A ubiquitous rhetorical convention in contemporary academic writing is the attachment of self-canceling declarations immediately following sharp propositions—"Of course, this is not to deny..." "This does not mean..." "We must view this dialectically..." This paper names such declarations "moral patches" and argues that they function not as protective sheaths for theoretical sharpness but as dirty gauze that pollutes the cleanliness of argument. A moral patch provides no argumentative function; its sole purpose is to preemptively insulate the author from potential moral critique. This preemption produces three simultaneous consequences: it blunts theoretical sharpness, shifts cognitive burden from author to reader, and exposes the author's own lack of confidence in their argument. The paper strictly distinguishes moral patches from boundary statements—the former maintain the author's moral image, the latter strictly delimit a theory's scope of application. The normative position is that academic writing should tear off all moral patches, expose the wound of argument to the air, trust the reader's judgment, and trust the hardness of the argument itself. Writing without moral patches is the fundamental ethic of academic prose.当代学术写作中普遍存在一种修辞惯例:在提出锋利的命题之后,立即附加自我消解的声明——“当然,这并非否定……”“这并不意味着……”“需要辩证看待……”。本文将这种声明命名为“道德补丁”,并论证它不是保护理论锋利的刀鞘,而是污染论证干净的破纱布。道德补丁不提供任何论证功能,唯一的作用是让作者提前规避可能的道德批评。这种规避同时产生三重后果:消解理论的锋利,将认知负担转移给读者,暴露作者对自身论证的不自信。本文严格区分“道德补丁”与“边界声明”:前者维护作者的道德形象,后者严格限定理论的适用范围。本文的规范立场是:学术写作应当拆除所有道德补丁,让论证的创口暴露在空气中,相信读者的判断力,相信论证本身的硬度。不打道德补丁,是学术写作最根本的伦理。This paper is dedicated to the Zenodo community "Necropolis Victimarum Oeconomiae Academicae" (Graveyard of the Academic Economy's Victims). It is the inaugural contribution to this community, written for and in solidarity with all scholars whose work has been unjustly rejected or silenced by academic gatekeepers.
Jiacheng Yang (Sun,) studied this question.