Agreement between moral theories › Agreement about acts and explanations

Two theories can agree about every example we have considered without providing the same explanation. One might treat reliance as valuable because of its beneficial consequences. Another might regard an individual's claim against betrayal as independently important. This difference can affect how each responds when reliance produces no further benefit or when honoring it has substantial costs.

Parfit's higher-level project does not require us to deny that particular acts have more specific wrong-making features. The draft formulation of the Triple Theory expressly allows other properties to make acts wrong and presents the combined condition as a higher-level account. The question is whether it can unify these features without erasing what explains their importance.

That distinction gives a more exact objection than saying the theories merely use different words. Different descriptions could identify the same morally significant structure. But it also gives a more exact standard of success than observing agreement: the proposed unification must explain why those descriptions fit together. Readers can assess whether the account preserves individual claims, rather than assuming that a common formula automatically does so.

Nor should we infer that failed convergence would make morality nothing more than preference. That would require a separate argument ruling out moral truth wherever disagreement persists. A failure to reconcile selected theories could show that one theory is mistaken, that their formulations need work, or that their relationship has been misunderstood. It would not by itself settle metaethics.