至善论自由主义与政治自由主义

Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalismpapa_1200 3..45 MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM i. two types of liberalism The views of Isaiah Berlin are an influential example, in the philosophi- cal literature, of what we might call perfectionist liberalism, a type of liberal political view that spells out a set of controversial metaphysical and ethical doctrines concerning the nature of value and the good life, and then goes on to recommend political principles built upon these values. Berlin’s formulations, though influential, are characteristically compressed and allusive, but Joseph Raz has developed a closely related set of ideas with great explicitness and clarity. For Raz, the key personal and political value is autonomy, a power of self-direction and self- government. To this (and here is the connection to Berlin) he links the acceptance of moral pluralism: to see why only a relatively extensive range of options adequately supports autonomy, onemust grasp the fact that there are many incompatible ways of living, all of which are morally good and valuable. Thus Raz’s doctrine of autonomy—as he states— requires the acceptance of moral pluralism and uses that idea to support its account of adequate options. Religious and secular toleration, he argues, should be based on an acceptance of the ideal of autonomy and This article was first written for a conference on Isaiah Berlin at Harvard University, September 2009. I am grateful for the very helpful comments of Erin Kelly and Thomas Scanlon on that occasion. Themain ideas originated in a discussion following Joseph Raz’s presentation to the Law-Philosophy Workshop at the University of Chicago in November 2008 and published on the University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog. I am grateful to Raz for discussion on that occasion. For discussion of these issues over the years I am grateful to Charles Larmore, and for comments on a draft I am grateful to Daniel Brudney, Agnes Callard, Rosalind Dixon, Aziz Huq, Andrew Koppelman, Brian Leiter, Micah Lott, and Henry Richardson. Finally, I am extremely grateful to the Editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs for their painstaking and extremely valuable comments. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Philosophy & Public Affairs 39, no. 1 the truth of moral pluralism. Thus Raz espouses a two-part ideal: the central value is autonomy, but, as he understands that idea, it requires the acceptance of another controversial doctrine about value, namely pluralism. The major liberal alternative to Berlin’s and Raz’s perfectionist liber- alism, in the recent Anglo-American philosophical literature,1 is the view called “political liberalism.” This view was developed first by Charles Larmore in Patterns of Moral Complexity and The Morals of Modernity,2 with explicit reference to Berlin, but in most detail by John Rawls in his great book Political Liberalism.3 I too hold a view of this type, having been convinced by the arguments of Larmore and Rawls.4 It seemsworth exploring the reasons that led the three of us to prefer political liberalism to a view of Raz’s type. Ibeginbyoutlining theviewsofBerlinandRaz. I then turn toLarmore’s critique and Rawls’s restatement of that critique, which I accept in most respects. I then discuss a crucial ambiguity in the formulation of a key notion in political liberalism: that of “reasonable disagreement” (in the caseofLarmore), or “reasonablecomprehensivedoctrines” (in thecaseof Rawls). Having resolved that ambiguity in favor of the version of the view that I findmost appealing, I thenargue that political liberalism is superior to perfectionist liberalism as a basis for political principles in a pluralistic society. In a concluding section, I address the issue of stability. 1. One could reasonably think of this debate as extending to continental Europe, since Rawls’s work is widely discussed throughout Europe, and since Larmore writes in French, publishes in France before publishing in other countries, and has had amajor influence on the French debate. 2. Charles Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); The Morals of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 3. John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded paper ed. (New York: Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1986), hereafter PL. Page references to this work will be given in parentheses inside the text. Another important contribution to the development of the idea of political liberalism is Thomas Nagel, “Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,” Philosophy& Public Affairs 16 (1987): 215–40, and Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Nagel’s account of the relevant distinctions is different from that of Rawls, relying on a notion of two “standpoints” within the person; it therefore requires separate consider- ation, and, despite its interest and importance, I shall discuss it no further here. 4. See Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006); and Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011). 