A Plausible Kantian Argument Against Moralism

Abstract

Being moralistic—roughly, being overly concerned with making moral judgments or being uncharitable in the judgments one makes—is generally regarded as a vice. Clarifying the concept of moralism, and capturing why it is morally objectionable, is a project that has gained increasing attention from philosophers in recent years.1 It is standard to think that at least one component of moralism, though not necessarily the whole of it, is a tendency to be overly harsh or negative in one's moral assessments of others.2 An argument against this moralistic tendency can be found in Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy. Kant's basic idea is that passing moralistic judgments on others' character is both a sign of fun damentally bad character in oneself and an obstacle to moral self improvement. This line of argument can be largely separated from the more controversial elements of Kant's moral system, to provide even non-Kantians with a plausible, but not obvious, rationale for avoiding moralistic judgments. Casual readers of Kant's ethics may find it to be a surprising source for an argument against moralistic judgment of others. After all, there are many ways in which Kant's ethics is quite demanding and even harsh. It undeniably imposes strict and unconditional demands on every moral agent, so it may seem natural enough to suppose that when it comes to assessing others, Kant would think we ought to make special efforts to be equally strict in assigning praise, blame, and overall judgments of moral character. But Kant's own elucidations of duties to others defeat this supposition. Not only does he defend specific duties to avoid moral nit picking, malicious gossip, and ridicule, but he also denies that duties of beneficence and respect depend on our moral assessment of their recipi ents and, more generally, recommends trying to view others charitably. Kant is explicit enough in defending a strongly antimoralistic stance re garding others' character, but it is nevertheless worth looking more