Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice

by Alan Wolfe

An eminent sociologist and public intellectual ventures into the minds and hearts of Americans to determine how we really think about morality in today's age, focusing on traditional values of loyalty, self-restraint, honesty, and forgiveness.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 17, 2001

About the author

Alan Wolfe is professor of political science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. The author and editor of more than twenty books, he is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Harper's, and the Atlantic. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compassionate / sympathetic (I think there is a better word, but I cannot readily locate it) look at the everyday ethics of everyday people--middle America--finds themes that unite people who think they would be very different. As much as one claims to hew to the past or to the future, conservative or liberal, it is very hard to escape defining yourself in the language of the present day. The book finds that it is a particular thing called "moral freedom," something he describes in all the pain of existentialism but without using such an academic word. In any case, a brilliant book for presenting people as they understand themselves.