О вызове либерализма и его теоретических основаниях

One of the key objections raised against political liberalism is the argument from asymmetry, which claims that political liberalism holds double standards between its treatment of the right and the good. According to political liberalism, the question of the good life, unlike the question of political justice, fundamentally divides even reasonable people in a liberal society, so the most sensible thing to do is for the state to refrain from making references, let alone officially endorsing, comprehensive doctrines in order to avoid implications of paternalism and even totalitarianism. However, it is also reasonable to assume that similar disagreements exist in the realm of justice. According to Joseph Chan, liberals “owe perfectionists an account as to why the state’s enforcement of controversial decisions is problematic only in the case of conceptions of the good life and not in non-good-life issues like social justice.” In other words, liberals must show that the distinction between social justice and the good life is so deep that they warrant asymmetric treatments. For instance, why is it not justified for the liberal state to endorse Aristotelian teleological ethics, whereas its endorsement of court decisions, policies on national defense, and education reforms that are no less controversial is considered legitimate? Michael Sandel argues that “political liberalism must assume not only that the exercise of human reason under conditions of freedom will produce disagreements about the good life but also that the exercise of human reason under conditions of freedom will not produce disagreements of justice.” The asymmetry objection is considered by many to be so powerful that “as long as [it] remains unanswered, the pursuit of justice opens the door to perfectionism.” As Jonathan Quong correctly points out, the asymmetry objection, instead of challenging the main assumptions from which political liberalism begins, “purports to show that political liberalism is not even internally coherent; that liberal neutrality concerning the good cannot be consistently derived from within the political liberal position.” The force of the asymmetry objection is thus twofold. First, it casts doubt on the distinction between the right and the good that lies in the heart of political liberalism. If this distinction is blurred, people who are sympathetic to perfectionism will have the ground to propose alternatives to the neutral state, albeit liberal or not. Second, the objection also turns some of the most widely used political liberal defenses against political liberalism and vindicates the reasonability of perfectionism.

ABSTRACTThis article examines liberal political theory’s limits and possibilities in relation to indigenous self-determination. It shows that while the liberal tradition has provided theoretical rationale to the colonial project it is also equipped to rationalise a politics of substantive indigenous inclusion. The article introduces the recourses that exist within liberal theory for non-colonial interpretations of citizenship, democracy and sovereignty. It shows how these concepts may be interpreted to contribute to a liberal theory of indigeneity as a theory emphasising independent indigenous authority on the one hand and culturally contextualised and substantive participation in the politics of the state on the other.

L'A. evalue l'importance de l'idee de la difference dans la theorie et la pratique politiques contemporaines. Tandis que l'accentuation de la difference est un antidote utile contre le faux universalisme de maintes theories d'emancipation, il est difficile de determiner sa signification au sens large

This study examines ways in which political ideology influences discourses of race and social class in the formal curriculum and teacher attitudes in social studies education. More specifically, the study determined how elements of conservative, liberal, and radical ideologies affect discourses around race, social class, democracy and citizenship. The study drew on two data sources: all seven versions of the formal social studies curriculum used in British Columbia's high schools from 1941 to the present; and transcripts from interviews with current social studies department heads in ten high schools in Vancouver, British Columbia. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyze both data sources. The interview transcripts were also analyzed using an interpretation of meaning approach. The study demonstrates that the British Columbia curriculum evolved from a conservative document to one influenced by liberalism. The early curriculum guides were essentially conservative. The 1956,1968, and 1980 versions indicated oscillation between these two ideologies. The 1988 and 1997 versions were completely dominated by liberalism. Over this time period, conservative depictions of non-white peoples that were overtly racist transformed to liberal representations in a pluralist multicultural framework. Social class issues were always presented from the standpoint of capital in the conservative versions of the curriculum, while subsequent liberal versions almost completely ignored social class representation. The treatment of democracy and citizenship evolved from conservative to liberal conceptions. Radical elements were almost completely absent from any curricular documents. The study revealed that ideology influences teacher attitudes toward issues of race, class, democracy and citizenship. In general, liberalism was the most dominant ideology. Conservative discourses, however, appeared more than in the formal curriculum. Teachers invoked radical discourses only rarely. The liberal cultural deficit discourse was used by the majority to explain differences in academic proficiency along axes of race and class. Conservative genetic-deficit discourses appeared about as frequently as radical discourses that focused on unfair structural problems. The teachers were evenly divided in their use of conservative and liberal discourses about democracy and citizenship. Recommendations were made to alter social studies curriculum and teacher education programs to reflect social justice aims from a radical perspective.

