"Moral Exhaustion" is a concept that describes the condition or feeling of weariness, burden, or difficulty associated with navigating the many moral and ethical demands and decisions faced in everyday life. It is characterized as trying to do the right thing all the time, which can feel like a "huge pain in the ass". The sheer number of decisions one must make daily regarding products, political candidates, consumption habits, and interactions contributes to this exhaustion. The sources suggest several factors and contexts that contribute to or relate to this state of moral exhaustion: 1. **The Volume and Difficulty of Moral Choices:** Modern life presents individuals with numerous moral and ethical decisions, from choosing products to supporting political candidates, requiring constant evaluation of options that are "certainly better than others". This continuous process of assessment contributes to the feeling of being exhausted. Moral exhaustion can also be linked to the concept of "moral opportunity cost," which is the good one misses out on doing when choosing to act in a different way. 2. **The Demanding Nature of Moral Responsibility:** Being one's "brother's keeper" is described as a "life sentence of hard labour and moral anxiety," involving difficult choices without guarantee or authoritative reassurance of propriety. Morality, in this sense, has only itself to support it, and there is nothing inherently "reasonable" about taking responsibility or caring in a utility-oriented society. This demanding and anxiety-inducing aspect can lead to exhaustion. 3. **Societal and Systemic Factors:** - Modernity, rationalization, and instrumental reason can lead to a state of "ethical passivity" and a decline in moral sense. Behavior can become increasingly "automatic" and self-interested, focusing on how to do things technically rather than why. Instrumental thinking dominates, causing the "concrete 'other'" to disappear as a genuine dialogical partner. This environment makes deep ethical engagement difficult and contributes to a state resembling moral exhaustion. - The loss of a unifying communal good and the rise of emotivism in modern society can lead to moral decisions being determined by emotions alone, and people treating others as means to an end. This moral impoverishment and instrumentalization of relationships can be a source of exhaustion. - Weber's concepts of rationalization and disenchantment describe a culture where the accumulation of wealth becomes an end in itself, life becomes provisional and meaningless, and death is stripped of meaning due to the endless process of progress. This systemic lack of objective meaning can lead to nihilism and a profound exhaustion of the human spirit and moral life. - Living in a world shaped by a "political economy of uncertainty" where the future is viewed as a threat, rather than a shelter, can lead people to focus on short-term gains without concern for consequences. This environment can make it exhausting to maintain long-term moral commitments. - "Affect politics" in capitalist societies aims to modulate collective affects, potentially limiting authentic desire and channeling it into consumption or fear-based limitations. This manipulation can exhaust genuine moral impulse. - The pervasive societal mentality of domination, conquest, and force, which encourages "self-restraint" or "conquering" internal desires, can make it difficult to change deeply ingrained habits related to separation and individualism. The effort required to challenge these habits and the environment that reinforces them is significant and can lead to exhaustion. - Anomie, described as helplessness in moral philosophy, is a lack of purpose, identity, or values, resulting from society's inability to provide a normative framework or from experiences in industrial societies that limit meaningful lives and cause powerlessness. This state of moral lack and powerlessness can manifest as exhaustion. 4. **Internal Psychological States and Limitations:** - A slackening of the "tensity of consciousness," termed "abaissement du niveau mental," can result from fatigue, illness, violent emotions, or shock. This state feels like listlessness, moroseness, and depression, accompanied by a lack of desire or courage to face tasks, a feeling of being "like lead," and lacking "disposable energy". This condition restricts the personality, reducing self-confidence and spirit of enterprise, and narrowing the mental horizon, leading to egocentricity. While psychological, this lack of energy and reduced capacity directly impacts one's ability for moral engagement. - Difficulty in integrating moral emotions like pride, shame, guilt, regret, and remorse at the appropriate times and in the right ways is a common aspect of human nature. This struggle can contribute to the friction and potential fatigue experienced in moral life. - Suffering experienced outside of one's control has the potential to undermine the connection between virtue and happiness, potentially contributing to a state of exhaustion. - The "death wish," described as a "tired and feeble reaction" or "mere absence of the will to live" in response to new dangers or painful facts, illustrates a collective or societal exhaustion. Nostalgia replaces energy directed towards the future in such states. 5. **Contrast with Virtuous States:** The sources also touch on related concepts that are distinct from, or even opposites of, moral exhaustion. For instance, "morally apathetic toleration of sacrifice" is a virtuous capacity to moderate feelings for less valuable things by appealing to the higher value of persons, a process of self-constraint and evaluative distance, not exhaustion. Similarly, "moral excitement" describes the enhancement of feelings that support virtue. These represent active, virtuous management of the emotional/affective aspects of moral life, rather than a state of being overwhelmed or depleted. Moral exhaustion, appears to be a complex phenomenon stemming from the demanding nature of moral life itself, exacerbated by societal structures and psychological states that make it difficult to maintain the energy, commitment, and clarity required for consistent ethical engagement. It is a symptom of burnout, distinct from distress, loss of meaning, and cynicism, although these can co-occur. While self-care may protect against distress and exhaustion, it may not restore a sense of purpose, which compassion for others is suggested to address.