demands (Benhabib 2002 , 133 – 46 ; see also Valadez 2001 ). For Benhabib,
consensus is achievable; and group secession from public life has to be
resisted. It is important not to overstate the signiWcance of consensus, since
it is at times important to defend claims made in the name of universal
justice. Equally, the ‘‘requirement of morality and those of compromise need
not be mutually exclusive, as Habermas sometimes suggests they are’’ (Ben-
habib 2002 , 145 ). Moral universalism and cultural diVerence might be in
tension, but the point is to resolve it through a democratic politics.
6 Radical Toleration
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The tension between moral universalism and cultural diVerence is indeed
diYcult to resolve. Some have attempted to deal with it by simply asserting
that universal morality must take precedence over any claims of culture.
Others have tried toWnd in the principles of a universal morality a basis for
giving some weight to the demands of cultural groups. And, of course, some
maintain that the very idea of universal morality should be viewed skeptically,
at the very least because many claims to universal morality are simply the
claims of particular moralities masquerading as universal; but also because
morality is the product of community and not a universal standard accessible
to human reason (see in particular Alasdair MacIntyre 2002 ). Disagreement
appears to be a feature of the analysis of diVerence as much as it is a feature of
diVerence itself.
Yet in contemporary discussions, no less than in the debates of the six-
teenth century, insuYcient attention has been paid to an alternative, more
radical, option of moral separation. The Spanish theologians, convinced of
their capacity to achieve moral knowledge through an investigation of natural
law, saw no option but to judge other peoples by the standards of universal
morality. That those people demonstrated no appreciation, or even cogni-
zance, of the moral law could not exculpate them from moral responsibility.
The possibility that Europeans might simply leave other peoples to their own
practices and traditions was simply beyond consideration—particularly for
those, like Vitoria and Las Casas, who insisted on the humanity of the peoples
others regarded as savages. In contemporary political theory, most writers are
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