There is obvious large-scale moral disagreement across cultures and even within the same cultures. In many ways, moral disagreement is unique in that it almost always seems to be irreconcilable or irresolvable. What can we do when someone disagrees with us on a moral matter?

Philosophers have pointed to both the uniqueness and the ubiquity of moral disagreement to support many different conclusions about morality and ethics. Some philosophers believe that such widespread moral disagreement must mean that there are no real moral facts. Others claim that moral disagreement, with its propensity to evoke emotion and passion in those with strong opinions, illustrates that morality is ultimately derived from our affective or emotional responses to stimuli. While all of these positions are interesting and worthwhile to explore, I believe that there is a more important lesson to be learned from moral disagreement.

 

Everyone, whether or not she is doing so deliberately, engages with morality on a daily basis, and everyone has formed beliefs about what she thinks is right or wrong. A person’s conception of moral values are influenced and constructed by parents and family, religious affiliations, immediate community, and culture. When someone disagrees with us, it could be because she has had different influences in her life than we had. Perhaps she comes from a different part of the world (or another part of the country) or has grown up with a different religious influence.

Although our backgrounds and cultures inevitably play a role in our moral beliefs, studying ethics requires more from us then just making moral value claims about what is right or wrong. When studying ethics, we should attempt to temporarily abandon these convictions in order to think not about what is right or wrong, but about what makes something right or wrong. In other words, studying ethics forces us to examine where within an action or a decision lies the moral content. What is it about a certain action that makes it right or wrong? When we look at ethics from this perspective, we cannot rely on cultural norms or popularly held opinions to determine right from wrong, but we must try to construct an unbiased reason for a claim’s moral value.

Though often a challenge, stripping away our cultural biases and preconceived notions of what is right or wrong makes us better students of ethics and can make it easier to discuss ethics and morality with someone with whom we may disagree. If I happen to disagree with someone on a moral matter, I may be able to admit that my opponent has good reason for taking the opposite position. In fact, although I ultimately disagree, I can believe that he has a good argument in favor of his position, and appreciate why he thinks the way that he does.

Understanding moral disagreement need not make us wary of moral facts or discourage us from taking ethics seriously, but instead can give us guidance on how to approach moral subjects when we disagree with others. When I am teaching ethics to my students, I always make sure to remind them of an important lesson I learned from John Rawls: reasonable people can disagree.

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