Liberal Neutrality

In Patterns of Moral Complexity , Charles Larmore describes three related ways in which moral and political theory are more complex than is often allowed. He objects to three parallel simplifications: that moral decision making largely consists in the application of rules to particular situations; that the ideals by which we are guided in our personal (private, social) lives should also do service as political ideals, a simplification which he calls “expressivism”; and that there is but a single source of moral value (that we must be either consequentialists, or deontologists, or endorse the “principle of partiality”). Against these simplifications he argues in a sort of Aristotelian way for (1) the centrality of judgment in moral reasoning; (2) for the liberal principle that the state should not strive to express our highest personal ideal; and (3) for the, I suppose eclectic, view that partiality, deontological reasons, and consequentialist reasons all have a place in moral reasoning and that therefore the moral person may well be caught in conflicts that present him or her with tragic choices. These are the three “patterns of moral complexity” that the title of the book refers to

Centrality · Epistemology · Expressivism · Ideal (ethics) · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Neutrality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · sort · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Law · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · War, Ethics, and Justification

• Liberalism and Social Action

  Herbert A Bloch, Herbert Bloch•Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung•1936

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• A Theory of Justice

  John Rawls•Theory of Justice•1971

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• Patterns of Moral Complexity

  Open Access•Charles Larmore, Charles E Larmore•Patterns of Moral Complexity•1987

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