Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice

What is the difference between right and wrong? What does it mean to lead a good life? How binding is the marriage vow? What are your obligations to an employer? To your friends? To yourself? Is it always immoral to tell a lie?

"[A]n alert and knowledgeable social critic," Alan Wolfe asked Americans around the country such questions in "his intriguing exploration of our collective character, testing prevailing notions of the culture war" (New York Times Book Review). Focusing on the traditional virtues of loyalty, honesty, self-restraint, and forgiveness, Wolfe "seeks to gauge the moral spirit of the age not from the faculty common room, but by interviewing actual Americans" (Boston Globe) and discovered that "Americans...have not so much left traditional morality behind as they have redefined it in ways that suit their individual tastes, purposes and situations (Washington Post).