The prevailing values of tolerance and non-judgmentalism emerged in the social and intellectual history of the modern West as expressions of a developing commitment to the equal dignity of all persons. This commitment is a huge achievement that must not be forgotten or negated. This history, however, has engrained in the modern Western imagination not only a positive commitment to equality but also the suspicion that pursuing stronger notions of shared goods will lead to oppression and violence. It will be argued here that, in the context of several of the major social developments of our time, commitment to equality and pursuit of the common good can become allies rather than adversaries.

Judith Shklar has proposed an interpretation of our inherited social vision that makes explicit its linkage of commitment to equality with suspicion of the dangers of the common good. She calls her interpretation the “liberalism of fear.” It begins from the presupposition that the political pursuit of the summum bonum, however this highest good is defined, is almost guaranteed to lead to cruelty and violence. When people with convictions about what a good society should look like also have the power to act on these convictions, everyone else is in danger. Those who lack the power to define and enforce their own definition of the highest good must be on guard. A liberal democracy seeks to assure the equal dignity of all by protecting the weak against the strong.