Try Common Sense by Philip K. Howard

Author:Philip K. Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2018-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

Tools for a Moral Society

Morality is demonstrated by acts, not talk or intent. “To act morally is to do good to beings of flesh and blood,” Durkheim said, “to change something in reality.”

Because good values are manifested in actions, they cannot be prescribed in advance or even predicted. It all boils down to the judgment of the person with responsibility. Fair discipline in a classroom requires a teacher who knows the students and the situation to make a judgment. A fair personnel decision requires a supervisor who knows the people involved. Fair legislation requires Congress to consider the extent of the need and competing uses of scarce public dollars.

Not every choice works out well, of course, and not every choice can be put under a microscope and judged. People with responsibility make countless choices daily. One of the errors of legal correctness is its atomistic approach to accountability—focusing the microscope on one decision, out of context. Demanding perfection, as philosopher Onora O’Neill suggests, is like pulling up a plant to examine its roots. Both accountability and morality must generally be evaluated by observing what a pattern of conduct reveals about a person, including that person’s character.

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