Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-09T06:58:42.547Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Liberalism Under Attack

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2015

J. Roland Pennock
J. Roland Pennock*
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Emeritus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The title of this article is much broader than its subject matter, which discusses political liberalism only and only a selection of the attacks that have been made upon it and some of the responses they have elicited. More specifically, certain large and important topics are almost wholly excluded: to wit, the Marxist attacks, the concept of liberty, and rights and justice.

It will appear as we proceed that the arguments develop on various levels: philosophical (especially epistemological) foundations, practical ethics, and theories of governmental operation. However, these will not be used as the basis of organization in what follows.

Liberalism may be considered as a kind of individualism, a fact that is relied upon by both its proponents and its opponents. Individualism comes in many varieties (see Lukes 1973). Oversimplifying, I shall reduce them to three. The first of these (with which many critics of liberalism identify it) may be called “atomistic” individualism. It represents the extreme view of the priority (both chronologically and in terms of value) of the individual as opposed to society. The works of Thomas Hobbes, F. A. Hayek, and Robert Nozick are representative of this type of theory. They tend to think of the individual as having a fixed nature dominated by rational self-interest, emphasizing the satisfaction of preferences. In the words of Christopher J. Berry, individuals “are depicted variously as alienated, selfish, competitive, possessive, apathetic, and so on” (Berry 1989, 2).

Type
Essays on Liberalism
Information
The Political Science Teacher , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Winter 1990 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Larry and Schwartzschild, Maimon. 1987. “Liberalism, Neutrality, and Equality of Welfare versus Equality of Resources.” In Philosophy & Public Affairs 16: 85–110.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy: Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Benn, Stanley I. and Gaus, Gerald F., eds. 1983. Public and Private in Social Life. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Benn, Stanley I. 1984. “Persons and Values: Reasons in Conflict and Moral Disagreement.” In Ethics 95: 20–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benn, Stanley I. 1989. The Theory of Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bergmann, Firthjof. 1977. On Being Free. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, Sir Isaiah. 1969. Four Concepts of Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berry, Christopher J. 1986. Human Nature. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Christopher J. 1989. The Idea of a Democratic Community. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon. 1962. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1981. Appearance and Reality in Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1961. “The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest.” American Political Science Review 55: 763–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1985. A Preface to Economic Democracy. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1983. “Neutrality, Equality, and Liberalism.” In MacLean, Douglas and Mills, Claudia, eds., Liberalism Reconsidered. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.Google Scholar
Fishkin, James S. 1987. “Ideas Without an Ideal: Justice, Democracy, and Liberty in Liberal Theory.” In Koslowski, Peter, ed., Individual Liberty and Democratic Decision-Making. Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr.Google Scholar
Flathman, Richard E. 1987. The Philosophy and Politics of Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gaus, Gerald F. 1983. The Modern Liberal Theory of Man. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy. 1980. Liberal Equality. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hampshire, Stuart, ed. 1978. Public and Private Morality in Social Life. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayworth, Lawrence. 1986. Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Ethics and Psychology. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Stephen. 1989. “The Permanent Structure of Antiliberal Thought.” In Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. Rosenblum, Nancy L.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hospers, John. 1974. “What Liberalism Is.” In The Libertarian Alternative, ed. Machan, Tibor. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
Kymlicka, Will. 1988. “Liberalism and Communitarianism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18: 181–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, Andrew. 1981. Liberal Democracy: A Critique of Its Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lukes, Stephen. 1973. Individualism. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Lukes, Stephen. 1989. “Making Sense of Moral Conflict.” In Rosenblum, 1989.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Macneil, Ian R. 1986. “Exchange Revisited: Individual Utility and Social Solidarity.” Ethics, 96: 567–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbet, Robert. 1953. The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Oakeshott, Michael. 1962. Rationalism in Politics. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennock, J. Roland. 1976. Democratic Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W., eds. 1977. Human Nature, NOMOS XVII. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Pennock, J. Roland. 1989. “The Justification of Democracy.” In Politics and Process: New Essays in Democratic Thought, ed. Brennan, Harold Geoffrey and Lomasky, Loren E.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Political Theory. 1988. Vol. 16, 08, whole issue.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1988. “The Priority of the Right and Ideas of the Good.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 17: 251–76.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy L. 1987. Another Liberalism, Romanticism and the Reconstruction of Liberal Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed. 1989. Liberalism and the Moral Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Ian. 1986. The Evolution of Rights in Liberal Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Social Philosophy and Policy. 1986. The whole of the Spring issue.Google Scholar
Spitz, Elaine. 1986. “Citizenship and Liberal Institutions.” In Damico, Alfonso J., ed., Liberals on Liberalism. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Spragens, Thomas A. Jr. 1981. The Irony of Liberal Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William. 1982. Reconstructing Public Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
The Wall Street Journal. 1973.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1989. “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate.” In Rosenblum, 1989.Google Scholar
Wolff, Robert Paul. 1968. The Poverty of Liberalism. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 1972. Mind and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar