Morality U. S. A.

Morality USA traces our ethical conundrum to rapid social change and events that have acted as moral breaks with the past. The Holocaust, the Kennedy and King assassinations, the civil rights and antiwar movements of the sixties, feminist and gay rights campaigns, Watergate, the Hill-Thomas hearings, and the Clinton sex scandals have progressively eroded confidence in moral universals. Stripped of grand moral narratives, people are left with mere cost-benefit analyses of their ethical options or with only a personal sense of right and wrong, a privatized moral order.

Corinne Squire is senior lecturer in psychosocial studies at the University of East London, England.