  One explanation arises from cases of moral disagreement where the prospects of resolution appear most remote. When the disputants are from different cultures and their disagreement reflects a divergence in values between the cultures in which the disputants were raised, there may appear to be insufficient common ground on which to effect a resolution. A moral relativist can explain this commonplace observation with a theory of moral knowledge. A moral relativist can say that the lack of resolution is to be explained by the fact that the moral knowledge expressed by each disputant is relative to the culture in which the person learned his or her values. Thus, when someone from a culture in which women must veil their faces in public defends this practice as morally appropriate and indeed required, the relativist would interpret the defense as expressing knowledge of what is acceptable and not acceptable in his or her culture. Similarly, when the person coming from a culture in which the practice is not appropriate or required disagrees, he or she is simply expressing knowledge of what is acceptable morally in his or her culture. Each has moral knowledge, despite the clash in their opinions, but their knowledge has to be understood relative to the culture in which the knowledge has its roots.