Liberalism and ethical life : on equality, neutrality, and culture

Liberalism faces an apparent paradox. Its commitments to values such as neutrality and tolerance seem to recommend a hands-off attitude toward a society's ethical life. It seems the state should not regulate the value systems that underlie a society's ethos, group interests, or individual lives. Yet plausible sociological claims suggest that to respect liberal values, the state should interfere with ethical life. So, liberal justice appears to recommend sharply conflicting attitudes to ethical life. In three chapters, I argue that liberalism should adopt a limited hands-on attitude toward ethical life that avoids the apparent paradox.In the first chapter, "Meanness, generosity, and Rawlsian distributive justice," I contend that the liberal state should shape ethical life to respect the value of equality. A hands-off attitude blinds the state to its effects on the market ethos. These effects can interfere with distributive justice-e.g., if the ethos is marked by extreme greediness. A state that attends to its effects on ethical life may promote less greed and thereby a more just distribution.In the second chapter, "Examining the hoopla over opera: liberal neutrality as justified interference," I argue for liberal neutrality as neutrality of justified interference. This view permits constrained interference with ethical life, but permits no interference that is itself inadequately justified.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Kurtz, Roxanne Marie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joshua Cohen and Sally Haslanger.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45896

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/45896