"James Q. Wilson has taken an unfashionable but undeniably crucial question about moral nature and produced a bracing, elegant, carefully researched and closely argued controversy. Everyone should read it."—Michael Crichton
Wilson admits in the preface of his book "virtue has acquired a bad name." However, people make some kind of reference to morality whenever they discuss whether or not someone is nice, dependable, or decent; whether they have a good character; and the aspects of friendship, loyalty, and moderation that are all informed by morality. Although we may disguise this language of morality as a language of personality, it is, in Wilson’s words, "the language of virtue and vice," which he uncovers in his book. He goes on to say, "This book is an effort to clarify what ordinary people mean when they speak of their moral feelings and to explain, insofar as one can, the origins of those feelings. |
