moral suasion
Influence through conscience
Moral suasion is persuasion through appeal to conscience, ethics, or social responsibility rather than through force, legal compulsion, or financial incentives.
The term appears most often in discussions of how governments or central banks influence behavior without formal regulation: The Fed relied on moral suasion to discourage risky lending practices.
It implies gentle pressure—urging rather than commanding.
- persuasionConvincing through reasoning
- influencePower to affect others
- convictionFirmly held belief
- jawboningInformal official pressure
- bully pulpitProminent position for advocacy
behind closed doors · quiet diplomacy · ethics · principles · soft power · public trust · public pressure · social pressure · advocacy · values · good faith · abolitionism · advise · conscience · social norms · urging · diplomacy · urge
- promptsprompt, prompts, prompting, cue, hint
- Abolitionismabolitionists, abolitionist movement, anti-slavery, antislavery, abolitionism
- Abolitionabolitionists, Frederick Douglass, abolitionist movement, Underground Railroad, Emancipation Proclamation
- persuasionpersuasion, persuasive, convince, convincing, compelling
- Bailoutsbailout, bank bailout, bank bailouts, rescue package, rescue fund
- nonviolencenonviolence, pacifism, harmlessness, nonviolent, peaceful
moral suasionlegal mandate
Law-required duty
coercion · force · compulsion · enforcement · physical force
moral suasionlegal mandate
Law-required duty
coercion · legislation · law · compulsion · force
moral, persuade, immoral, morality, morals, morally, amoral, immorality, moralizing