Dissecting morality isn't moralizing ? What are you talking about ? It's called "BEYOND" Good and Evil, right ?
Well, "beyond" meaning the world isn't black and white, God vs Satan. He was a philosopher, their job is often to moralize.
Well, I didn't think of it that way but what you wrote makes sense. I do think academics can be free to moralize, but their primary goal is to assess and provide a landscape for thought and discussion.
Is moralizing different than activism? I don't know. Some fields you need to moralize, like philosophy, or theology. It's hard to be a good ie: historian for example when you have a activist agenda and start looking for certain things and ignoring others. The same with science. Copper is better at conducting electricity than iron because it is, not because a researcher wants it to be.
Sometimes moralizing is unavoidable, we're human, so you can just try to be as objective as possible. I took a course on the Israel-Palestine conflict once. Obviously the subject can be controversial and heated. The prof was great, she always reminded us to "put our scholar caps on" and look at the issue as academics. It removes your emotional bias and personal moralizing/ideology from the issue. I'll never forget that. We all see things from different perspectives based on our life experiences and identity etc. If you can only look at reality through your own lens you'll often miss a lot.
I actually think there's lots of room right now for a moralist of his ilk. But he isn't the guy.
I think he's just a guy among many. We don't need a saviour, we just need civil discourse. People like him are important because they express intelligent arguments that are counter to the politically correct moral "consensus". You need brave people like that, even if they're sometimes wrong. Ideas that are accepted but never challenged can be dangerous. History is filled with examples.
Socrates was executed for "corrupting the youth". Jesus was nailed to a cross. Who are we crucifying today? What are our holy beliefs that only heretics question?