Two kinds of moral relativism

A moral relativist has a fundamental choice whether to define moral concepts in terms of moral beliefs or non-doxastic moral attitudes such as disapproval.

In my previous post, I argued that defining moral concepts in terms of moral beliefs leads is logically unacceptable.

I now want to suggest that neither option is really very appealing. Consider first this case:

1. Bob believes he ought to turn Carl in for being a runaway slave. But his emotions and attitudes do not match that belief. He hides Carl and feels morally good about hiding Carl despite his belief. (Bob may or may not be like Huck Finn.)

A relativist who defines morality in terms of beliefs, has to say that Bob is doing wrong in hiding Carl. That seems mistaken. It seems that mere belief is less important than actual attitudes. Thus, if something is to define morality for Bob, it is his attitudes, not his mere beliefs.

So far, we have support for a relativist’s defining moral concepts in terms of non-doxastic moral attitudes. But now consider:

2. Alice thinks of herself as a progressive, and thinks that racism is wrong. Nonetheless, her moral attitudes do not evince genuine disapproval of racist behavior, say when she is with friends who tell racist jokes.

If we define right and wrong in terms of non-doxastic moral attitudes, then our implicit biases unacceptably affect what is morally right and wrong, so that racist behavior turns out to be permissible for Alice, her beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding.

So, neither approach is satisfactory.