Compromise and Political Action

No one likes to compromise, but we almost always do. Our politics and associations are built upon negotiation, respect for diversity, bargaining and elections. Compromise seems an awkward stepchild of morality and even dictionaries reflect its moral ambiguity. Most first definitions suggest that compromise involves "mutual concessions" or "negotiations". Many of our most vital liberties depend upon practices of tolerance and learning to "live with", "tolerate", "deal with" and even compromise with those with whom we mightily disagree. Today moral rhetoric and stridency threaten to engulf large segments of political life. Leaders of the left and especially the righ seek to extend pervasive moral visions of personal and social life through political power. This book examines the nature of political morality and the role of compromise in political life, especially the life of a liberal and democratic society. In it the author maps the nature of moral-political justification by free and responsible individuals through charting the nature of political compromise.