The common good of constitutional democracy: essays in political philosophy and on Catholic social teaching

Two: The Liberal Image of Man and the Concept of Autonomy: Beyond the Debate between Liberals and Communitarians

TWO The Liberal image of Man and the Concept of autonomy Beyond the Debate between Liberals and Communitarians Liberalism and the anthropological Problem More than a philosophical theory, today liberalism is a political reality . Even socialists and social-democrats in Western democracies profess a liberal political consensus. This consensus has its historical roots in those same political values and institutions by which liberal parties and movements traditionally struggled against absolutism, political and juridical arbitrariness , and every form of suppression of basic human rights. Today’s liberal political consensus is inspired by those same values that have promoted the free development of the creative and innovative forces inherent in society. In a certain sense we are all “liberals.” We identify ourselves with a political culture characterized by the fundamental principles of a constitutionalism whose central idea is the rule of law—the submission of raw power to a law that guarantees fundamental individual liberties. We appreciate the independence of the judiciary and the impartial justice that requires respect for the regulations (in large part procedural) of the positive law. We hold as indispensable and irreplaceable the principles of representation by a parliament elected by universal and secret vote, majority rule, and the protection of minorities. The fact that the profession and practice of this or that religious faith does not influence our conditions of citizen36 Liberal image of Man & Concept of autonomy 37 ship seems reasonable and just to us. The fact that being born into a specific social class does not definitively determine our place and function in society also seems reasonable and just. We defend the freedom and autonomy of the individual as the fundamental value that justifies our political institutions. We defend the fundamental right of every person to live a life in accord with personal and responsible choice—even if always somewhat conditioned by different social, cultural, and economic factors—rather than simply in accord with tradition, social position, or the impositions of those in public power. Certainly there are ideological aspects and components of classical and contemporary liberalism that are incompatible with the cultural-political order created by historical liberalism. Liberalism is not “a unitary development but a set of more or less converging tendencies.”1 It would be a simplistic error to equate liberalism with the ideals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Liberalism’s weakness was always a theoretical weakness, a lack of an ultimate foundation. Since the salient features of liberalism— such as individual freedom and moral rights—lack an ultimate basis, they “become the object more of faith than of knowledge. They signify a preference .”2 The contrast between liberalism’s practical strength and success and its widely recognized theoretical weakness as a political theory is a paradox in need of explanation. Without such an explanation, without clarifying what some consider a lack of philosophical coherence of the “liberal idea,” we can never fully understand the ultimate conceptual foundations of our liberal democracies.3 In the last twenty-five years, despite the historic theoretical weakness of liberalism, political philosophy has made important attempts to make explicit the major values of the liberal tradition inherent in contemporary democratic society, and in so doing has reopened the debate about liberalism as public philosophy.4 John Rawls’s influential A Theory of Justice5 stimulated 1. Vittorio Possenti, Le società liberali al bivio: Lineamenti di filosofia della società (Perugia: Marietti , 1991), 402. Editor’s translation. 2. Ibid. 3. Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau, Die liberale Gesellschaft und der Rechtsstaat, in Die liberale Gesellschaft : Castelgandolfo-Gespräche, 1992, ed. Krzysztof Michalski (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993), 103–32, especially 128. 4. For a discussion of the debate regarding liberalism as public philosophy, see Vittorio Possenti’s Le società liberali al bivio. For a reconstruction of a public philosophy on a non-liberal basis see William M. Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). 5. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). 38 Liberal image of Man & Concept of autonomy debate regarding liberalism’s anthropological implications, that is, liberalism ’s “image of man.” Because of important critiques advanced by the socalled communitarians and the subsequent correction of liberal theory, it is no longer clear whether liberalism implies any specific “image of man” or whether such an implication would even be desirable. One of the reasons for current confusion regarding liberalism’s anthropological implications can be traced to a defect in...