Ordinary people
have to live their lives
on an ordinary personal level;
there are decencies and betrayals,
judgments and perceptions
which persist above or below
whatever political circumstances exist
or whatever social changes
come into force.
and these are the stuff
of the ordinary moral life.

….because the everyday moral world
is a matter of nuance and perception,
rather than of grand gesture,
art in general
and literature in particular
is a better way
of demonstrating
what it is to lead a moral life
(or an immoral one)
than philosophical theory.

–excerpt The Element of Fire
Science, Art and the Human World
by Anthony O’Hear p. 91