Jeremy Stangroom

If we judge artists for their ‘goodness’ we wouldn’t read or admire many works of art. Words and art can be judged for their own merit. Or we put a line through some of the greatest. We are all flawed human beings aren’t we?

I think it raises interesting issues if there is a large gap between somebody's moral injunctions and the way they actually lived their life. Rousseau, Marx & Bertie Russell are all good examples.

But a failure of someone who advocates for a moral principle to live up to it is not a valid argument against the moral principle itself. Just like an advocate’s strict adherence is not a valid argument for a principle.

The failure of somebody to live up to their own moral system can certainly be evidence against the theory of human nature upon which the system is built (especially if lots of other people fail to live up to it as well). It also likely has consequentialist implications.

But the failure of one person (however prominent) is not similar to the failure of most people who subscribe to a moral system.

So, for example, Bertie Russell, who advocated for free love, but was unable to handle the free love of his second wife, Dora. I think that does tell you something about the problems of free love, not as a matter of logical necessity, but even so...

I agree when that is based on observation of many people (and I agree that there’s such evidence in this case). I disagree that just Russell’s example is informative. Consider two hypothetical examples: 1/

A: an anti-child-molesting crusader turns out to be a child molester. B: an anti-homosexuality crusader turns out to be gay. While we may consider both of them hypocrites, I don’t see why their stories would inform our opinions on principles they represent. 2/