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Do our actions make any difference in wrong life?

Adorno on moral facts and moral dilemmas

University of Essex, UK

Adorno's moral philosophy has often been accused of making aporetic prescriptions that are too taxing for moral agents. In this article, I defend his approach in terms of a theory of moral dilemmas. My guideline is Adorno's famous sentence that wrong life cannot be lived rightly. I argue that this claim is not distinctly prescriptive, as most of Adorno's critics believe, but is a claim about moral reality. Emphasizing realist aspects of his moral theory, I suggest that wrong life is neither inconceivable nor an amoral or skeptical trope. Instead, Adorno's sentence about wrong life can be interpreted as a claim about the salience of particular moral facts. This, I conclude, allows Adorno to envisage moral reasons that motivate moral conduct case by case, although they are blocked overall.

Key Words: Theodor W. Adorno • error theory • ethics • moral dilemmas • moral realism

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 7, 737-758 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0191453708093084


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