Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. It could be considered a form of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation. The term originates from the title of the essay The Moral Equivalent of War written by William James in 1910.

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  • Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. It could be considered a form of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation. The term originates from the title of the essay The Moral Equivalent of War written by William James in 1910. The term has some limited currency in polemic debates about the Cold War, and more currently, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Moral equivalence" began to be used as a polemic term-of-retort to "moral relativism", which had been gaining use as an indictment against political foreign policy that appeared to use only a situation-based application of widely-held ethical standards. The purveyors of the device usually start by believing their side is by definition morally superior by who they are, not by what they do. They then use selective history to cast the situation as a big-picture struggle against an evil power. This evil could be totalitarianism, or genocidal policies or some other ostentatious villainy. They then justify the atrocities of their own side by claiming it to be a lesser evil compared with allowing the evil power to have its own way - usually culminating in genocide or mass enslavement. These atrocities in this way become acts of good, not evil. International conflicts are sometimes viewed similarly, and interested parties periodically urge both sides to conduct a ceasefire and negotiate their differences. However these negotiations may prove difficult in that both parties in a conflict believe that they are morally superior to the other, and are unwilling to negotiate on basis of moral equivalence.
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  • December 2007
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  • Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. It could be considered a form of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation. The term originates from the title of the essay The Moral Equivalent of War written by William James in 1910.
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  • Moral equivalence
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