"Morally bankrupt"

[Jotto999]

I see people using this term sometimes, but it doesn't make sense, as far as I can tell. Why use a bank account as an analogy for your morales? I don't think they have a flow in and out, and a sum total. What would it mean to have morale bankruptcy? What, you have none left? But it's not like that happened because you "had too much going out rather than coming in". I don't see how that describes morales at all.

Tell me what you think.

 

[Memeticemetic]

I think you may be creating more of an analogy than the phrase really describes. Language is by nature imprecise; metaphorical language even more so. If you don't feel that 'morally bankrupt' says what you mean when you speak of someone with little or no capacity to make moral decisions, simply don't use it. And I wouldn't give others a hard time when they use it since I suspect you know what they mean even if the phrase itself bothers you.

 

[Jotto999]

I think you may be creating more of an analogy than the phrase really describes. Language is by nature imprecise; metaphorical language even more so.

That's quite possible, I suspected they might just mean "you have none". I just thought the term was misleading.

If you don't feel that 'morally bankrupt' says what you mean when you speak of someone with little or no capacity to make moral decisions, simply don't use it

Of course...

And I wouldn't give others a hard time when they use it since I suspect you know what they mean even if the phrase itself bothers you.

I never do, this thread is the first time I've ever brought it up to anyone.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Well, "moral bankruptcy" is maybe not the most accurate description, but on the other hand...

Maybe there's also a sense there of something owed, to society or humanity, that is lacking in certain people. It isn't just that they don't have something, they lack a thing that they are supposed to be contributing to the people around them.

 

[Aught3]

I think it just means a complete lack of morals or no moral character. Similar to the way you have no money in an actual bankruptcy.