Tolerance, how far?
On the axis: Status of norms (metaethics) · the critique of another culture
If all moralities are equal, in whose name condemn slavery or cruelty elsewhere? And is "we must respect other cultures" not itself a rule claimed to hold for all?
Justification
In "Of Cannibals", Montaigne turns the European's gaze back upon himself: we hold barbarous whatever departs from our usages, never seeing that our own would look just as strange from elsewhere. "Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice". The diversity of customs across the world shows that our moral certainties owe less to reason than to , "other world, other laws". This relativism stays prudent, though: it serves to disarm fanaticism and cruelty, not to permit everything, for the cruelty of the conquerors is judged worse than that of the "savages".
Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice.Essays, I, 31, "Of Cannibals"
Essays, I, 31, "Of Cannibals" and II, 12
Anchors: Williams · Montaigne