Metaethical Consensus as a Condition for Intercultural Dialogue

This paper argues that disagreement and free-spirited exchange on normative issues, together with an attachment to what Ronald Dworkin has called “the independent reality of value,” are the twin features of healthy human civilisation. Broadly speaking, this entails a simultaneous commitment to the idea of moral truth independent of our tempo-rary brain states and desires, as well as a principled open-mindedness regarding the actual content of the Moral Law and a willingness continually to seek out ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ in order to face the ongoing normative chal-lenges of every age.