Moralism

This article is about the philosophy. For other uses, see Moralist (disambiguation).
The Drunkard's Progress: by Nathaniel Currier 1846, warns that moderate drinking leads, step-by-step, to total disaster.

Moralism is a philosophy that arose in the 19th century that concerns itself with imbuing society with a certain set of morals, usually traditional behaviour, but also "justice, freedom, and equality".[1] It has strongly affected North American and British culture, concerning private issues such as the family unit and sexuality, as well as issues that carry over into the public square, such as the temperance movement.[2]

The term has been used in a pejorative sense to describe the attitude of "being overly concerned with making moral judgments or being illiberal in the judgments one makes".[3]

  1. ^ Theissen, Gerd (2007). The Bible And Contemporary Culture. Fortress Press. p. 147. ISBN 9781451408607.
  2. ^ Klingemann, Hans-Dieter; Fuchs, Dieter; Zielonka, Jan (2006). Democracy and Political Culture in Eastern Europe. Routledge. ISBN 9781134170418.
  3. ^ Archer, A. (2018). "The problem with moralism". Ratio. 31 (3): 342–350. doi:10.1111/rati.12168. S2CID 148850005.