In this book, the topic of race and morals and ethics will be explored. It is advocated that we should move from a conception of race through an ethical standpoint and move toward a moral view of race. This view draws on Naomi Zack's analysis of race and ethics. In her work, The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality After the History of Philosophy, Zack presents her work on the ethics of race through an investigation into the history of moral philosophy. She starts with classical philosophy and ends with contemporary moral philosophy to explain how it has primarily ignored race because these fields of thought have failed to untangle our evolving ideas of racial equality. To Zack, the dichotomy between ethics and mores has long aided in separating what is right with ideas of racial equality. What Zack means to say is that philosophers have been talking about racist mores instead of ethics, thinking what is ethical or good for White people may not be the same for the slaves, immigrants or foreigners, Blacks, and other non-White people, showing the problem with cultural relativism.
While Zack's work covers the ethics of equality concerning race, this work covers the ethics of freedom about race. The views on ethics and racism presented here do not contradict Zack's philosophy but only add another dimension to the ways mores are abiding by prolonging racism in the field of ethics.