PERFECTIONIST LIBERALISM By SEAN MCKENZIE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ABSTRACT ii CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 THOMAS HOBBES 18 Geometry 18 Human Nature: Three Sources of Conflict 23 Solution 31 Hobbes' Liberalism 33 Conclusion 40 3 COMMUNITARIANISM 42 The Mismatch Between Society and Liberal Language.... 47 Liberal Practice 52 Criticizing the Critics 63 A New Divide 65 Liberal Worries About Communitarian Proposals 67 Concluding Remarks 74 4 ARISTOTLE AND MILL 78 Continuum Rather Than Chasm? 78 Aristotle, Mill, and the Unity of Their Projects 80 Aristotle and the Individual's Need for the City 82 Mill, the Individual, and Society 97 Oversight, Qualifications 102 Comparison 109 Taking One's Stand Ill 5 WILL KYMLICKA 114 Kymlicka, Liberalism, and the Good Life 114 Defense of the Liberal View of the Self 117 Critique of Communitarian Practical Politics 127 Minority Rights 142 Why Not Public Culture? 148 Conclusion 154 ii 6 WILLIAM GALSTON 156 Intrinsic Virtue 160 Instrumental Virtue 175 7 RAZ AND GEORGE 216 Raz and the Human Good: Autonomy 217 The Problem of Autonomy 224 Perfectionist Liberalism 227 George and the Human Good: Morality 234 Conclusion 244 8 CONCLUSION 250 Culture: the Common Denominator 250 Race, Culture, and the Legitimation Crisis 255 Three Endangered Virtues 261 Protecting the Endangered 279 Last Word 285 REFERENCES 287 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 293 iii , Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy PERFECTIONIST LIBERALISM By Sean David McKenzie August 1997 Chairman: Alfonse Damico Major Department: Political Science Perfectionist liberalism is a theory which examines ways in which the social fabric of our nation might be rebuilt. It borrows from communitarian and liberal political theory. Communitarians lament social decay, worrying about rising crime, drug abuse. divorce and the like. They want to counteract these trends by balancing rights with responsibilities, freedom with loyalty. Liberals regret these trends as well but fear governmental infringement on personal freedoms. The liberal insight is that individuals have better lives if they are free not to get married or to work for the betterment of society. Perfectionist liberalism seeks to reconcile these two theories. They acknowledge the importance of responsibility and freedom. According to the best account of perfectionist liberalism, an individual life is more fulfilling if it includes certain responsibilities, obligations, and commitments. One may freely choose to abandon one's projects. IV or forego commitment altogether, but not without great personal cost. Rather than diminishing them, adults enhance their lives if they forfeit the freedom to sit on the couch all day, prey sexually on others, or pursue one hobby after the next without end. Recent work in political theory bears out this claim. V CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Perfectionist liberalism makes its case by acknowledging both a communitarian and a liberal insight. The former shows how in some ways society is headed in troubling directions. A quick glance at current statistics on crime, drug abuse, divorce, and poverty bears out this claim. To turn things around, the communitarian contends, we must balance rights with responsibilities, freedom with obligation. Communitarian practical politics borrows from both political parties. With Republicans, it admonishes lovers to marry and stay married, if not for each other, then for their children. From the Democrats, communitarians believe in the responsibility to help the poor, with redistributive taxation if necessary. The liberal objects to communitarian concern with the state of society. Politically, we must focus on the individual rather than the whole, and on freedom rather than responsibility. Freedom makes America great, individual freedom. The liberal insight is that individuals have better lives if they are free not to get married or to work for the betterment of society. Some may see these insights as pointing to a tragic 1 2 dilemma: stable communities and freedom are genuine but perhaps incompatible goods; we cannot always have both. Perfectionist liberals, however, do not see things in such zero-sum terms: they borrow from both sides. They acknowledge the importance of responsibility, pace communitarians. Partisans of Rawls lend perfectionist liberals their emphasis on the individual in contradistinction to society. According to the best account of perfectionist liberalism, an individual life goes better if it includes certain responsibilities, obligations, and commitments. We admire and want to be like one who remains faithful to marriage, takes care of the kids, and does some sort of community service like little league or PTA on the side. In a supposedly decadent age, we can find every-day heroes of this sort close by. These people are the bastions of communities all over America. We assume that their lives are better spent than those of couch potatoes, gangbangers, and socialites. When we ponder the life of an every-day hero, however, we realize how little freedom it has compared to less demanding lifestyles. We must not blink at this fact, but with the liberal we must remember the importance of individual's having initially chosen to get married or coach a team. We do not want to live in a place where we cannot lead our own lives; neither do we want to merely drift. 