ABSTRACT
The state's primary obligation is to uphold "public morality": through legislation and punishment it ought to protect innocent citizens against the rapacious tendencies of those inclined to criminality. The role of any genuine political community, then, goes beyond merely protecting the person and property of citizens against attack; it also includes the formidable duty of creating a societal environment that conduces to making men moral. Robert P. George is particularly masterful in his dissection of John Rawls's attack on morals legislation based on his famed decision making process from behind the "veil of ignorance." George has done an admirable job of elucidating and defending the theoretical basis of laws directed to making men moral. A local boycott of stores that traffic in pornography seems like a far less perilous path than the appointment of government censors and granting expanded powers to police vice squads.
