On Monday, Cass will build his case for a stronger, more compelling, and more resilient conservatism on the basis of better definitions of obligation and the problem of free riding.
The modern, secular American despises the free rider but misunderstands the problem. So long as he does not take from or directly impose costs on anyone else, the thinking goes, he should be free to do as he pleases. This is, in a sense, the core of today’s secular morality.
But conservatives have too often used the same playbook. No more.
Instead, we must frame our fundamental argument in terms of the obligations that each of us may not have chosen but nonetheless must fulfill. To renounce these is to free ride, to exploit, and ultimately to erode.
These concepts are widely resonant. No one likes a free rider. Yet in today’s political discourse, it is the Left, not the Right, that speaks in the most powerful moral terms. The task for those of us who call ourselves conservatives is to offer something better.
Join us on Monday to begin this project of constructing a better conservatism in the secular age.
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