Liberalism Without Perfection: Arguments for a Political Liberalism

不完美的自由主义：政治自由主义的论证

• 批准号: AH/F004303/1
• 负责人: Jonathan Quong
• 金额: $ 3.03万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF004303%2F1
• 关键词: Liberalism; Without; Perfection; Arguments; Political

My research is in liberal political philosophy. More exactly, it is about what kind of reasons or arguments provide the best justification for liberal rights and institutions. Unlike authoritarian regimes, in a liberal democracy the use of state power should be justifiable to citizens. But what kinds of reasons can serve to justify the use of state power in a liberal democracy? Many philosophers have argued that state actions are justifiable when their aim is to improve the goodness of citizens' lives, measured in terms of some intrinsic value or values. According to one plausible view, freedom or autonomy is presumed to be at the heart of what it means to lead a fully good, flourishing life. Liberal rights and political institutions are therefore justified because they are a necessary element of this flourishing. The liberal state sets us free, and this freedom empowers us to realize the best aspects of our own nature. Because this view offers a determinate conception of the human good, and justifies liberalism in terms of its contribution towards achieving that good, it is called liberal perfectionism. I argue, however, that that there are a number of fatal difficulties with the liberal perfectionist position. First, I argue that liberal perfectionism's focus on autonomy as a central part of the human good lacks plausibility. Second, I claim that liberal perfectionism, despite claims to the contrary, is inescapably paternalistic and thus fails to treat citizens with the respect it claims they are due. Finally, I argue that liberal perfectionism lacks a plausible account of political legitimacy, it is unable to explain how the state gains the moral right to rule over its citizens. Instead, I aim to develop a distinctive version of political liberalism. Political liberalism remains faithful to the ideal that state authority must be justifiable to citizens by insisting that the state abstain from endorsing any particular views about the goodness of a life. Legitimate political reasons are instead defined as only those that could be endorsed by any reasonable person, no matter what their plan of life may be. The book on which I'm working has three main features. First, it offers major and original criticisms of liberal perfectionism, something which no recent monograph in political philosophy has done. Second, it develops a distinctive account of political liberalism. Finally, it defends political liberalism from a number of serious objections. In the book's final chapter I also consider how political liberalism can be applied to a pressing political issue: the toleration of fundamentalist minorities within liberal democratic societies. Although liberal political philosophy sometimes proceeds at a fairly abstract level, it also bears on many practical issues of real significance. For example, most liberal democracies currently have laws which prohibit or restrict activities such as prostitution, gambling, smoking, drinking, recreational drug use, same-sex marriage, and pornography partly on the grounds that these activities are 'bad' for us or are otherwise inconsistent with living a valuable human life. The debate between liberal perfectionism and political liberalism is directly relevant to such policies, and it is one of the goals of my monograph to show that public policies based on this kind of reasoning are insufficiently liberal, and so fail to accord citizens the respect which they are due as independent moral agents.

我的研究方向是自由主义政治哲学。更确切地说，它是关于什么样的理由或论点为自由权利和制度提供了最好的理由。与专制政权不同，在自由民主国家，国家权力的使用应该对公民来说是正当的。但是，什么样的理由可以证明在自由民主国家使用国家权力是正当的呢？许多哲学家认为，当国家行为的目的是改善公民生活的美好程度时，国家行为是合理的，这些行为是以某种内在价值来衡量的。根据一种似是而非的观点，自由或自主被认为是过一种完全美好、繁荣的生活的核心。因此，自由权利和政治制度是合理的，因为它们是这种繁荣的必要因素。自由的国家使我们自由，这种自由使我们能够实现我们本性中最好的方面。因为这种观点提供了一个关于人类善的确定性概念，并根据自由主义对实现善的贡献来证明自由主义的合理性，所以它被称为自由主义完美主义。然而，我认为，自由主义完美主义者的立场有许多致命的困难。首先，我认为，自由完美主义的重点自主权作为人类利益的核心部分缺乏可解释性。第二，我认为，自由主义完美主义，尽管声称相反，是不可避免的家长式作风，因此未能对待公民的尊重，它声称他们是应有的。最后，我认为自由主义完美主义缺乏对政治合法性的合理解释，它无法解释国家如何获得统治其公民的道德权利。相反，我的目标是发展一种独特的政治自由主义。政治自由主义仍然忠实于这样一种理想，即国家权威必须对公民是正当的，坚持国家不支持任何关于生活美好的特定观点。合法的政治理由被定义为只有那些可以被任何理性的人认可的理由，不管他们的生活计划是什么。我正在写的这本书有三个主要特点。首先，它对自由主义完美主义提出了主要的、原创性的批评，这是最近没有一本政治哲学专著做过的。第二，它发展了一种独特的政治自由主义。最后，它捍卫了政治自由主义从一些严重的反对意见。在本书的最后一章，我还考虑了政治自由主义如何应用于一个紧迫的政治问题：在自由民主社会中对原教旨主义少数群体的宽容。虽然自由主义政治哲学有时在相当抽象的层次上进行，但它也涉及许多具有真实的意义的实际问题。例如，大多数自由民主国家目前都有法律禁止或限制诸如卖淫、赌博、吸烟、饮酒、娱乐性毒品使用、同性婚姻和色情等活动，部分原因是这些活动对我们“有害”，或者与过有价值的人类生活不一致。自由主义完美主义和政治自由主义之间的争论与这些政策直接相关，我的专著的目标之一就是要表明，基于这种推理的公共政策不够自由，因此未能给予公民作为独立的道德行为人应有的雅阁。