Many people think that moral beliefs and values cannot or should not be promoted or discredited by the government. Yet Anthony Sheldon, writing in The Guardian, argues that this notion is mistaken. In Sheldon’s view:

Government is nothing if it is not asserting moral imperatives and if it is not trying to act in a moral way – even if some of its lieutenants will fall short of the standards that it advocates. Policy needs to be grounded upon an uplifting and positive conception of human nature, which stresses the goodness of man, and which attempts to bring about outcomes that improve the quality of human experience and communal life.

Of course, we are still left to ponder the enormously important question of “what is moral?”

You can read my previous postings on this subject here, here, and here.