Amorality and immorality

in the 1890's, spurred on by Matthew Arnold's ideas of Hellenism and Hebraism (basically amoral thinking and moral doing) the aesthetes and decadents became cultivatedly amoral. This is I think disingenous, as amorality becomes more a trope (and a trope that requires a moral sensibility) that thrills us in our too-moral modern world...

for example, a bank-robber knows stealing is wrong, he/she just doesn't care.

Fuck, I don't even know if that makes a difference :)

Mm-hm. That's the way we see it now, but it wasn't always thus, either because we had different ideas of the bank robber, or becuase (as I said in my follow up post), in the past the word was referring to the action's morality in the context of society, rather than the bank robber as individual.

Immoral, to me, means that the person is aware that there is some kind of morality - either societal or individual or whatever - and chooses to contravene it.

Yes, this has all kinds of unsavoury, probably politically incorrect overtones, but that's the nature of morality, isn't it?

Eyeball - yes, I guess so. Though that doesn't itself explain the change in frequency of usage (which I shall attempt to verify with SCIENCE later on).

Xpost

It's like the question of "legal" sanity/insanity. Legal Insanity doesn't mean the person is nuts, it means that they are SO nuts they can't tell if what they are doing is right or wrong.

Maybe Immoral::Amoral is similar to insane::legally insane. No one wants to be the person to have to make that call, so it's easier to assume that the person doesn't have a morality than to make a judgement call about what that morality is.

perhaps that's why amoral's the preferred name these days...

I mean, doesn't describing, say, Dr Harold Shipman as 'immoral' sound hopelessly inadequate?

So yes immoral seems dated, it seems picky and polite and useless.

Amoral seems a bit petty too, but also has the suggestion of a certain coolness. Or perhaps the suggestion that we have progressed to a point where an individual can be "amoral", that there's a growing amorality or something.

I think if criminals are branded now, the media which will brand them won't stop at something like immoral, they'll just use "evil".

Dictionary makes an interesting distinction

1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral.
2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong.

Hmmmmmm,

I always thought it was 2, I didn't know it was 'neither moral nor immoral.'

Here is what Dictionary.com says for 'immoral'.

'Not moral; inconsistent with rectitude, purity, or good morals; contrary to conscience or the divine law; wicked; unjust; dishonest; vicious; licentious; as, an immoral man; an immoral deed.

Syn: Wicked; sinful; criminal; vicious; unjust; dishonest; depraved; impure; unchaste; profligate; dissolute; abandoned; licentious; lewd; obscene.'adj 1: violating principles of right and wrong [ant: moral, amoral] 2: not adhering to ethical or moral principles; "base and unpatriotic motives"; "a base, degrading way of life"

Looks like people are using 'amoral' when they mean 'immoral in the papers. BTW I am surprised that lack of patriotism is construed as 'immoral'.

Not caring is immoral.

Knowing and not giving a damn puts you in the 'immoral' camp. It does sound such an old-fashioned word though. I guess Ronan's right, the papers all pile in with 'evil' these days, rather than the somewhat fusty-sounding 'immoral'.

Do you think a criminal psychopath who does something awful is evil, immoral or amoral?

but the essential point was made earlier: morality only in a social environment, therefore 'amoral' is someone who ignores social bounds. the actions they commit can be classed as immoral, indeed I could class them as immoral because of their actions, but they could not class themselves thus...

muddled and not exactly waht i mean. hope someone understands.

Awful, evil and depending on the case immoral, amoral, or moral.

If s/he thinks what they are doing is right, they could be considered moral but evil.

If s/he thinks what they are doing is wrong, but does it anyway, they're immoral.

If they don't care one way ot the other they might be called amoral

and there's nothing to say that an amoral person need behave (to our minds) immorally. one could live a life of saintly quality and still be amoral.

x post I think, sorry++

that could be a muddled story...