The name is absent

16

Diversity Arising from Universals

These comparisons to language show that the explanation of moral diversity may be quite
similar to the explanation of linguistic diversity. Since this is relevant to the question of whether
or not, or how far, pluralism is true, we must consider this in greater depth.

Why is there linguistic diversity? Let us, first of all, consider what it means to speak of
linguistic diversity. On the present paradigm, it is to speak of a diversity of internal languages.
Not only is it the case that different people have or know different internal languages, it is
normally the case that the same individual uses different internal languages on different
occasions. If an individual pronounces a word differently in different contexts, even that betrays
a plurality of internal languages, since each internal language includes representations of how
sound and meaning are paired (McGilvray 1999: 117). This means that each individual, in
virtually any normal case, is multilingual. As we shall see at a later point, this may throw some
light on how a single person can also be multi-moral.

Given linguistic nativism, how can it be that there are different internal languages?
Chomsky’s explanation lies in his “Principles and Parameters” (P&P) conception of innate
grammatical knowledge (1981; 1988a). The P&P approach, as we shall see at a later point, is a
model for some anthropologists and psychologists in their attempts to explain moral diversity.
Let us consider P&P first in its application to language.

In learning a foreign language, one is often struck by how extremely different and
surprising the grammar can be. It is news to hear that there is a substantial and rich grammar
common to all natural languages. Don’t the grammatical differences between Turkish and
English, for example, refute grammatical nativism?

It might seem so, at least at first blush. A monolingual Turk just beginning to learn
English or a monolingual Anglophone just starting to learn Turkish is bound to be struck by the

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