Against LiberalismCornell University Press, 1997 - 244 páginas Liberalism is doomed to failure, John Kekes argues in this penetrating criticism of its basic assumptions. Liberals favor individual autonomy, a wide plurality of choices, and equal rights and resources, seeing them as essential for good lives. They oppose such evils as selfishness, intolerance, cruelty, and greed. Yet the more autonomy, equality, and pluralism there is, Kekes contends, the greater is the scope for evil. According to Kekes, liberalism is inconsistent because the conditions liberals regard as essential for good lives actually foster the very evils liberals want to avoid, and avoiding those evils depends on conditions contrary to the ones liberals favor. Kekes argues further that the liberal conceptions of equality, justice, and pluralism require treating good and evil people with equal respect, distributing resources without regard to what recipients deserve, and restricting choices to those that conform to liberal preconceptions. All these policies are detrimental to good lives. Kekes concludes that liberalism cannot cope with the prevalence of evil, that it is vitiated by inconsistent commitments, and that--contrary to its aim--liberalism is an obstacle to good lives. |
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... evaluation of their chosen actions must be based on sufficient understanding of the significance of these actions . This condition strengthens the positive constraint on the choice condition by requiring that the evaluations made by ...
... evaluation and understanding of them can be greater or lesser , agents , choices , and actions can be more or less autonomous . These five conditions require that autonomous actions be both free and based on the agents ' judgment . It ...
... evaluation and to understand their significance . Given the view of moral improvement that follows from the legitimating version of the principle , what these agents ought to do to become morally better is to increase their autonomy by ...
Contenido
The Prevalence of Evil | 23 |
Individual Responsibility | 46 |
Collective Responsibility | 69 |
Derechos de autor | |
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