A Liberal Theory of the Good?

Abstract

Assuming that the argument of the previous chapter is correct, a puzzle arises. If it is indeed a relatively straightforward path of argument that leads to the conclusion that liberalism is not neutral with regard to the question of the good life, then why do so many liberals remain convinced that it is?¹ Why, when liberals and their critics debate the issue of neutrality, do they so often seem to talk beyond one another? It seems to me that instances of these debates ought to come off better than they do, and in this essay I attempt to describe how they might. Leaving aside the consequences of state action and inaction in relation to the ideal of neutrality, I focus instead upon the two-tiered structure of liberal thinking about the idea of the good and the ideal of neutrality. My claim is that this structure inclines liberals to subtly but powerfully distort the nature of non-liberal ideals through the way in which the notion of “conceptions of the good” is itself conceptualized.