How can we learn to preserve our differences as people of the world without sacrificing our moral values? If you have a moral value that says you wouldn't stand by while someone is being mutilated, that value cannot suddenly disappear simply because the person doing the mutilating claims their behaviour is ordained by a certain religion or culture. However extreme this scenario may seem, it is not unrealistic: genital alteration has been a part of many different religions and religious beliefs across the world. In some cases the alteration poses no health hazards, no lasting physical trauma to the recipient, while in other cases it can deeply and negatively impact the physical and emotional health of the individual inflicted with the procedure. That this religious belief can cause lasting pain on individuals - often children and infants, who are too young to consent to such a procedure - implicitly raises moral concern.
However, it does us no good morally to suggest that the communities of the world should all conform to one way of living and one way of thinking - this too can cause long-lasting emotional pain, and in trying to enforce such a belief there would undoubtedly be physical pain inflicted - nor would we be creating a very interesting world if we pursued such homogeneity. But one would think that there is an easier and less problematic way of getting rid of atrocities like genital mutilation without resorting to forced assimilation, which has been and continues to happen (particularly at the hands of Western civilization) and has yet to produce a more ethical world.
The easiest way for us to set a baseline of universal morality that does not conflict with our differences and variations in culture is to examine what exactly we have in common as human beings, as feeling and thinking entities. Unsurprisingly, the first value that is brought up in doing so is typically our shared desire to avoid most forms of pain or displeasure - especially if that pain is inflicted upon us without our consent - and this is something that most people would agree upon as being a "correct" moral value baseline, or at least one that is pragmatic to follow. It's also unsurprising that this moral consideration already appears in most cultures and religions as the "Golden Rule" to do no harm or to do unto others as only what you would do unto yourself.
The difficult path, in contrast, of setting a baseline of universal morality would be to begin with a specific worldview about the metaphysical truths of morality, where it ultimately comes from and what ultimately matters in deciding the minutiae of our ethical principles. Philosophers, thinkers, and just about anyone who deeply cares about the study of our beliefs, our behaviour, and the course of our lives will end up developing a more complex system of beliefs - a more complex moral system - than what is outlined by the "Golden Rule". In attempting to set a baseline of universal morality, we already approach the discussion with our particular ideas of what constitutes right and wrong, what constitutes the very nature of morality itself.
But it would be much more difficult to have a discussion aimed towards consensus of moral values if we started out with any one of these specific systems. At the threat of losing the philosophical complexity of the question, yet at the promise of gaining common ground with a wider variety of people, it is in the end in our best interest to set aside a great deal of what we believe ultimately decides how we act and begin anew asking the questions which lead us to that system. Our individual moral systems may be dear to us and we may so often protect them with argumentation, but when we're looking for the answer to "How WE should act" and not just "How I should act", it's incredibly important that WE arrive at that answer together, through interaction with one another and consensus with one another, rather than having any "I" decide through isolation and self-reflection.
If you’re interested in this kind of moral reasoning, consider Cosmopolitanism.
