman and child have the right to live and be free from any and all inhumane treatment.
             The first topic Goodman discusses in his article is genocide, famine and germ warfare. In this section he discusses how it should be universally wrong to kill or let people die for any reason. Goodman states, "Murder is wrong because it destroys a human subject. Warfare is not always wrong; it may be necessary to protect such subjects" ("Some Moral Minima."(2010), p. 88). I agree that warfare isn't always wrong, take a look at 9/11, many people were senselessly killed for reasons that we may never understand but we had to protect ourselves against the people who tried to harm us. The warfare we had to use in this case was to protect people here in the US as well as our troops deployed to other countries. Goodman's philosophy is almost that as the old saying "do unto others as you would wa...