Word: moralizer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harvard football has also weathered brawls of a less physical, more moral nature...
...PROBLEM is that Bork's America is an unprincipled polity, in which morality is what the majority says it is and individuals have no prior claim to rights against the state. His philosophy is informed by an astounding moral skepticism alien to American tradition and the way most Americans think about politics. To him, people only have "gratifications", "interests" and "preferences". "Every clash between a minority's freedom and a majority claiming power to regulate involved a choice between the gratification's of the two groups" and "there is no principled way to decide that one man's gratifications...
...course, Bork's deep moral skepticism means that the victory he affords the majority has no moral force or validity over others. His judicial philosophy isn't informed by an coherent democratic theory that allows him at least to claim that its right for majorities to rule. Bork's formulation thus is no more than a slightly sophisticated version of the doctrine that might makes right...
...Americans make distinctions between "mere gratifications" and genuine moral claims all the time. Our politics is often about mere interests, but most people complain about that and believe politics is at its best when principled. That is why we honor Lincoln and Martin Luther King...
...country has its shortcomings," he said. "But there's no moral equivalency between democracy and totalitarianism. There's no moral equivalency before turning the proud nations of Eastern Europe into satellites and joining the nations of Western Europe on the defense of their freedom...