Skip to main content

Acton University 2024 Mobile Banner

    Overview

    Today, we’re bringing you a presentation from our Acton Lecture Series program from January 2020 with Adam MacLeod, professor of law at Faulkner University, explaining the rise of morality in public discourse.

    According to MacLeod, our most contentious controversies today are moral. Political neutrality has failed. We disagree not only about questions of efficiency and democracy but also about what is right to do and who we are becoming as a people. We have not yet understood the implications of this shift in public reasoning from discourse about political ideals to debates about moral imperatives. To disagree well and to flourish together despite our differences, we need to understand the sources of our moral ideas.

    MacLeod’s lecture examines the roots of our disagreement and advances a proposal for doing difference well. We can preserve civil liberties and pluralism by grounding rights in moral reasons, which provide a more secure foundation for civil rights.

    Adam MacLeod - Faulkner University

    Upcoming Acton Institute Events

    How to talk about rights in our polarized age - Acton Line podcast