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. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-3 de 22
... extent to which freedom is the absence of coercion and the extent to which it is the opportunity to make reasonable choices ( Berlin 1969c ; Kukathas 1993 ; and Ryan 1979 ) . Liberal controversies about freedom , however , extend even ...
... extent to which their actions are autonomous . And insofar as they are exercising the kind of control over their actions that these conditions depict , they may be said to be making autonomous choices . Since conformity to the last ...
... extent to which they live autonomously . Egalitarians not only acknowledge such differences but appeal to them in support of many of their political programs . The universal and morally significant respect in which human beings are ...
Contenido
The Prevalence of Evil | 23 |
Individual Responsibility | 46 |
Collective Responsibility | 69 |
Derechos de autor | |
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