The Liberal Polity : An Inquiry Into the Logic of Civil Association

This work introduces and defends a radically different type of liberal political theory by severing liberal thought from all underlying moral foundations. Its aim is to present a type of liberalism capable of accommodating the richly diverse differences of worldview and moral theory of the good present in today's pluralist societies. By constructing liberalism as a purely political doctrine, the author develops a theory of toleration, and civil association more generally, capable of meeting liberalism's historic commitment to diversity. While the justification for such a liberalism must be made in prudential terms, rather than the more familiar moral terms used to support competing liberal theories, the liberalism developed here remains faithful to the liberal tradition by defending a theory of equal liberty as the primary political virtue of a just society. Traditional liberal argument proceeds by building a theory of civil association upon antecedent moral considerations and by focusing almost exclusively on the independent individual, thus ignoring the group-centered nature of social life. Because of these twin commitments, traditional liberal theory has difficulty accommodating the disparate illiberal and non-liberal group presences within the liberal polity. The purpose of this work is to advance a more comprehensive liberal theory of civil association, one capable of establishing a politics of unity within the polity regardless of the moral, religious, and ideological differences that might be present there. It does so first by defending civil association in prudential rather than moral terms, and second by shifting the focus of inquiry from the abstract individual to the presence of inter-group conflict within the polity. A theory of toleration is developed to indicate how tolerance problems between groups should be fairly and justly addressed by the liberal polity Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-19 A Prolegomenon to Political Thought....Pages 20-47 A Politics of Principle....Pages 48-82 Freedom and Toleration....Pages 83-117 Toleration and Group Autonomy....Pages 118-158 Stability, Legitimacy, and the Liberal Polity....Pages 159-191 Justice, Fairness, and the Making of Civility....Pages 192-225 Epilogue....Pages 226-229 Back Matter....Pages 230-253 This book introduces a radically different type of liberal political theory by severing liberal thought from all underlying moral foundations. It presents a liberalism that accommodates the differences of worldview and moral theory of the good in today's pluralist societies and also meets liberalism's historic commitment to diversity.