Our Character, Our Future: on Crime

External violence results from internal lawlessness

Crime and violence aren’t just social facts--they are moral realities. Moral problems can’t be addressed with external solutions such as gun control or condom distribution. They need internal remedies. Though we shy away from the subject these days, most decent people know in their hearts that the only solution to these moral problems is moral education. The basic principle of all moral education is respect for our moral faculty, i.e., the human capacity to act rationally, to discipline passion in order to prevent immoral consequences. Lawless ideas have lawless consequences.