Gandhi’s Moral Philosophy

Abstract

Among public figures in this century who significantly altered the course of history, none displayed such exacting moral discipline as Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s revolution was above all a moral revolution, which advanced social justice on a larger scale at less moral cost than any other in recent memory. It is often supposed that public figures can achieve their ends only by means that are to some degree unscrupulous: that public hands must be dirty. Gandhi’s hands were extraordinarily clean. Furthermore, his moral rigor was not incidental to his success as a reformer, but integral to it. The life of Gandhi is thus of special interest for the moral philosopher, as an object lesson in the union of ethics and politics, of right and power.KeywordsMoral PhilosophyMoral TheoryMoral IntuitionPublic FigureMoral ChoiceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.