Ariadne's Thread on Ethical Relativism
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Tolerance

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Wong believes that when the anthropologists tried to argue from cultural relativism to tolerance they left out the necessary ethical premises. Herskovits may have been working with a tacit ethical premise that values "mutual consent" when he made his arguments.

In any case, Wong believes that ethical relativism plus a suitable ethical premise may allow us to deduce a rule of tolerance and non-interference. He proposes the following "justification principle:"

[O]ne should not interfere with the ends of others unless one can justify the interference to be acceptable to them were they fully rational and informed of all relevant circumstances. (Moral Relativity, p. 181, brackets added)

Given the theory of ethical relativism, we could easily have two people (or two cultures) with two different moralities. In person A's morality X is prohibited while in person B's morality X is permitted or even required.

Let's assume that A cannot justify prohibiting X to B and B cannot justify requiring X to A. Assuming that A and B are both logical and well-informed, the justification principle seems to imply that A should practice tolerance and non-interference with B.


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