Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality

by Robert P. George

Book Overview

Contemporary liberal thinkers commonly suppose that there is something in principle unjust about the legal prohibition of putatively victimless crimes. Here Robert P. George defends the traditional justification of morals legislation against criticisms advanced by leading liberal theorists. He argues that such legislation can play a legitimate role in maintaining a moral environment conducive to virtue and inhospitable to at least some forms of vice...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198260245
• ISBN13: 9780198260240
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A defense of perfectionism

This book is a strong response to the widely held view that morality as such cannot be enforced by the law. According to Prof. George, society may legitimately seek to "make men moral" as long as the moral sentiment expressed is legitimate. The last qualification is important, because it does set a limit on how far the law may go in interfering with personal autonomy. Therefore, we can say that it is premised on a natural law foundation, which is foreign to most people today. Most of the arguments are made in the course of criticizing the opposing views of some heavyweight philosophers like Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, and Joseph Raz. Especially good is a chapter on the famous debate between H.L.A. Hart and Patrick Devlin. Though George's position is closer to that of Devlin, he does a good job explaining how Devlin's views are in many ways deficient and incompatible with a free society. This is a fine book no matter what your political views, though it does help to have a background in political and moral philosophy to fully grasp the arguments.