A witch doctor may disagree with me about the correctness of an induction, and we may be unable to resolve this disagreement. Nevertheless I have a perfect right to say that the induction is probably correct and that the witch doctor is in error in believing the opposite. A devil may disagree with me about whether an action is right, but if I think that it is right I have a perfect right to say so, to wax indignant with the devil, to say that my moral assertion is true, and so on. Similarly I have a perfect right to characterize the witch doctor's theorizing as unreasonable, silly or unscientific, and I have a perfect right to characterize the devil's actions and choices as unreasonable, wrong, or immoral. Nothing could be more fallacious than the leap from the perfectly true proposition that it is quite possible there are irreconcilable moral disagreements to the proposition that we have no right to pass moral judgments, to assert that certain actions are right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable, for this itself would be a moral proposition (one advocating an anaemic attitude of toleration of evil).
(J. J. C. Smart, "Reason and Conduct," Philosophy 25 [July 1950]: 209-24, at 220-1)