3 Freedom is important, to be sure, but an individual needs a morally demanding life. Rather than diminishing them, adults enhance their lives if they forfeit the freedom to sit on the couch all day, prey sexually on others, or pursue one hobby after the next without end. It will be the burden of this paper to defend this claim. Before defending my thesis, however, I must explain how we got to this point. Whence did the communitarian and liberal insights arise? The latter comes from the most influential political theory of the modern age. In Chapter 1, I will attempt to describe how Thomas Hobbes anticipates both liberalism's commitments and its vulnerability. Hobbes' theory is so attractive to liberals because of its egalitarian commitments. For Hobbes, the greatest mark of human eguality is vulnerability: For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himselfe. (1987: 183) When he defends his leviathan, he is in part writing a critique of ancient political philosophy, particularly that of Aristotle. Political philosophy of this sort champions a tutelary state; it is openly perfectionist. Aristotle's state comes into being for the sake of mere life, but exists to promote the good life. For Aristotle, however, only a few can ever attain the good life of political practice. He 4 distinguishes between natural rulers and natural slaves. Only the former can be citizens, and can develop the practical reason necessary for good living. Hobbes rejects this distinction and in so doing paves the way for a revolution in political thought. Aristotle's state tries to make better men out of a select few, endeavors to teach men to be reasonable through an education to virtue and a life of practical political experience. Hobbes takes all men as he finds them: passionate rather than reasonable, ^®^^“^^terested rather than virtuous. Some may turn out to be better than others, but this is not politically relevant; it is a matter of individual judgment. We cannot say with certainty what is better because the good strikes different individuals in different ways. Often, we cannot agree on what is good. In disputes over truth Hobbes sides, in contradistinction to Aristotle and particularly to Plato, with the many against the wise. We can know no summum bonum, regardless of what philosophers may contend. As Leo Strauss reminds us, Hobbes understands that although we may possess inferior wisdom, we know instinctively what is good for us: for even granting that the wise man is, in principle, a 5 better judge, he is much less concerned with the self- preservation of a given fool than is the fool himself" (1965: 16) . Hobbes grounds his state in the passion of the many rather than the wisdom of the few. More specifically, his state is founded on a particular passion: the fear of a violent death, the summum malum. This is a more pertinent if less noble basis for politics. It applies to us all; it is something to which we can all agree. Hobbes' theory, in its anti perfectionism, is radically egalitarian, and for this reason attractive. Hobbes reasons from a pre-political self, demonstrating the rationality of the state's existence as preserver of survival. Life without a state is no life at all. Men consent to be governed for the sake of preserving life. The good life is not a chief concern, politically. Following Hobbes, much liberalism posits a chasm between itself and political theory containing any hint of perfectionism. One who seeks the name liberal must forsake all others in the name of freedom and security. Here I stand, she must claim, I can do no other. But this stance comes at a cost. Anti-perfectionist liberalism has become so preoccupied with the individual, rights, and freedom that it tends to lose sight of other 6 important political values. For over a decade, communitarians such as Charles Taylor and Michael Sandel have demonstrated the problems inherent in the anti-perfectionist stance which begins with Hobbes. I will take up the communitarian critique in chapter 2. Sandel charges liberalism with conceiving of the individual as unencumbered. In protecting the individual from imposed notions of the good, liberals describe a Hobbesian self prior to any received ends.