3.5 What role do conservatives think government should play in enforcing moral values?
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This article is from the Conservatism FAQ, by Jim Kalb kalb@aya.yale.edu with numerous contributions by others.
3.5 What role do conservatives think government should play in enforcing moral values?
Since conservatives believe moral values should be determined more by
the traditions and feelings of the people and by informal traditional
authorities than by theory and formal decisions of an administrative
elite, they typically prefer to rely on informal social sanctions
rather than enforcement by government. Nonetheless, they believe that
government should recognize the moral institutions on which society
relies and should be run on the assumption that they are good things
that should not be undercut. Thus, conservatives oppose public school
curricula that depict traditional moral values as optional and
programs that fund their rejection, for example by subsidizing unwed
parents or artists who intend their works to outrage accepted
morality. They believe the state should support fundamental moral
institutions like the family, and oppose legislation that forbids
discrimination on moral grounds. How much more the government can or
should do to promote morality is a matter of experience and
circumstance. In this connection, as in others, conservatives
typically do not have very high expectations for what government can
achieve although they do view government as important.
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