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To make guesses about contemporary developments in moral temper is risky for various reasons. First, the pertinent data are mostly not yet gathered, as the empirical study of morality has hardly begun. Hence every statement to be made is only a tentative hypothesis. Second, a reasonably complete picture would show a complicated structure of tendencies and counter-tendencies, within and between individuals and groups. Almost all broad statements would have to be qualified according to class, character structure, region, age, ideology etc. Third, it is one of the trends to be discussed that contemporary moral changes proceed rather covertly and unobservedly—“not with a bang but with a whimper,” if I may use this familiar quotation. Fourth, in the presence of these difficulties, speculation is apt to be distorted by the moral preoccupations of the person who engages in them. He may, for instance, be inclined to exaggerate the occurrence of his own predicaments in others. I shall not burden every guess set forth below with a repetition of these qualifications.
What follows refers only to the non-totalitarian part of western culture, and more specifically to the metropolitan areas of North America and Western Europe.
This paper deals mainly with directions of current changes. It does not deny that older and well-known patterns persist. As to current changes, I shall deal particularly with disintegration, rather than re-integration.
The data mentioned below (particularly the literary and philosophic ones) are illustrative, i.e. not designed to prove my general statements. Philosophic statements are mainly