First appeared in the Boston Globe.
James Q. Wilson
The Moral Sense
The Free Press, New York, 1993.
“If man is infinitely malleable, he is much at risk from the
various despotisms of this world.” This statement, occurring near the end of The
Moral Sense, might just as well have served as its preamble. The notion that
humanity is infinitely malleable, that we come equipped with nothing that might
serve as an inherent counterweight to tyranny, is one James Wilson, former head
of Harvard’s government department, strives to disprove.
