Moral Value and Human Diversity

Robert Audi's "Moral Value and Human Diversity" examines the relationship between ethical pluralism and objective moral truth, addressing fundamental questions about whether moral values can claim universality despite profound cultural and religious differences. The work engages critically with relativist challenges to moral objectivity while exploring how diverse moral frameworks might nonetheless converge on certain fundamental principles.

Audi develops a sophisticated position that acknowledges the reality of moral diversity without abandoning the possibility of objective moral truths. He argues that while surface-level moral practices vary significantly across cultures, deeper analysis reveals considerable overlap in fundamental moral concerns and values. The monograph carefully distinguishes between descriptive observations about moral diversity and normative conclusions about moral truth, resisting the common inference from cultural variation to moral relativism.

Central to Audi's approach is his examination of how religious and secular moral frameworks relate to one another. He argues that many core moral principles can be justified through both religious and secular reasoning, suggesting what he terms "overlapping moral consensus." This analysis directly engages debates about whether morality requires divine grounding or whether secular foundations suffice for objective moral truth. Audi's position challenges both strict religious exclusivism and radical secular relativism, proposing instead a pluralistic objectivism that recognizes multiple valid paths to moral knowledge.

The work makes significant contributions to discussions about moral epistemology and the nature of moral justification. Audi explores how moral beliefs can be rationally justified despite disagreement, developing an account of moral knowledge that accommodates both intuitionistic and inferential elements. His treatment of moral perception and moral reasoning offers resources for understanding how diverse individuals and communities might arrive at similar moral conclusions through different cognitive routes.

Particularly noteworthy is Audi's engagement with the problem of moral disagreement. Rather than viewing persistent moral disputes as evidence against objectivity, he argues that such disagreements often stem from differences in non-moral beliefs, incomplete information, or failures of moral imagination. This analysis provides a framework for productive moral dialogue across cultural and religious divides while maintaining that some moral questions admit of objectively correct answers. The monograph thus offers both theoretical insights into the nature of morality and practical guidance for navigating moral diversity in pluralistic societies.