ABSTRACT
Just as conscience, reason and the sense of moral law have served as central facts in the justification of ethical absolutism, so the phenomenon of ultimate disagreement has seemed to many to make an arbitrary relativism unavoidable. It is almost as if contemporary ethical theory were haunted by the spectre of the truly stubborn man. Thus Russell objects to Toulmin’s account of ethics on the ground that it would not have convinced Hitler. The mode of thought which puts the stubborn man into his position of authority is familiar enough. As long as the argument concerns means, it is said, evidence for one or another view can be produced. Actually, the possible methods of exorcising the spectre of the stubborn man are pretty standardized, in fact quite old-fashioned.
