Moral Matters

Moral Matters: The Case for Conservative Philosophy is Mark Dooley's defence of intellectual conservatism in what he called 'an age of liberalism'. For Dooley, liberalism is not, as is often claimed by its proponents, a philosophy of freedom, but one of homelessness and rupture from settled conventions. It is a philosophy of individualism that repudiates community and compromise in exchange for egoism and alienation. In contrast, he sees conservatism as a philosophy of love - love of all those things which comprise the social, moral, religious and cultural patrimony. It is a philosophy that looks upon the world, not as something to be remade on a whim, but as a gift to be cherished in the name of 'absent generations'. If liberalism is a 'dictatorship of relativism', conservatism is an ethics of virtue which promotes true liberty rooted in responsibility. At a time when the moral destiny of mankind is at stake, Moral Matters presents a convincing case for conservative philosophy as an antidote to alienation and a key to personal happiness.