Category: Articles & Essays

It has finally been accepted that we can’t function without values. (Indeed, the very project of avoiding moral judgments itself rests on the firm belief that they are wrong.) But the suppression of morality-talk has served another very good purpose: the language itself is being used differently, as if it needed time in retreat in order to purge itself of its puritanical associations. It left the stage muttering about people shagging each other and strode back on later lamenting how the privileged are screwing the masses. Look at how the uses of moral language have been pressed into service in recent weeks and you’ll find that they do not concern mere private behaviour but the point at which individual actions have consequences for wider society. Morality has recovered its political dimension.

Do you want to pay less tax? It’s totally legal. Faced with such an offer, I doubt many of us would turn round and say, “No, thank you.” Jimmy Carr didn’t when his financial adviser put exactly this suggestion to him. Yet, according to David Cameron, Carr was “morally wrong”, and public opinion agrees. So it seems that the vast majority would both pay less tax if they could and condemn Carr for doing exactly that.