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Is Moral Diversity Partly an Illusion?

One might suspect that there is less real diversity (disagreement or multiplicity of basic
principles) than meets the eye; perhaps the appearance of conflict is largely due to disagreements
about facts. The obvious objection to this view is that the moral common sense of one culture or
historical period may be wildly at odds with that of another. But a difference in moral judgment,
even when it appears to be wild, does not automatically imply a difference in basic moral
principles. There may be universal moral values which are applied differently by different
cultures due to different descriptive assumptions (Brandt, 1959; McGinn, 1997; Levy, 2003).

But I doubt that all differences in moral judgment can be so explained. Brandt provides a
plausible example of diversity in basic moral principles. Hopi Indians traditionally had less
concern for the pain experienced by animals than one would expect from a typical suburban
Westerner. The Hopi would play a game called “chicken pull,” in which a chicken is buried up
to its neck in sand. Contestants fight for the chicken, trying to grab it by the neck as they ride by
on horseback. When someone eventually grabs hold of the chicken, the other will try to grab the
chicken away from him, likely tearing it apart. The winner is the one who ends up with most of
the chicken. Hopi children would also catch birds and keep them as toys by tying their legs
together. The birds might starve to death or have their legs and wings broken while being played
with. The treatment of the birds was of no great concern to Hopi parents. Brandt looked for
factual assumptions that might explain how the Hopi could do these things with a clear
conscience, e.g. believing that animals do not feel pain or that a tortured animal will have an
especially nice afterlife. He could find none, and so he concluded that there is some difference of
moral principle between industrialized Westerners and the Hopi (1954: 213-15, 245-46, 373). I



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