In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
How can we establish a political/legal order that in principle does not require the human flourishing of any person or group to be given structured preference over that of any other? Addressing this question as the central problem of political philosophy, Norms of Liberty offers a new conceptual foundation for political liberalism that takes protecting liberty, understood in terms of individual negative rights, as the primary aim of the political/legal order. Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue for construing individual rights as metanormative principles, directly tied to politics, that are used to establish the political/ legal conditions under which full moral conduct can take place. These they distinguish from normative principles, used to provide guidance for moral conduct within the ambit of normative ethics. This crucial distinction allows them to develop liberalism as a metanormative theory, not a guide for moral conduct. The moral universe need not be minimized or morality grounded in sentiment or contracts to support liberalism, they show. Rather, liberalism can be supported, and many of its internal tensions avoided, with an ethical framework of Aristotelian inspiration—one that understands human flourishing to be an objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, social, and self-directed activity.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Front Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Copyright Page
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Analytic Contents
  2. pp. ix-xi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Preface
  2. pp. xiii-xviii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part One: Liberalism and the Political Order
  2. pp. 1-3
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1: Liberalism in Crisis
  2. pp. 5-17
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2: Liberalism and Ethics
  2. pp. 18-41
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3: Liberalism’s Past and Precedents
  2. pp. 42-75
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4: Why Individual Rights? Rights as Metanormative Principles
  2. pp. 76-96
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5: The Natural Right to Private Property
  2. pp. 97-107
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part Two: A New Deep Structure for Liberalism
  2. pp. 109-110
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 6: Individualistic Perfectionism
  2. pp. 111-152
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 7: Defending Individualistic Perfectionism
  2. pp. 153-183
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 8: Natural Law and the Common Good
  2. pp. 184-205
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 9: Self-Ownership
  2. pp. 206-222
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Part Three: Defending Liberalism
  2. pp. 223-224
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 10: Communitarian and Conservative Critics
  2. pp. 225-264
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 11: The Structure of the Argument for Individual Rights
  2. pp. 265-283
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 12: Defending Individualistic Non-Perfectionist Politics
  2. pp. 284-339
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Epilogue: From Metanorms to Metaphysics
  2. pp. 340-346
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 347-358
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Back Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.