POLS 250 Lecture 2: Political Morality

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Political Studies
• Course: POLS 250
• Professor: Colin Farrelly

Document Summary

Conservatism is a political morality it is a view about the political arrangements that make a society good this fosters good lives. Lives are good if the balance between the satisfactions enjoyed and the benefits conferred, on the one hand, and the dissatisfactions suffered and the harms inflicted, on the other, is strongly in favor of the former. Conservatism is not a unitary position: it has different versions, and their advocates disagree with each other about what political arrangements ought to be conserved. A common ground among conservatives is that the political arrangements that ought to be conserved are discovered by reflection on why, how, and for what reason they have come to hold. The conservative view is that history is the best guide to understanding the present and planning. Those who believe the later think there i metaphysical explanation for historical success or failure. Think there is a rational & moral order in reality.