This paper addresses a pressing question of world philosophy, viz. the impact of living in a multicultural world on ethical education. To explore this question, the introduction gives an overview of the ambivalent attitudes of modern, detraditionalized societies toward their embedded traditions and substantial values, based on the theories of social scientist Ronald Inglehart and philosopher Charles Taylor. The second section, which builds on Aristotle’s insights and their interpretation by Martha Nussbaum, discusses a traditional component of ethical education, viz. the virtue of practical wisdom. Sections three and four focus on thechallenges of multiculturalism to ethical education. In today’s societies, it is difficultto reach a consensus and to find plausible points of orientation in pressing ethical questions. This is why a very influential way of responding to the multicultural situation, viz. to focus on universal but at the same time formal and procedural moral principles, and to leave the contents of substantial values up to the individuals’ discretion, has fallen short of expectations. In exploring an alternative approach to this question, I use Paul Ricoeur’s views on the value of traditions, viz. appreciating them as culturally embedded mediators between universal moral principles and the contingencies of the life-world. This is the second goal of ethical education. Yet, to avoid the looming deadlock of ethical traditionalism and particularism a reasonable debate is necessary to find out if and how particular ethical traditions have a universal potential, which can be integrated into universal principles. This approach aims at fostering the dialogue among ethical traditions with the help of an enlarged idea of rationality. Thus, the third goal of ethical education is training people in self-reflection about the ethical values of their own traditions, as a first step to understanding the values of other traditions as potential universals.