ABSTRACT
Moral ambivalence occurs as a response to moral disagreement with others when, after trying to understand the other side’s reasons, one comes to conclude that reasonable and knowledgeable people could have made judgments different from one’s own, and any prior conviction about the superiority of one’s own judgment gets shaken. This chapter explores what is needed for this sort of conclusion to have weight in debates concerning moral objectivity, pluralism, and relativism. The focus is on the difference between rights-oriented and relationship-oriented moralities, and on the stereotypes that make it easier for those who subscribe to rights-oriented moralities to dismiss relationship-oriented moralities. It is argued that the differences and similarities to be found in a serious comparison between these types of moralities can be marshalled in favor of an argument for a pluralistic view of which moralities are true or most justified.
