the same time, however, examples of this general kind are also unhelpful and misleading from a number of points of view. One reason for not relying entirely on examples of this kind is that it’s a mistake to think that cruel moralism operates only at the level of largescale or world-historical events. On the contrary, cruel moralism typically manifests itself in countless minor everyday interpersonal exchanges that pass largely unnoticed by all but those directly involved. They are, nevertheless, cruel and morally damaging. Another, more important reason for avoiding examples of the sort mentioned above is that they confuse and conflate a number of distinct issues. In the cases cited, the principles, values and ideology of the moralisers (ie, the Church, the Party, the state, etc) are all highly questionable. Beyond that, the process and procedure by which ‘guilt’ is determined is no less suspect and flawed. We are, in almost all these cases, left with the thought that the accused is entirely innocent from any relevant ethical point of view (they might, indeed, be ethical, admirable and brave figures who are simply subject to groundless persecution). In these circumstances, the victims of moral cruelty know that neither those who condemn them, nor what they are being condemned for, have the slightest moral standing or credibility – however cruel they might still be. One further concern about these examples is that in any social environment that’s highly coercive and manipulative, we have every reason to doubt or question the sincerity of those who are persecuting and humiliating the condemned. They too might be performing these actions in the name of a ‘morality’ that they are also not free to challenge or repudiate. To this extent, both the persecutor and the persecuted are victims of a wholly corrupt ethical system in which only the facade but none of the substance of morality and law survives. These are all, of course, matters of great moral concern but they obscure certain features of cruel moralism that don’t depend on conditions or motivations of this kind. I will call these cases of impure cruel moralism. What, then, does a case of pure cruel moralism look like? In 2017, Michael Marrus, an emeritus professor of history and a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust, sat down with three graduate students in a college affiliated with the University of Toronto. The ‘master’ of the college, as he was then titled, came over to join them. At this point, Marrus turned to one of the graduate students, who was black, and said: ‘You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?’ His attempt at a ‘joke’ was plainly foolish, insensitive, offensive and hurtful. Marrus acknowledged this himself in his resignation letter, which was submitted a few days later. What distinguishes such a case from the impure cases discussed before is that Marrus had indeed violated perfectly reasonable and sensible moral standards (ie, principles of antiracism). He was obviously not innocent in these circumstances – as his own apology made clear. Nor would it be correct to assume that those who held him to these standards were adhering to some sort of pernicious ideology. Similarly, we have no reason to suppose that those who objected to Marrus’s effort at a ‘joke’ were motivated by moral vanity or ‘grandstanding’ in some way – much less that they weren’t sincerely committed to the values and principles of antiracism. What encourages this is the pleasure of becoming intoxicated by a sense of one’s moral superiority If this is all correct, then it might be thought that the circumstances of this case don’t display any features of cruel moralism. Let’s consider, then, what actually happened in this case. As described in the Canadian media, Marrus’s ‘joke’ produced a ‘firestorm of “profound outrage”’. Within days,