Moralism

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Moralism (from Latin moralis - morally) describes an attitude that recognizes morality as the binding basis of interpersonal behavior. On the other hand, according to the Duden, it describes “an exaggerated assessment of morality as the sole measure of interpersonal behavior”.

Use of the term

As a term used in the history of literature, culture and philosophy, moralism can also refer to the “French moralists” of the 17th to early 19th centuries, who represented positions that were critical of the Enlightenment as well as those of scholasticism and rationalism.

If the accusation of “moralism” arises in the context of philosophical debates, it is mostly because a certain general ethical theory or a concrete ethical judgment appears to be excessive demands on the subject of the action or as excessive demands on our intuitions or on what a competing alternative put forward would consider ethical theory to be morally imperative.

For example, every now and then it is suggested that Immanuel Kant's practical philosophy, or deontological ethics in general, cannot do justice to concrete circumstances that are connected to the specific capacities of an actor or his context. For example, Kant would violate the principle “ought presupposes ability”, since he considers moral claims to be given even if these can not be met (for contingent reasons) . For alternative ethical theories cf. the main articles morality and ethics . In principle, metaethical anti-realists tend to consider any talk of normative facts or objective duties to be a mistake. So-called amoralism , like every metaethical error theory, is fundamentally in opposition to realistic ethical theories, i.e. also to “moralistic” ethical claims.

literature

• Hermann Lübbe : Political moralism: the triumph of convictions over judgment . Siedler, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88680-244-2 .
• Gerhard Krieger : Art. Moralism , in: Lexicon for Theology and Church , 3rd edition, Vol. 7: Maximilian bis Pazzi , 1998.
• Horst G. Herrmann: In the moral apostolate. The birth of western morality from the spirit of the Reformation . Edition Sonderwege, Lüdinghausen 2017, ISBN 978-3-944872-67-4 .

See also

• Moralism
• Amoralism

Web links

Wiktionary: Moralism  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ^ Moralismus , duden.de, accessed on April 28, 2013