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Moral Disagreement (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Appeals to moral disagreement have figured in philosophical discussions since antiquity, especially regarding questions about the nature of morality. An example is provided by Sextus Empiricus, who in a famous passage concludes (in Richard Bett’s translation) that “there is nothing by nature good or bad” from the observation that “the same thing is thought bad by one person and good by another” (Against the Ethicists, 14). It is often dubious to characterize the thoughts of ancient philosophers by using distinctions and terminologies that have emerged much later. Still, it is tempting to take Sextus to offer an argument against the metaethical position known as “moral realism” and its central thesis that there are moral truths which are objective in the sense that they are independent of human practices and thinking.

1. The Nature of Moral Disagreement There is little controversy about the existence of widespread disagreement over moral issues, both within and between societies and cultures. Often used examples are the debates about the morality of capital punishment, of euthanasia, of abortion, and of meat-eating. Examples of cultural differences include infanticide and geronticide and other more or less alien practices that historians and anthropologists have revealed. For example, Napoleon Chagnon’s account of the ways of the Yanomamö people in the Amazon basin is a popular source of illustrations…

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