In this Book
- Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics
- Book
- 2005
- Published by: Penn State University Press
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
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- Analytic Contents
- pp. ix-xi
- 1: Liberalism in Crisis
- pp. 5-17
- 2: Liberalism and Ethics
- pp. 18-41
- 5: The Natural Right to Private Property
- pp. 97-107
- 6: Individualistic Perfectionism
- pp. 111-152
- 7: Defending Individualistic Perfectionism
- pp. 153-183
- 8: Natural Law and the Common Good
- pp. 184-205
- 9: Self-Ownership
- pp. 206-222
- Part Three: Defending Liberalism
- pp. 223-224
- 10: Communitarian and Conservative Critics
- pp. 225-264
- Epilogue: From Metanorms to Metaphysics
- pp. 340-346
Additional Information
ISBN
9780271052922
Related ISBN(s)
9780271027012
MARC Record
OCLC
85789767
Pages
464
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No