Moralism

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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]

French moralists

This section is an excerpt from French moralists.[edit]
From top left and clockwise: Jean de La Bruyère, François de La Rochefoucauld, Luc de Clapiers, Nicolas Chamfort

In

Ancien Régime from the 16th through the 18th centuries. The tradition begins with the Essais of Michel de Montaigne (1580), but its heyday was the late 17th century.[4]

Although the moralists wrote essays and pen-portraits, their preferred genre was the maxim. These were short abstract statements devoid of context, often containing paradoxes and always designed to shock or surprise. The moralists aimed for objective and impartial observation freed from the preconceptions of their day. Their approach was never systematic.[4] The four principal moralists and their main works are:

North America

In tracing the origins of moralism, sociologist Malcolm Waters writes that "Moralism emerged from a clash between the unrestrained character of frontier expansionism, a middle-class, Protestant emphasis on respectability cultivated in small-town America and an egalitarian and anti-intellectual evangelism among splinter Protestant groups."[5]

In the 19th century, the issues of

Roman Catholic.[6][7] Moralism as promoted by some Christian denominations, such as the Quakers, manifested in wide support for abolitionism.[8]

The rise of

Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), was highly driven by the moralism of that era.[10]

In the latter part of 20th century, as well as the 21st century, moralists in the United States turned their attention to championing the movement to criminalize abortion care.

first-day Sabbatarian beliefs and the sensibilities of some labourers and trade unions.[11]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781451408607
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 9781134170418
    .
  3. S2CID 148850005
    .
  4. ^
    doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DA035-1
    .
  5. ISBN 9781134845576
    .
  6. ^ Welter, Brian (6 May 2011). "Philosophy professor finds both Christians, secularists lacking". Catholic News Service. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. In many essays, Taylor shows how this excessive moralism in both the Protestant and Catholic churches from the 17th century onward led to a "polite" Christian society where being polite was more important than being Christian.
  7. ISBN 9780199883172
    .
  8. ISBN 9780299231743
    . Still operating at the margins of American religious discourse, Quaker civic moralism would see its legitimacy in the public sphere grow as increasing numbers of American citizens grew sympathetic with the Unionist and abolitionist causes.
  9. ISBN 9780807869147
    .
  10. ISBN 9781556354434
    .
  11. ISBN 9781476729701
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moralism&oldid=1217597341"