Tragedy of Liberalism

Bert van den Brink is a Research Fellow on the Faculty of Law at Tilburg University, The Netherlands and coeditor of Bürgergesellschaft, Recht und Demokratie.

"…an excellent review of contemporary liberal philosophy." — CHOICE"Offering a fresh and original perspective on recent debates over the foundations of normative political theory, van den Brink's analyses of Rawls, Raz, Habermas, Taylor, Honneth and Kymlicka (among others) are subtle, sophisticated, and state-of-the-art. His sensitivity to the vulnerabilities of having 'illiberal' commitments in liberal society is nicely balanced with a firm commitment to liberalism's core value of personal autonomy." — Joel Anderson, Washington University in St. Louis

• Preface Part 1: Liberalism, Pluralism, and Tragedy Introduction Chapter 1. Liberalism and Moral Pluralism LiberalismPluralism and How (Not) to Defend LiberalismChapter 2. The Tragedy of Liberalism Two Views of Tragic LiberalismA Working HypothesisPart 2: Political Liberalism Versus Liberal Perfectionism Introduction Chapter 3. Political Liberalism: Justification Through Public Reason John Rawls: Political LiberalismThe Two-Stage Path to an Overlapping Consensus: A CritiqueChapter 4. Liberal Perfectionism: Autonomy and Pluralism Joseph Raz: Liberal PerfectionismThe Limits of PerfectionismRephrasing Some Key Concepts of Liberal ThoughtConclusions to Part 2Part 3: Deliberative Democracy as a Way Out? Introduction Chapter 5. Discourse Theory and Moral Character Preliminary Remarks on Deliberative DemocracyJürgen Habermas: Theoretical Foundations of Public DeliberationDiscourse Ethics and the Limits of Formalism and ProceduralismDiscourse Ethics, Moral Character, and PluralismChapter 6. Law, Democracy, and Deliberation Law and Deliberative DemocracyThe Limits of Deliberative DemocracyAnother Revision of Key Concepts of Liberal ThoughtConclusions to Part 3Part 4: Liberal Community, Mutual Recognition, and Citizenship Virtue Introduction Chapter 7. Liberal Community and the Normative Potential of Tragic Conflicts Christoph Menke's Typology of Tragic ConflictsToward an Understanding of Liberal CommunityChapter 8. Struggles for Recognition and Tragic Conflicts Axel Honneth's Theory of RecognitionStruggles for Recognition and the Tragedy of LiberalismChapter 9. Vulnerability and Responsibilities of Liberal Citizenship Vulnerability and ResponsibilityVirtues of Liberal CitizenshipConclusions to Part 4Part 5: Liberalism and Multiculturalism Introduction Chapter 10. Multiculturalism and Cultural Authenticity How (Not) to Talk About MulticulturalismA Liberal-Communitarian Perspective: Charles TaylorChapter 11. Two Liberal Views of Multiculturalism Jeremy Waldron's Cosmopolitan AlternativeWill Kymlicka's "Group-Differentiated Rights" ApproachConclusions to Part 5Notes References Index