Ethics

Does insult in whatever context count as a moral wrong?

Comments

Insulting a person may be

Insulting a person may be morally wrong --when, for example, the insult is based on racist or sexist stereotyping or the insult is designed to shame a perfectly innocent person into doing something awful or the insult is aimed at a fragile person such as a defenseless child. But we also sometimes think of insults as matters of rudeness and manners. Someone may act in an insulting manner at a restaurant by shouting at a waiter; often this seems a matter of simply being rude or insensitive rather than a matter of serious wrong-doing. Still, I am of the mind that how we treat each other in these social matters does reveal or reflect something of our character. It may be that an evil person can be quite polite at restaurants, but when a person is truly rude to others in social settings, I think we are all not surprised when we learn that they engage in wrongdoing when things really matter.

Read another response by Charles Taliaferro

Read another response about Ethics