Abstract

The chapter suggests principles that are fairly flexible in context and that can give way in light of other powerful considerations. The chapter presents two incidents, personal illustrations that show how self-restraint works, why self restraint in advocacy is much more attainable than self-restraint in decision or judgment, and why exercising greater self-restraint in advocacy need not amount to insincerity. The chapter concludes that people have great difficulty trying to face particular political issues free of the push of their religious or other comprehensive views. This requires an exceptional discipline to achieve this with any success. It is doubtful whether one should recommend to ordinary people a self-restraint that is so hard to perform. The chapter also set the stage for the following chapters by outlining briefly various roles and functions in liberal democratic governance.