"728. Moral anarchy. The antagonism between a virtue policy and a success policy is a constant ethical problem. The Renaissance in Italy shows that although moral traditions may be narrow and mistaken, any morality is better than moral anarchy. Moral traditions are guides which no one can afford to neglect. They are in the mores and they are lost in every great revolution of the mores. Then the men are morally lost. Their notions, desires, purposes, and means become false, and even the notion of crime is arbitrary and untrue. If all try the policy of dishonesty, the result will be the firmest conviction that honesty is the best policy. The mores aim always to arrive at correct notions of virtue. In so far as they reach correct results the virtue policy proves to be the only success policy."
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Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesLibertarians from the United StatesSociologists from the United StatesLibertarian conservatives‎
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William Graham Sumner
William Graham Sumner (October 30, 1840 – April 12, 1910) was a Classic Liberal American academic and "held the first professorship in sociology" at Yale College.
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