If moral superiority is not an appropriate basis for activism, what is? How does one choose campaigns, if not on the basis of right and wrong?
The answer is goals. The outcome is to be described, and help is recruited on the basis of how attractive that is. For example, the abolitionist movement of the 19th century denounced slavery as wrong, and when slavery was illegalised, the battle was over.
Or was it? The former slaves and their descendants were subject to systemic poverty, arbitrary execution and imprisonment, as well as terrorism from white nationalists. In other words, their level of torment was somewhat reduced. ‘Right’ had been achieved, but it was awful.
Imagine an end state had been specified instead of the end of slavery demanded. Imagine that the proposal had been to build cotton mills near the farms where the cotton was grown, giving former slaves labor. Industrialists would benefit twice over: reduced transportation costs and low labor costs. Plantation owners, once unable to operate their plantations, would need to sell off parcels, thereby raising cash to build factories. Competition for small farms would raise property values, thereby increasing the tax base of small towns. Wage-earning former slaves would need loans, thereby bolstering the banking industry. Notice that this situation is compatible with capitalism’s worst impulses, and thereby reduces potential political opposition. It is also, sadly, compatible with the historical outcome, albeit the one that arrived a century later.
It is possible to describe a particular outcome that is possible only with the abolition of slavery, and it is that situation rather than the end of slavery which is the goal.
This is how activists may avoid the pitfalls of moral imperatives, while also avoiding ‘monkey’s paw‘ outcomes on the ground.