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Many moral conservatives are concerned to preserve a particular way of life, others to
enforce a particular understanding of morality. Either view can underpin legal moralism,
the claim that conduct may be prohibited on the ground that it is inherently immoral even
though it causes neither harm nor offence to others. Other things being equal, it seems
plausible to want to prevent evil, and, according to the advocates of legal moralism, just
as plausible as wanting to prevent harm. The liberal’s response is that even though the
prevention of evil is in itself a reason to restrict individual, it is too slight a reason in the
end to warrant such restriction. The most famous defender of legal moralism has been
Patrick Devlin (who subsequently became the Lord Chief Justice in Great Britain) but
there have been others in both the UK and the US. Devlin flits between three
distinguishable claims: strict legal moralism, moral conservatism and a view about the
risks of public harm from certain conduct. I will reconstruct three arguments I think can
be found in his writings.