These vices are all evidence that vain moralism is at work. Cruel moralism involves a very different set of motivations and a different cluster of vices. Although vain moralisers might adopt cruel attitudes and practices if they serve their (vain and shallow) ends, there is no satisfaction or pleasure taken in the suffering and humiliation of others for its own sake. With cruel moralism, things are different. What gives cruel moralisers satisfaction is not enhancing their moral standing in the eyes of others but rather the suffering and humiliation of others as a means to achieve power and domination over them. Achieving this confirms the moralisers’ sense of superiority over others and provides further validation for their ideals and values. It is self-validation – not validation to others – that cruel moralisers care about and seek to confirm. Imposing suffering and humiliation on the guilty and morally flawed provides this validation, and this becomes a deep source of motivation in their own ethical conduct and responses. In the hands of the cruel moraliser, morality lends itself to misrepresentation and misuse, and is liable to become cruel and sadistic. Just as the motivation of the cruel moraliser is very different from that of the vain moraliser, so too is the principal set of vices associated with it. What comes with cruel moralism are vices such as severity, vindictiveness, dogmatism and authoritarianism. Cruel moralisers take a stance of excessive confidence and self-assertion, where this confirms their power and domination over the guilty or sinful. This might well be a pose that masks insecurities and doubts but it serves to sustain and support the cruel moralisers’ need to confirm their own moral standing and significance in the moral order. It is this need that demands satisfaction, and causing suffering and humiliation through the instrument of morality is the means by which it’s achieved.

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# W

W hen we think about cruel moralism, what sort of examples come to mind? What’s likely to come to most people’s mind are examples of largescale world-historical events involving public ‘show trials’ of some kind. This might cover the ideological and historical range, running from the trial of Socrates or the crucifixion of Christ, to the Spanish Inquisition, to the ‘Tribunals’ of the French Revolution, and on to the farce of the Moscow show trials in the 1930s, the Nazis’ ‘People’s Court’, the McCarthy hearings in the US senate in the 1950s, and the countless public humiliations and cruelties of the Chinese ‘Cultural Revolution’ during the 1960s. It might also include the endless public humiliations and bullying of atheists, adulterers and homosexuals and other such ‘miscreants’ – forms of cruelty inflicted by the (apparently) morally motivated that continue to this day all around the globe. There are certainly important features of cruel moralism at work in all these examples. A parading of the accused before judges and the uncritical mob; their various faults and vices reviewed and described; and harsh penalties and sanctions meted out on this basis. The use and abuse of morality to satisfy the sadistic cravings of those involved and their audience is evident in all these cases. At