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Acton Annual Dinner 2024 Mobile Banner

Overview

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. This lecture will 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.