moralism

plural moralisms

1. derogatoryoftenuncountableusuallyThe act or practice of moralizing (making moral reflections or judging the morality of others).

   1937, Helen Foster Snow (as Nym Wales), “The Modern Chinese Literary Movement” in Edgar Snow (ed.), Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 337, The Romantic movement […] struggled for ‘art for art’s sake’ against the old moralism and didacticism […]

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   It is a bitter fact of life that, despite the air of pious moralism that chokes this cramped town, a rich man’s mistress still counts for more than a hungry saint.

   1982, Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air, Penguin, published 1988, Part 1, pp. 53-54

   2011, Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet, New Haven: Yale University Press, Chapter 1, p. 8, Reared by conventionally pious parents, Girolamo also imbibed more than a little of his grandfather’s dour moralism along with his Latin lessons, Bible studies, and Saint Thomas.

2. countablederogatoryoftenusuallyA maxim or saying believed by the speaker to embody a moral truth; an instance of moralizing.

   There was a delicious spice of worldliness in the topics of conversation which was quite refreshing to him, accustomed as he was to the somewhat droning moralisms of his “congenial friends.”

   1859, Frederic Farrar, chapter 20, in Julian Home,, Philadelphia: Lippincott, published 1860, page 244

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   Now is your chance, Europe. […] paddle your own canoe on a new sea, while clever America lies on her muck-heaps of gold, strangled in her own barbed wire of shalt-not ideals and shalt-not moralisms.

   1923, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 2, in Studies in Classic American Literature, New York: Viking, published 1964, page 21

3. dateduncountableusuallyReligious practice that focuses on morality while placing little emphasis on doctrine or the metaphysical; adherence to a system of morality with little or no reference to religion.

   The scientific superiority of liberal theology, it is now said, is indeed incontestable, but its theological position is weak, for its moralism and humanism lack insight into the dæmonic character of human existence.

   1948, Thomas Mann, chapter 11, in Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, transl., Doctor Faustus, New York: Knopf

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   That thin, colorless protestantism of her fathers had faded into a nameless moralism. She had no Christ before whom she could pour her adoration and love. Instead, she had taken to herself a man; and now the clay of his being was crumbling in her hands....

   1904, Robert Herrick, chapter 17, in The Common Lot, New York: Macmillan, page 230