Some religiously devout individuals believe divine command can override an obligation to obey the law where the two are in conflict. At the extreme, some individuals believe that acts of violence that seek to change or punish a political community, or to prevent others from violating what they take to be God’s law, are morally justified. In the face of this apparent clash between religious and political commitments it might seem that modern versions of political morality—such as John Rawls’s political liberalism—that refuse to take a stance on controversial religious matters, or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, are beset by a particularly acute version of this problem of religious disobedience. Whilst political liberalism follows this path so as to generate wide and stable support, it raises the question of how political liberals should respond to religiously motivated non-compliance with the norms of that liberal conception of justice. This article evaluates what resources are available to political liberalism to respond to this challenge. It examines whether anti-perfectionism can be sustained in the face of those whose religious beliefs are in conflict with the law. We argue that, under certain circumstances, political liberalism requires direct engagement with the religious views of the unreasonable, including offering religious arguments to show that their particular interpretation of their faith is mistaken. This view takes political liberalism away from its usual ambitions, but it is a position that is both anticipated by Rawls and consistent with his view. It does, however, require that political liberals give up the claim that the view is a wholly non-sectarian, purely political view, and accept that, under certain circumstances it is a partially comprehensive version of liberal theory.

Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture attempted to explain why cultural identity was important to people, and how liberal theory could accommodate cultural identity. Kymlicka’s book argued that minority cultures deserve to have certain kinds of rights to help them survive. Cultural membership, he argued, was such an important good that liberal political theory was amiss in overlooking it; it needed to be amended in order to recognize that the self-respect of most people was tied to cultural membership, and that people needed a secure cultural context in which to make choices. Yet the importance of the self-respect argument fades in Kymlicka’s later book Multicultural Citizenship, which gives more emphasis to larger cultural groups that are marked off by language. In this article, I focus on the shift that Kymlicka makes between the two books, arguing that the revisions that Kymlicka made to the argument in Liberalism, Community and Culture were necessary, while making the argument less theoretically satisfying.

This thesis offers a positive reinterpretation of the relevance of Isaiah Berlin’s political thought. It re-examines his work hermeneutically with the double aim of claiming its intrinsic relevance as a work of political theory beyond what most critics have acknowledged, first; and second, with the intention of using it to draw conclusions that will address some of the most pressing discussions found in contemporary liberal political theory, such as the conflicting link between value pluralism and liberalism, or the recent confrontation between political moralism and political realism. This is achieved by reading Berlin hermeneutically, and thus transcending the categorical differentiation between historical and philosophical methods in his work. The argument is presented in three sections. The first one is a biographical introduction that acts as a methodological statement. In it, the dilemma on the nature of values that sits at the heart of Berlin’s work is defined by reference to his biographical context. The second section of the thesis is formed by three chapters that look at the central philosophical aspects of Berlin’s political thought: value pluralism and a neo-Kantian normative ethical theory that emerges in relation to it. By claiming a relationship between Berlin and Kant, and by presenting value pluralism as a meta-ethical theory, the thesis offers an alternative reading of Berlin’s work that deviates substantively from most existing scholarship. The third section of the thesis compares Berlin’s political interpretation of value pluralism with that of Bernard Williams and John Rawls, in order to claim that liberal theory demands a hermeneutic method in its justification. This will show the enduring relevance of Berlin’s contribution to political theory as one that expands beyond his own historical moment, against what many commentators have argued. It also raises a strong claim on the crucial implications of method in political theory, calling for a more hermeneutic approach.

Ronald Dworkin has remarked liberal political theory approaches questions of justice from the view that justice must be independent of any idea of human excellence or of the good life.' Although all liberal theorists do not consciously place this premise at the center of their theories, Bruce Ackerman focuses directly on the assumption. He calls this starting point of liberal theory the Neutrality principle. In liberal state all discussion about the legitimacy of power relationships must be constrained by this principle, he thinks; if we carefully adhere to it, it can lead us to the other liberal principles of social justice. The frequently heard accusation liberal theory is bankrupt will be rebutted, according to Ackerman, if he can provide a single example of liberal theory equal to the conceptual task of providing Neutral order to the struggle for power. 2 The Neutrality principle limits the kinds of arguments which are acceptable in liberal dialogue. No reason is good reason if it requires the power holder to assert: (a) his conception of the good is better than asserted by any of his fellow citizens, or (b) that, regardless of his conception of the good, he is intrinsically superior to one or more of his fellow citizens.3 Ackerman also thinks other principles must guide liberal dialogue. The other two he suggests, however, consistency and rationality, are generally accepted canons of thought and do not distinguish his theory from host of others. Furthermore, Ackerman acknowledges consistency and rationality could lead to illiberal conclusions. Ifthere is anything distinctive about liberalism, it must be in the kinds of reasons liberals rely on to legitimate their claims to scarce resources.4 For Ackerman, only reasons which pass test of

