Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality

by Robert P. George

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.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Law, Nonfiction

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. George has been called America's "most influential conservative Christian thinker."[2] He is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and the Herbert W. Vaughan senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute. He is also a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous and superbly written book. It's a collection of essays, making up a pretty cohesive whole, toward carving out a more or less classical position on what George calls 'morals legislation'--that is, laws based on moral principles.

It showed me that ultimately I am not a classical liberal, but a true conservative. Where I would find myself in sympathy with liberal policy positions, this is the case only for prudential and not principial reasons. For instance, permitting the sale and use of marijuana might be something that I'd agree with only to prevent black markets and gang activity, rather than because I believe in a 'right' to smoke weed, as part of some alleged 'right to bodily autonomy', or some harm principle.

I highly recommend this to every Christian.

[Donald Trump · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter (including the second chapter on Hart-Devlin dabete) and last chapter constitute a complete original treatise on perfectionist liberalism; other chapters are remarks on Rawls, Dworkin, Waldron and others. Worth reading for people interested in modern natural law theory.

[John the Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert's pluralistic perfectionism feels well-grounded in reality, and he does a great job articulating his ideas, carefully examining opposing viewpoints and defending his arguments while anticipating potential objections. Though this book was not an easy read, it is worth checking out.

The majority of the book focuses on Robert's opposition to different philosophical positions, ranging from Aristotelian ideas to Raz's perfectionist liberalism. In examining the Hart-Devlin debate, he re-builds Devlin's "disintegration thesis" against Hart's criticisms. According to Robert, while individuals in society can function in an orderly manner, they are no longer integrally connected to the community. He argues that the price of toleration is the loss of a distinctive form of interpersonal integration in the community. However, Robert also criticizes Devlin's moral non-cognitivism, asserting that "A concern for social cohesion around a shared morality can justify some instances of the enforcement of morals, but only if that morality is true" – an idea more aligned with the central tradition.

Then the book continues with a broader debate about whether someone has a moral right to do moral wrong. In this debate, the strict Lincolnian position claims it is illogical to say that one has a moral right to do something morally wrong, while the Waldronian position formally defends the notion of a moral right to do moral wrong against the charge of illogicality or incoherence. Robert takes a middle ground, arguing, following Aquinas, that while the law ought not to forbid every moral wrong, this doesn't mean people have a moral right to commit moral wrongs. He states that there may be compelling reasons for the law to tolerate certain immoral acts, or to protect individuals from coercive private (non-governmental) efforts to prevent them from committing certain unjust or otherwise immoral acts.

The book becomes more technical when discussing perfectionist and anti-perfectionist liberalism. Anti-perfectionists maintain a strict opposition to any kind of government interference, taking a more radical stance. In contrast, perfectionists believe that government can help promote individual autonomy through active intervention. Liberal perfectionists trust in a wise and morally upright government, while anti-perfectionist liberals argue that civil liberties are inevitably jeopardized when government acts based on controversial ideas about human good.

While Robert agrees with Raz's criticism of anti-perfectionism and his opposition against individualism, he differs in his view of autonomy, seeing it as a necessary condition (but not intrinsically valuable on its own) for practical reasonableness, which he considers an intrinsic good. This perspective forms the foundation for his concluding proposal of a pluralistic perfectionist theory of civil liberties, through which he justifies freedom of speech, press, privacy, assembly, and religion.

[UChicagoLaw]

My goal this year was to read as many books as possible in which the point of view of the author or the thesis of the work was at odds with my own prior beliefs. Three of these stand out. First, Robert George's Making Men Moral; second, Francis Fukuyama's Trust; and, third, Debra Satz, Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale. My prior beliefs were moved slightly by some and reinforced by others. I won't prejudge them for you or presume you care how they impacted me. I can recommend them all as interesting and thought provoking. - Todd Henderson

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent argument that didn't really come together for me until the end but that was due primarily to my newness in the field and my infamiliarity with, and thus a need to slowly review, competing arguments. A definite read for anyone concerned with ethics or the philosophy of jurisprudence.

[Drew Maliniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best defense of social conservatism.