The Discourse of Freedom, Rights and Good in Nineteenth-Century English Liberalism

Bibliographic Data

ID12228151
AuthorsDavid Weinstein (0000-0001-6101-5124, Wake Forest University, corresponding author)
Year1991
Volume3
Issue2
Pages245-262
Publication date1991-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUtilitas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0953-8208 • E-ISSN: 1741-6183
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0953820800001138
OpenAlexW2143448967
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited11

For both its enthusiastic adherents as well as its more generous opponents, liberalism commands considerable ethical appeal but at a price. And that price is its lack of systematic integrity or coherence. The charm of its ethical appeal stems from the great values which it celebrates. But for many these very values seem fatally incommensurable, seem to be forever colliding with and thwarting one another. As Isaiah Berlin has never tired of reminding us, liberty and equality continue to defy our best efforts to reconcile them, to weave them together in some kind of orderly and compelling way. Liberalism, in other words, is flawed, if not tragically flawed. For those who nevertheless remain charmed by its ethical appeal, the tragedy of the incommensurability of its basic values is disappointing and disturbing

Appeal · Individualism · Law and economics · Liberalism · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Tragedy (event · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy

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