The history of political liberalism has produced a number of competing normative theories. Each of them offers conceptual frameworks which induce one to select specific questions as being the most important and to answer them using specific concepts, values and language, while other questions, concepts and values put forward by rival theories are sidelined or simply ignored. More specifically, liberal political theories of a strictly individualistic nature tend to approach the issue of national and cultural minorities through a notion of homogeneous ‘citizenship’, while liberal theories which combine the individual perspective with others of a collective nature will be more inclined to introduce different principles of legitimisation and to pluralise the concept and the institutional regulation of citizenship through national and cultural pluralism.KeywordsLiberal TheoryPolitical LiberalismLiberal Political TheoryMoral IndividualismNational TermThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Liberal political theory seeks to enable diverse groups to coexist respectfully despite their differences. According to liberals, this requires embracing certain political institutions and refraining from imposing controversial views on others. The liberal formula has enjoyed considerable success. However, green political theorists insist liberal societies will precipitate an ecological crisis unless they are transformed in line with (controversial) green views. These perspectives highlight a longstanding gap in liberal theory. Liberalism rose to prominence only after Reformation-era Christians accepted that societal success did not require the ascendancy of any particular doctrine. Liberals never had to show how their recommendations could be reconciled with the once-common view that toleration would be catastrophic. Yet today’s greens once again anticipate catastrophe unless they can remake civilization around their doctrines. Liberals must find a way to respond to these concerns if they are to sustain their paradigm amidst environmental conflicts.

In recent work, Martha Nussbaum has exposed an important ambiguity in the standard conception of political liberalism. The ambiguity centers on the notion of “reasonableness” as it applies to comprehensive doctrines and to persons. As Nussbaum observes, the notion of reasonableness in political liberalism can be construed in a purely ethical sense or in a sense that combines ethical and epistemic elements. The ambiguity bears crucially on the respect for persons norm—a key norm that helps to distinguish political from perfectionist versions of liberalism. Nussbaum contends that when political liberals affirm a construal of reasonableness that includes epistemic elements they run into trouble in formulating an account of their view that sharply distinguishes it from perfectionist liberalism. She contends further that perfectionist versions of liberalism should be rejected since they fail to offer an account of respect for persons. This paper responds to Nussbaum’s challenge. It argues that an adequate account of respect for persons must make reference to epistemic elements. This being the case not only explains why political liberals were correct to incorporate epistemic elements into their accounts of reasonableness but also why it is a mistake to think that perfectionist liberals themselves cannot present an appealing account of respect for persons. Nussbaum’s challenge merits careful study since it both sheds light on the nature of political liberalism and highlights an important faultline in its structure.

This chapter outlines the main features of political liberalism and explains why it is thought to have quite strongly anti-perfectionist implications. The discussion is organized around the following argument for anti-perfectionism commonly given by political liberals: reasonable citizens disagree in their judgements about what constitutes a good life (often called ‘the fact of reasonable pluralism’); state action must be acceptable or justifiable to all reasonable citizens (often called ‘the public justification principle’); therefore, state action must not be premised on judgements about what constitutes a good life. This chapter also explores several of the rationales that political liberals have given for the public justification principle, namely equal respect, stability and the reactive attitudes.

Proponents of environmentalist views often urge the teaching of such views and the inculcation of ‘green’ values within the educational curriculum of schools as a key component of achieving their ends. It might seem that modern versions of political morality that refuse to take a stance on controversial questions—religious, ethical, philosophical—or eschew appeal to perfectionist doctrines, such as Rawlsian political liberalism, are beset by a particularly acute difficulty in this regard. To the extent that environmentalist views embody claims about ethical matters such as how individuals should live their lives, they fall foul of this version of political morality. This article evaluates the resources available to political liberalism to respond to the challenge of bringing the teaching of green values and virtues within the national curriculum. It argues that environmental concerns differ in morally important ways from other ethical, philosophical, and religious views that are typically off-limits to political liberalism. Much that passes as green ideals are not simply a conception of the good life in the manner that religious views, for example, are. Rather, many environmental goods are crucial to the realisation of socioeconomic justice and therefore escape the requirement of state neutrality on endorsing the truth or importance of their role. A minimal political liberal education includes teaching about justice-based concerns as part of a compulsory national curriculum.

Summary This article argues that neither Marxism nor poststructuralism (deconstruction) offers a viable means of conceptualising the relationship between politics and literature in the 1990's. It suggests, instead, that liberalism, properly understood ‐ both as a political philosophy and as a foundation for literary activity ‐ does provide a potentially successful way of approaching this interrelationship. The article begins by offering a liberal critique of Marxism and deconstruction at the levels both of their fundamental theoretical assumptions and their practical political and literary implications. It then attempts to clear up some of the confusion and misconceptions which continue to surround liberalism today by presenting a careful account of contemporary liberal political philosophy. Finally, the political analysis is related to the literary domain: a particular purpose is to consider how some of the key principles and concepts which inform modern‐day liberal political thought may have pertinent a...

Freedom is one of the pivotal ideas within liberal political thought. All liberals aim to secure individual liberty, but they differ about the degree of freedom that is required for the ‘good life’, particularly in relation to the desired level of interference by the state through public services and taxation. The importance and relevance of this internal liberal debate is hardly acknowledged by theorists of international relations (IR). This has led to a one-sided, often erroneous portrayal of liberalism, despite its dominance in IR theory. Here, this issue will be elaborated through the first comprehensive analysis of the international political thought of Ayn Rand. An analysis of her ideas, put against the main common characteristics of current liberal theories of international relations, yields additional and new evidence for the existence of a ‘liberal knowledge gap in IR theory’. This clearly needs to be acknowledged and addressed by IR theorists to get a fuller comprehension of liberalism and international relations theory.