quote from Integrative Economic Ethics by Peter Ulrich

"As long as our dealings with other people are restricted to those who essentially share our moral views because they have grown up in the same historical and cultural context and have been 'brought up' in the same or a similar fashion, we will normally understand each other's moral feelings and judgements perfectly well and have little reason to question the validity of our moral principles. But when people with very different moral conceptions encounter each other--and this will be more and more the normal case in an increasingly multicultural world--moral conflicts can easily arise as soon as the achievement of understanding on the principles of social coexistence or the correct way of living are at issue. Under these circumstances, whose moral concepts should be regarded as valid and who should be judged 'right' in the case of interpersonal conflict?

In search for solutions to interpersonal conflicts we are always, in the final analysis, face with the choice between the simple exercise of power and recourse to good reasons. In the first case the parties to the conflict do not see themselves as participants in a moral community or their conflict as a moral conflict between claims to validity which are capable of clarification. Instead the problem is reduced to the question of 'might is right' and leads to ruthless (social Darwinist) state of war 'of every man against every man'. Only when the parties to a conflict regard themselves in principle as members of the same moral universe of all human beings will they be in any way motivated to reach an agreement on a peaceful and just solution and so to abandon the power principle in favour of the moral principle in the solution of conflicts. In this second case the mere tolerance of the given power structure is replaced by the common will to find a (rational) justification for the moral rights of those concerned, in whose light we can answer for our actions to the others and to our own conscience." --p20-21 Integrative Economic Ethics

Makes me think of one of the core flaws of the axis of evil/war on terrorism frame...

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com