Against LiberalismCornell University Press, 1997 - 244 sider 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. |
Fra bogen
Resultater 1-3 af 8
... secondary values . Both primary and secondary values contribute to moral diversity because there are many different primary and secondary values and because the same ones often have different importance within differ- ent moral ...
... secondary values of certain forms . Specific secondary values , such as monogamy , scientific creativity , manual dexterity , and a prestigious job are context - dependent , and they do not normally carry authority outside of their ...
... secondary importance to states of mind . The second is to stress the primary importance of changing the states of mind from which both cruel actions and the victim's suffering follow and to attribute secondary importance to the actions ...
Indhold
The Prevalence of Evil | 23 |
Individual Responsibility | 46 |
Collective Responsibility | 69 |
Copyright | |
9 andre sektioner vises ikke