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Aristotelian Liberalism Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2009 Aristotelian liberalism: an inquiry into the foundations of a free and flourishing society Geoffrey Allan Plauche Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Plauche, Geoffrey Allan, "Aristotelian liberalism: an inquiry into the foundations of a free and flourishing society" (2009). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3248. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3248 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. ARISTOTELIAN LIBERALISM: AN INQUIRY INTO THE FOUNDATIONS OF A FREE AND FLOURISHING SOCIETY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Geoffrey Allan Plauché B.A., L.S.U., Political Science, 2002 B.A., L.S.U., History, 2002 M.A., L.S.U., Political Science, 2004 M.A., L.S.U., Philosophy, 2006 May 2009 Acknowledgments First, I must thank my dissertation adviser, Cecil Eubanks, for his guidance, suggestions and constructive criticism. I also thank the other members of my dissertation committee – Ellis Sandoz, James Stoner, Mark Schafer, Ian Crystal and Louis Day – for their support and suggestions. I am also grateful to James Stoner and The Earhart Foundation for the H. B. Earhart Fellowship that helped fund part of the research and writing of this dissertation. To Douglas Rasmussen, who read chapters two and three, and David Gordon, who read chapters two, three, six and seven – thank you both for your helpful comments and constructive criticism. I must also acknowledge my parents, family and friends, without whom I would not be who I am today. I owe a great deal of thanks to my friend, Nickie Abshire, who convinced a young Nietzschean to read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and set me down the path to becoming a libertarian. She changed me forever, for the better. Without her this dissertation would be something entirely different. Last but certainly not least, my lovely wife, Sajida, has been my island of sanity while writing this dissertation, especially during those times when it seemed I was in over my head. She has also supported me financially over the past couple of years while I worked on my dissertation. My deepest thanks to all of you for your encouragement and support, and for putting up with an intransigent wild-eyed radical such as myself. The usual disclaimer regarding any and all errors remaining in this dissertation applies. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………….......ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...............iv Chapter One. Introduction…….………………………………………………………...…….......1 Chapter Two. Eudaimonia and the Right to Liberty: Rights as Metanormative Principles…………………..………………..................................27 Chapter Three. Eudaimonia , Virtue and the Right to Liberty: Rights as Both Metanormative and Interpersonal Normative Principles………………….....52 Chapter Four. Eudaimonia and the Basic Goods and Virtues…………………………..……….84 Chapter Five. Liberal and Communitarian Conceptions of Society..……...…………………...128 Chapter Six. The New Left and Participatory Democracy……………………….……......…...158 Chapter Seven. Immanent Politics and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia ………………….................186 Chapter Eight. Free Markets and Free Enterprise: Their Ethical and Cultural Principles and Foundations…………………………………….217 Chapter Nine. Conclusion............................................................................................................250 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………................266 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...277 iii Abstract My dissertation builds on the recent work of Douglas Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl and Roderick Long in developing an Aristotelian liberalism. It is argued that a neo-Aristotelian form of liberalism has a sounder foundation than others and has the resources to answer traditional left-liberal, postmodern, communitarian and conservative challenges by avoiding certain Enlightenment pitfalls: the charges of atomism, an a-historical and a-contextual view of human nature, license, excessive normative neutrality, the impoverishment of ethics and the trivialization of rights. An Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural rights is developed that allows for a robust conception of the good while fully protecting individual liberty and pluralism. It is further argued that there is an excessive focus on what the State can and should do for us; politics is reconceived as discourse and deliberation between equals in joint pursuit of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being, happiness) and its focus is shifted to what we as members of society can and should do for ourselves and each other. iv Chapter One. Introduction Freedom is, in truth, a sacred thing. There is only one thing else that better serves the name: that is virtue. But then what is virtue if not the free choice of what is good? – Alexis de Tocqueville The practical reason for freedom, then, is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fibre can be developed. – Albert Jay Nock The main purpose of this dissertation is to develop an Aristotelian form of (classical) liberalism. In doing so I will be building on a burgeoning tradition, the principal proponents of which include Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, Roderick Long, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand, Fred Miller, and Tibor Machan. In some areas I will be disagreeing with one or more of these thinkers and in other areas I will be extending Aristotelian liberalism beyond their work. In the process I will also present and attempt to resolve a number of related aporiai faced by liberalism, particularly an Aristotelian liberalism. How is Aristotelian liberalism different from the dominant strains of liberalism which all have their roots in the Enlightenment? This can only really be answered fully by describing the essential features and serious flaws of Enlightenment liberalism. This will be done shortly. But a few things can be said first. Aristotelian liberals hold that man's natural end is a life of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being, happiness). We argue that virtue is constitutive of one's own flourishing but must be freely chosen to count as such. We disagree with social contract theorists, particularly Hobbes, in our insistence that man is a profoundly social being. Nevertheless, we argue that individuals are ends-in-themselves and not means to the ends of others. Enlightenment liberals hold liberty to be the highest political good and defend it and free markets on various grounds, the two dominant ones being 1) natural rights or 2) consequentialist 1 or utilitarian considerations (such as economic efficiency). While Aristotelian liberals take the natural rights approach, we differ with Enlightenment liberals on the ultimate grounding of these rights. Enlightenment liberals generally ground rights in self-ownership, some deontological or rule-consequentialist theory of ethics, or God. Aristotelian liberals ground rights in the requirements of eudaimonia . This difference has crucial implications that enable Aristotelian liberalism to avoid the major flaws Enlightenment liberalism’s critics have identified in it as well as some they have not. Among these advantages are that Aristotelian liberalism is concerned with more than considerations of political justice, rights, and liberty. It is able to recognize and account for the broader ethical and cultural foundations and principles necessary in order to bring about and maintain a free and flourishing society. In section three of his postscript of The Constitution of Liberty , “Why I Am Not a Conservative,” Friedrich Hayek wrote: When I say the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. 1 Rasmussen and Den Uyl have elaborated upon and emphasized this differentia specifica of liberalism identified by Hayek. They argue that liberalism is unique among political philosophies in having as a central concern “the problem of how to find an ethical basis for the overall political/legal structure of society,” namely one that recognizes the value of individual liberty and can accommodate moral and cultural pluralism and diversity. 2 Rasmussen and Den Uyl claim that this problem should be the central problem of political philosophy, but call it 1 Hayek (1978). 2 Rasmussen and Den Uyl (2005), p. 1. Moral and cultural pluralism and diversity do not necessarily imply moral relativism, subjectivism, or skepticism. 2 “liberalism’s
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