Radical Niceness.(Review)

Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice, by Alan Wolfe (Norton, 256 pp., $24.95)

Alan Wolfe, a prominent public intellectual and sociologist of moderately liberal convictions, is fast establishing himself as our foremost chronicler of-and apologist for-the moral softening of America. In his last book, One Nation After All, Wolfe discovered that Americans of different regions, classes, religions, and political convictions are united in their embrace of nonjudgmentalism-and decided that, some minor reservations aside, there was little reason to lament this development. In Moral Freedom, he employs a nationwide opinion poll, as well as in-depth interviews with 205 people from eight disparate communities, to demonstrate that America has become a nation averse to moral absolutes. Once again he draws sunny conclusions from his findings.

No matter where he looks-in a predominantly gay neighborhood in San Francisco, a wealthy Silicon Valley suburb, a small town in Iowa, working-class and immigrant communities in Massachusetts and Texas- Wolfe finds that Americans believe the moral principles of past ages were far too strict and inflexible to be relevant to their exceedingly complicated lives. Take honesty, for example. Most of the people in Wolfe's study think it's wrong to lie. But at the same time, they believe that there are exceptions to the rule. In the words of a housewife from Dayton, "nothing is black and white and every circumstance merits its own judgment."

There is an obvious problem with giving such wide latitude to individual choice in moral matters. As Wolfe points out, "once people get it into their heads that they can determine for themselves when to be honest and when not to be," there's a danger that they will treat honesty as "a mere convenience" that can be "disregarded whenever it no longer serves our purpose." And yet, thankfully, most Americans don't follow through on the nastiest implications of their moral flexibility.

What accounts for their apparent restraint? Wolfe's research suggests that, for all of their refusal to be pinned down, Americans do in fact appeal to one universal moral principle-namely, "Do No Harm." And as Wolfe demonstrates, this commandment leads them to stake out a series of highly equivocal moral positions. Divorce is bad because it harms children, but it's okay if you're really unhappy in your marriage. Religion is good because it provides solace, but it should be rejected if it makes you feel bad about yourself. Discipline is admirable because it gives you self-esteem, but it shouldn't be allowed to make you uptight. Self-indulgence is fine because everyone likes to have a little fun, but it must never result in physical injury of any kind. One thus comes away from Wolfe's book with the impression that Americans are quite possibly the nicest Machiavellians in history.

Wolfe's reflection on what he sees as the somewhat charming lack of moral constraint among his respondents leads him cheerfully to propose that the "twenty-first century will be the century of moral freedom" in America. While this term may invoke such courageous figures as ...