Moral Tolerance: The Ethics of Social Punishment in Cases of Moral Disagreement

ABSTRACT In many practical contemporary contexts, people need to make correct ethical judgements about how to respond to perceived wrongdoing—in particular, whether to punish it or tolerate it. This judgement can be challenging when the wrongdoer does not accept the allegation of wrongdoing at the level of moral principle, holding that the type of action in question was not wrong. This paper interrogates the ethics of using social (as opposed to official) punishments like public castigation, social exclusion, pressuring institutions, and non‐violent interference. Social punishment in the context of moral disagreement requires the consideration of a distinct set of ethical and epistemic factors—factors capable of distinguishing the ‘tolerably wrong’ (where social punishment will not be justified) from the ‘morally intolerable’ (where it is justified).