THE MORAL BASIS OF POLITICAL LIBERALISM

Abstract

In Political Liberalism, Rawls declares that a political conception is freestanding, if it looks only to the principles that should govern the political life of society. Historical experience provides the impetus for liberalism to shed its individualist philosophy. Rawls remarks that liberalism seeks the form of a freestanding political ideal, because it “applies the principle of toleration to philosophy itself”. Liberalism, formulated as a strictly political doctrine, rests therefore on this moral foundation. The notion of agreement to which political liberalism appeals is therefore an idealization. It comes into play only within the bounds set by these two norms, the one epistemic, the other moral. Political liberalism makes sense only in the light of an acknowledgement of such a higher moral authority. Democracy is thus a moral conception, and not just in the trivial sense that the principles and values by which a democratic people organize their political life are recognizably moral in character.