Abstract

John Rawls argues that a key advantage of "political liberalism" is that it requires no controversial philosophical commitments and is justified only on the basis of ideas that are shared by otherwise diverse citizens. The dissertation argues that the move in the direction of a watered-down "political liberalism" involves difficulties, which are sufficient for preferring a liberalism of a more substantive sort as that of Mill. In Chapter One I discuss differences between the Ancient perspective of Plato and Modern theorists indicating how the change from Ancient to Modern leads to greater concern with issues of diversity and recommends a principle requiring state neutrality. Chapter Two focuses on the logic of neutrality and ways a state can be neutral. I consider what must be the case for neutrality to be obligatory and what is presupposed by justificatory neutrality. In Chapter Three I offer interpretations of the non-liberal political theories of Hobbes, Rousseau showing their respective attempts at neutrality and the limits of each. In Chapter Four I draw parallels between the justifications of a principle of neutrality found in Rawls's theory and Mill's. I reveal a structural similarity in their modes of justification and also similarities in features of their neutrality principles. However, on the basis of the dissimilarity of these views it is argued that there is good reason to reject that of Rawls. In Chapter Five I show that three criticisms that might motivate a move like Rawls's needn't because they can be responded to while remaining committed to substantive philosophical theses. It is only on the basis of these commitments, moreover, that liberalism can have any hope to have persuasive force against the conservative or religious fundamentalist whose conception of the good does not overlap with those of the individuals populating the Rawlsian state. The criticisms discussed and responded to are placed under three headings: the liberal distinction between the public and the private, liberal reductionism , and the historicist critique of liberalism