Adam MacLeod is a Professor of Law at Faulkner University. He has been a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and a Thomas Edison Fellow in the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at George Mason University. He is co-editor of Foundations of Law (Carolina Academic Press 2017), and author of Property and Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press 2015) and of articles, essays, and book reviews in peer-reviewed journals and law reviews in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Professor MacLeod writes...
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.
