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i think all the characters try to be moral but forster shows that they all screw up. so while he seems to put forth a moral code in his book, about connection and all that, he is also making the question more complicated. people are moral by their own standards, but not by each other's. this isolates people so they can't connect. a really good contemporary example of this is that show, so supposedly low-brow that no one can believe i watch it (religiously): the apprentice. all the businessmen and women on this show, who are trying to show that businesspeople are cool, are well aware of the reputation their group has of being immoral and cutthroat. so they make a big deal of talking about how they have integrity and the other players don't. in one episode, the teams have to sell side by side and one team lies that their price is cheaper when the prices are the same and they win the task. the other team accuses them of being immoral, but they say they did what they had to do to sell and that the other guys are sore losers. trump sides with this team. so they all feel they have integrity as they make sales and the other team thinks they're the ones with integrity because they would not resort to devious methods and consequently made fewer sales. i think that everyone is petty and morally dubious on the apprentice, but the fascinating thing there is that they don't know it.