Making men moral : civil liberties and public morality / Robert P. George.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

George, Robert P.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Crimes without victims.

Law and ethics.

Civil rights.

Moral conditions.

Physical Description:

xvi, 241 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford [England] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1993.

Summary:

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. Among the liberal critics of morals legislation whose views George considers are Ronald Dworkin, Jeremy Waldron, David A.J. Richards, and Joseph Raz. He also considers the influential modern justification for morals legislation offered by Patrick Devlin as an alternative to the traditional approach. George closes with a sketch of a "pluralistic perfectionist" theory of civil liberties and public morality, showing that it is fully compatible with a defense of morals legislation. Making Men Moral will interest legal scholars and political theorists as well as theologians and philosophers focusing on questions of social justice and political morality.

Notes:

Bibliography: pages [230]-234.

Includes index.

ISBN:

0198254245

OCLC:

26855373