Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics

Contents

The American notion [is] that the end of government is liberty, not happiness, or prosperity, or power, or the preservation of an historic inheritance, or the adaptation of national law to national character, or the progress of enlightenment and the promotion of virtue; [and] that the private individual should not feel the pressure of public authority, and should direct his life by the influences that are within him, not around him. —lord acton, the anglo-american tradition of liberty Contents Analytic Contents ix Preface xiii part one: liberalism and the political order 1 Liberalism in Crisis 5 2 Liberalism and Ethics 18 3 Liberalism’s Past and Precedents 42 4 Why Individual Rights? Rights as Metanormative Principles 76 5 The Natural Right to Private Property 97 part two: a new deep structure for liberalism 6 Individualistic Perfectionism 111 7 Defending Individualistic Perfectionism 153 8 Natural Law and the Common Good 184 9 Self-Ownership 206 part three: defending liberalism 10 Communitarian and Conservative Critics 225 11 The Structure of the Argument for Individual Rights 265 12 Defending Individualistic Non-Perfectionist Politics 284 Epilogue: From Metanorms to Metaphysics 340 Index 347 Analytic Contents Preface xiii part one: liberalism and the political order 1 Liberalism in Crisis 5 2 Liberalism and Ethics 18 The Good and the Right 22 The Socialization of Ethics 28 The Metanormative Solution 33 3 Liberalism’s Past and Precedents 42 The Nature of Liberalism 44 Natural Rights 62 4 Why Individual Rights? Rights as Metanormative Principles 76 The Basic Right to Liberty 76 Rights as Metanormative Principles 78 Human Flourishing—Objective but Plural 79 Human Flourishing—Profoundly Social 81 Requirements for Metanormativity 83 Justifying the Political/Legal Order 84 Human Flourishing—A Self-Directed Activity 86 Self-Direction as the Basis for Metanormativity 88 Protecting the Possibility of Self-Direction Among Others 89 Understanding Individual Rights 91 Why Individual Rights Trump 92 A Major Objection Considered 94 5 The Natural Right to Private Property 97 ...