The Question of Morality

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written, or badly written. That is all. –Oscar Wilde

Cameron Dailey

I fall somewhere in the middle when agreeing or disagreeing on this statement. While I do agree that there are well-written and badly written books, I don’t agree with the statement there are no moral or immoral books. This statement would have a different meaning to each person since everyone has their own idea of morals. But this would make a book that’s about murder or crime neither moral or immoral and basically leaves every book in a grey area when it comes to judging a book based on morality. I think a book can be well written and also immoral at the same time it just depends on what the book is actually about. If a book is portraying negative actions and sending a message that isn’t positive to the reader I would say it is an immoral book. Everyone can have their own judgment of a book’s morality, but a book can definitely be immoral based on the contents inside. An example of an immoral book would be Adolf Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf. This book describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. The ideologies that are written in this book and also the person who wrote it are morally wrong. Making this an Immoral book. I’m not saying that anyone who decides to read this book is immoral just because they read it but the material it contains is. Anyone can read immoral books and still be a good person, the knowledge of any book is open for anyone to learn about without being judged on their morals. Hitlers book could be very well written but that does not mean that it is not immoral.