Liberalism: Interacting to Conserve

Post-war liberalism should be defined in terms of its promotion of (social) interaction. It is not to be seen as the opposite of communitarianism, as current usage implies, nor is it individualist. In practice it strengthens the nation state. It has a purpose, too, for given an innate but not perfect human conservatism, maximising interaction will minimise change. This conservatism does seem to exist, but liberalism is 'ideological' in concealing it as a goal. With success, for no change-directed and specifically anti-interactive normative theory has emerged Partly, perhaps, because it would lie outside the concept of the political entirely.     

合伙人信义义务问题探讨

合伙关系中合伙人的信义义务源于合伙人之间因信任和合伙协议建立的信义关系,是由诚实信用原则衍生出来的一项义务.合伙人信义义务的具体形态因合伙人在不同合伙中所处的地位不同而不同.我国"新合伙法"关于合伙人信义义务的规定存在诸多不足,为此,应采取完善合伙组织形式、重构合伙关系中合伙人的信义义务体系和确立合伙人违反信义义务的法律责任等措施来加以完善.     

Pluralism and Liberalism

Meta-ethical pluralism, as developed in the work of writers like Isaiah Berlin, is the idea that ethical values cannot be reduced to a single hierarchy or system but are irreducibly multiple. It has often been argued that simply to recognize this fact is to have a reason to favour liberal institutions. On the contrary, the plurality of values in itself gives us no reason to support liberalism, indeed no reason to prefer any particular political arrangement to any other. If pluralism is true, the liberal's best defence may lie in appealing, in the manner of writers like Walzer and Rorty, to the de facro limitations on moral commitments imposed by the existing political culture.     

Liberalism and Culture

Will Kymlicka's new book makes important conceptual, methodological, and substantive contributions to contemporary discussions of multiculturalism. Nevertheless, Kymlicka's attempt to construct a defense of special rights for minority cultural groups on the basis of his conception of "societal culture" entails implications that are both too radical and too restrictive with regard to the kinds of minority claims they support. In particular, Kymlicka's account undermines the claims of immigrant minorities to the sorts of special rights that Kymlicka thinks they are entitled to demand.     

马克思主义与自由主义

自由主义在西方至今仍是占主导地位的意识形态。它的历史虽然可以追溯到古希腊,但作为一种思想流派和理论体系,则是近代以来的事情,实质上是资产阶级的一种自由观和民主观,与马克思主义的自由观民主现有着本质的区别。本文围绕马克思主义与自由主义在自由民主问题上的基本分歧作一筒要评述。     

Liberalism and the anxiety of belief

Anxiety about perceived threats to liberal freedom has played a double role in liberalism. On the one hand, such anxiety has driven the development of liberal institutions aimed at safeguarding freedoms. Yet another, problematic, side of this anxiety can also be found in the history of liberalism and in the policies and practices of contemporary liberal states. From the beginning, liberal intolerance of those perceived to be connected, through religious affiliation or beliefs, with arbitrary or absolute power and therefore deemed to pose a threat to the existing order has justified social exclusion and, in many cases, systematic violence. Rae’s article examines the theoretical and political roots of this distinctive form of liberal anxiety, tracing the connection between anxiety about Catholicism and Catholics in John Locke’s time and contemporary anxieties about the relationship between Islamism and Muslims in liberal states.     

What Ever Happened to Economic Liberalism?

This article challenges conventional portrayals of the status of economic liberalism within the contemporary British and American intellectual Right. Specifically, it seeks to correct two misconceptions. First, that within the intellectual Right economic liberalism is the dominant ideological component; and second, that it is a wholly confident and triumphalist ideology, with economic liberals unambiguously committed to an assertive individualist creed. In fact, many are far more pessimistic, defensive and insecure than is frequently acknowledged.     

The Obligation to Contribute to Discretionary Public Goods

The principle of fairness, first introduced by H. L. A. Hart in 1955, is able to support a workable theory of political obligation upon liberal premises. In a previous paper, 'Presumptive benefit, fairness, and political obligation', I argued that the principle can establish general obligations to cooperate in the provision of 'presumptive public goods' (that is, public goods that are indispensable to the typical member of society). Because a wider range of governmental services is necessary for the provision of presumptive goods, the principle also supports obligations to support 'discretionary public goods' (goods that are desirable but not indispensable). The 'indirect argument' developed in this paper counters the criticisms of my previous paper presented by A. John Simmons in 'The anarchist position: a reply to Klosko and Senor'.     

Anti-perfectionism and Rawlsian Liberalism

This article examines the justifications of anti-perfectionism given by John Rawls in his recent work Political Liberalism. Rawls, I argue, gives one major argument in defence of anti-perfectionism (what I shall call the 'reasonableness among free and equal persons' argument) and two subsidiary arguments (what I shall call the 'social unity' argument and the 'stability' argument). None of these arguments, I claim, are persuasive. Rawls's most recent justification of anti-perfectionism is therefore unsuccessful.     

Obligation and welfare policy

Ronald Reagan came to the White House with a reputation for welfare reform that dated from his days as governor of California. The administration's first step was to restrict benefits to working recipients in ways similar to procedures originally proposed in that state. The impact on the AFDC caseload of these changes, however, was modest, and, ironically, the work program opportunities provided by legislation sponsored by the Reagan administration have been exploited as successfully by Democrats such as Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts as by Republicans. Despite frequent references to welfare and welfare problems since 1981, the administration has been notably short of ideas.The silence from the White House has been filled by outsiders - first Murray and then Mead and others such as journalists Mickey Kaus (1986) and Nicholas Lemann (1986). While Losing Ground argued for the government's retirement from the field in the War on Poverty, Mead offered a vision certain to make both liberals and the administration uncomfortable. On the one hand, his demand for creative statecraft calls for substantial government activism, a renewed attack. On the other, his assertion that further progress will require attention to behavioral issues challenges the liberal attitude that what the poor need most is the empowerment that cash can provide. For the concerned public, something about Mead's argument rings true. The poverty we see - homeless derelicts, children of mothers who are children themselves, recipients who reach midlife never having known anything but welfare dependency, neighborhoods in which everyone receives support - hardly seems vulnerable to negative tax payments. And, as Mead suggests, eliminating the present system would create unacceptable hardship. Even if financial incentives are the prime movers in most areas of economic life, we are all a bit embarrassed by them; in the abstract it seems better to say that absent parents are obligated to support their children and able-bodied adults are obligated to work.     

新自由主义与国际金融危机——西方国家思想界的反思与评析

本文从五个方面分析了西方国家思想界对新自由主义与国际金融危机的反思与评析,梳理了二者的内在关联:新自由主义缘起与发展于滞涨危机与社会主义受挫,并孕育了但又无法挽救当前的国际金融危机,其结果是危及自身.     

Millian Liberalism and Extreme Pornography

How sexuality should be regulated in a liberal political community is an important, controversial theoretical and empirical question—as shown by the recent criminalization of possession of some adult pornography in the United Kingdom. Supporters of criminalization argue that Mill, often considered a staunch opponent of censorship, would support prohibition due to his feminist commitments. I argue that this account underestimates the strengths of the Millian account of private conduct and free expression, and the consistency of Millian anticensorship with feminist values. A Millian contextual defense of liberty, however, suggests several other policy approaches to addressing the harms of pornography.