Final answer:
Objective moral standards refer to principles that are held to apply to all individuals regardless of personal belief or cultural norms. Moral realism posits the existence of such objective truths, while moral relativism and skepticism deny the universality of moral standards. Philosophers like Kant argue that reason alone can reveal universally applicable moral laws.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding Objective Moral Standards:
Objective moral standards are understood in ethical philosophy to be the principles that apply universally and are independent of individual beliefs or cultural norms. Theories such as moral realism support the idea that there are objective truths when it comes to morality. According to moral realism, some actions are morally right or wrong regardless of human opinions or social constructs. Nonetheless, there are alternative views like moral relativism and moral skepticism that oppose the concept of objective morality. Moral relativism, for example, suggests that what is considered moral depends on cultural or individual preferences, and thus there is no single set of standards that can objectively be applied to everyone. On the other hand, moral skeptics deny the existence of objective moral facts altogether and view moral judgments as lacking truth-value.
Kant's philosophy also weighs in by suggesting that we can use reason to discover universal moral maxims that apply to all individuals, irrespective of their particular beliefs or cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the concept of telos in virtue ethics posits that assessing the fulfillment of goals can offer an objective basis for labeling actions as morally good or bad. Despite this, the theory of Normative Ethical Relativism highlights that moral rules can vary significantly across different societies, thus questioning the existence of a single objective moral standard.