Moralism

Overview

Moralitarianism, a.k.a. morality-based thinking, is the belief that a community must assign blame or innocence in ways which reinforce the community's existing morals, rather than based on objective evidence. It is firmly in opposition to the central premise of science, which is that truth can only be determined by the careful study of impartial observations (sometimes referred to disparagingly as "reality-based thinking" by moralitarians).

In other words: Moralitarianism holds that, regardless of what the evidence may show, people whose morals we agree with must never be held accountable for their bad actions because that is damaging to our credibility, while assigning blame to someone whose morals we disagree with is always acceptable.

This belief seems to form the core of contemporary American conservatism and explains the seemingly shameless tendency among its adherents to cherry-pick whatever arguments seem to support their case at the moment, disregarding consistency between one argument and the next and dismissing the need for factual accuracy.

Examples

• the conservative insistence on blaming Clinton for the 2008 mortgage crisis when in fact there is no real reason to do so and there are many much stronger reasons to blame George W. Bush for causing it, if any one person is to be held responsible

Related

• Ideological protectionism is a logical consequence of moralitarianism.
• Moral absolutism can result if moralitarianism is applied rigorously.
• Moralitarianism depends heavily upon the logical fallacies of guilt by association and honor by association (both forms of the association fallacy).
• Moralitarianism is essentially authoritarianism based on the authority of a given community's morals.