An Aristotelian Take on Moralism and Amoralism

As an abolitionist amoralist, I have been advocating the elimination of moralism to the greatest degree that is practicable and not counterproductive (as by becoming moralistically amoralist, or alienating the people you want to “convert”). But a main objection to this project is that it trades on an equivocation between moralism understood as excessive preoccupation with morality and moralism as simply the belief in moral right and wrong. The real culprit is the former, saith the objector; and the remedy, therefore, is not amoralism or the elimination of belief in and practice of morality but only a reduction in the intensity or pervasiveness of moral concern and practice. 

            One can think about this in Aristotelian terms. I view moralism (in its primary, malign sense) as an emotion, and its intensity and pervasiveness are what cause the problems I see in it. But “emotion” has the same ambiguity as moralism: The word can mean any feeling, or it can connote strong feeling. And consistently with this is Aristotle’s idea that emotions exist on a scale, with “virtuous” ones in the middle and “vices” at the two extremes. For example, courage is a virtue, but too little of it is the vice of cowardice and too much of it is the vice of foolhardiness. 

            It would seem to follow, then, that if moralism is itself an emotion, then its proper position in Aristotle’s scheme might be in the middle between too much on one end – this being moralism in its malign sense of excessive moral feeling – and too little of it on the other end – this being amoralism. Amoralism is then as much of a vice as (excessive) moralism. 

            And this does make a lot of intuitive sense. For just as we imagine a moralistic fanatic as going overboard and wreaking havoc in the name of some presumed good, so we can imagine a person of very weak moral constitution (not to mention, its utter elimination), who does not give a damn about much besides perhaps their own purely personal interests. 

            Now my response to this has been that I am not at all advocating weak feelings. I am only calling for an end to what Ronnie DeSousa calls double counting, which is to say, not only caring about something but also insisting that what one cares about is objectively good, such that anyone who does not care about it is bad or evil, or not only being motivated to do something but also insisting that it is objectively the right thing to do, such that anyone who opposes it or wouldn’t do it themself in like circumstances is objectively in the wrong. 

            So for example, I care very much about the suffering and slaughter of nonhuman animals for merely discretionary human purposes, and wish everybody did; but, it has come to seem to me, this is perfectly compatible with my not judging or condemning others for their discretionary use of other animals, and wishing nobody judged others (or even themself) in this way. So there is no more moralism even in the (supposedly) benign sense, but still a full-bodied compassion  (albeit not an excessive one, if we conceive compassion as a mean between sheer indifference to others and an incapacitating sentimentalism). No double counting; just (nonmoralist) feeling. 

            Thus, my reply to the objection has always been that, while there is indeed a conceptual distinction between two senses of moralism, in real life moralism of the “simple belief” or supposedly benign sort leads inexorably to moralism of the excessive sort. This might even account for why the very term “moralism” connotes, or even has as its primary meaning, excessive moralism of the (otherwise) “benign” sort. 

            And this conforms to Aristotle’s view, for he observed that a mean typically is closer to one extreme than to the other. Thus for example, courage seems to have a greater affinity with foolhardiness than with cowardice. We might say that a courageous individual is more prone to lapses of foolhardiness than of cowardice. So as a general rule Aristotle advises erring in the direction of the extreme that one is less liable to, as a way of correcting for the bias in the other direction. A courageous person, then, would be advised to exercise caution before acting on her feelings in dangerous situations. 

            Just so, then, even on the Aristotelian analysis of moralism above, it could be argued, as I have just done, that the mean of simple moralism tends to the extreme of moralism than to the extreme of amoralism; and so it would follow that we are advised to err on the side of amoralism. In other words, when confronted with a situation that elicits a moral response, because we are likely to flare up with outrage, Aristotle might advise us, as a rule, to become aware of the subjective source of our original moral judgment as a way of moderating our moral response into one that is more likely to serve the true end of morality (or ethics), which is, say, to promote good social relations or a well-functioning society. 

            I could also take another tack in defense of amoralism by fitting moralism into the Aristotelian schema in a different way. For is not even simple moralism an extreme, specifically, an extreme of ethics? After all, it presumes that right and wrong are objective qualities of actions, and good and bad are objective qualities of people, and so forth. This is extreme in the sense that it translates what are, as a matter of empirical fact, subjective feelings into absolute judgments, or a state of being of a person (or “subject”) experiencing a certain kind of feeling into a quality of the object about which the person has the feeling (which “object” may also be a person, and even the person who is having the feeling). In a word, it is an illusion, or even a delusion when the “translation” is taken to be true. 

            At the other extreme of ethics, and hence also a vice, would be too little or no concern at all about what to do or how to live -- being a creature of pure willfulness, who is not guided by conscience or anything else but the desire of the moment or the habits of instinct. Call this wantonness. 

            The mean between these extremes could then be what I have been calling desirism, although “rationalism” might be a better term. This is the attitude of striving to act and live on the basis of desires and beliefs that have received a reasonable amount of rational scrutiny. There is no suggestion that the resultant motivation or feeling is anything but one’s subjective attitude, albeit properly vetted. This is also compatible with an ethical relativism, indeed, even a moral relativism, although I have argued that the notions of relative right and wrong and relative good and bad are possibly nonsensical and in any case at risk of being interpreted as objective values; so I would prefer simply sticking with the possibility, and certainly actuality, of there being rational folk, singly or severally, who hold different and even incompatible desires (and even beliefs).