4 Philosophy & Public Affairs Let us begin with a working definition of perfectionist liberalism;5 what political liberalism is and requires will emerge in the course of confronting its opposite number. Perfectionist liberalism is defined by Larmore, who initiated this debate, as a family of views that base politi- cal principles on “ideals claiming to shape our overall conception of the good life, and not just our role as citizens”; elsewhere he says that these views involve controversial ideals of the good life, or views about “the ultimate nature of the human good.”6 As I define perfectionist lib- eralism, following Larmore, it is a species of a genus of liberal views that might be called “comprehensive liberalisms,” liberalisms that base political principles on some comprehensive doctrine about human life that covers not only the political domain but also the domain of human conduct generally. Most forms of comprehensive liberalism are perfectionist, involving a doctrine about the good life and the nature of value. But a doctrine can be comprehensive without being perfectionist. Some comprehensive doctrines that have had great influence in the past have been determin- istic or fatalistic, thus closing off the space for striving toward a specific ideal of the good life: thus astrology, which controlled policy in some times and places, could hardly be described as perfectionism, since it held that our fates are all fixed by our stars and that it makes no sense to think of ourselves as pursuing a good life. More pertinently for contem- porary thought, the type of comprehensive liberalism advocated by Ronald Dworkin may be nonperfectionistic, in that its ideal of state neu- trality, though explicitly defended as a comprehensive and not a political form of liberalism, deliberately refrains from advocating any specific doctrine of the good life.7 From now on, I leave those comprehensive but nonperfectionistic doctrines to one side to focus on perfectionism. Per- fectionistic forms of comprehensive liberalism (whether utilitarian or 5. Raz describes his view as perfectionist and as opposed to “anti-perfectionism”: see, for example, “Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle,” in Issues in Contemporary Legal Philosophy, ed. Ruth Gavison (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 313–33, at pp. 331–32. 6. Larmore, “Political Liberalism,” in The Morals of Modernity, pp. 122, 132. 7. See Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 154–55: however, one could also argue that by emphasizing a continuity between valuable lives and liberal political institutions (a theme clearly emphasized in Dworkin’s Justice for Hedgehogs [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011], but already present in the earlier work), the view moves toward perfectionism. 5 Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism Hegelian, or based on a picture of neo-Aristotelian virtue, or on Christian doctrines, or on one ofmany other possible views) have been immensely influential historically and remain so today. The Raz/Berlin position, avowedly perfectionist in Larmore’s sense, remains a particularly inter- esting and attractive liberal view, which deserves continued scrutiny (along with its various relatives). The subtle relationship between politi- cal liberalism and Dworkin’s comprehensive view must remain a topic for another occasion.8 Why go over this ground again? Rawls and Larmore have both said quite a lot in favor of the form of liberalism they support, and it might seem otiose to revisit the issue. Reconsideration is needed, however, for two reasons. First, the views of Rawls and Larmore con- tain crucial but insufficiently noticed ambiguities; sorting them out will prove illuminating. Second, although Rawls’s Theory of Justice is widely known, and fre- quently discussed in the literature on welfarism and utilitarianism, such is not the case with his great later book. The concept of political liberal- ism is simply ignored in a large proportion of discussions of welfare and social policy, as are the challenges Rawls poses to thinkers who would base politics on a single comprehensive normative view.9 Many theorists 8. Another important distinction is the distinction between perfectionism with respect to content and perfectionism with respect to grounds, or modes of justification: see the important discussion of different types of neutrality in Peter DeMarneffe, “Liberalism, Liberty, and Neutrality,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 19 (1990): 253–74. Rawls and Larmore do not invoke this distinction, which would have been helpful to their arguments. As I discuss their views below, I shall attempt to introduce it. 9. This is true to some extent even in philosophical utilitarianism: Peter Singer, for example, has never, to my knowledge, addressed the challenge that political liberalism raises for his comprehensive view. It is ubiquitously true in philosophically informed areas of welfarist economics. Thus, in the special issue of Feminist Economics devoted to the work of Amartya Sen (9, no. 2–3 [2003]), Sen is specifically asked whether he accepts the idea of political liberalism (seeNussbaum, “Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice,” pp. 33–50, at pp. 49–50), but he does not address this question in his reply. (These issues of the journal have been reprinted as Amartya Sen’s Work and Ideas: A Gender Perspective, ed. Bina Agarwal, Jane Humphries, and Ingrid Robeyns [New York: Routledge, 2005].) Nor does the idea of political liberalism play any role in Sen’s extensive treatment of Rawls in The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009). Similarly, Sen’s Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: Norton, 2006) fails to ask what respect for persons requires when people have deep attachments to their ethnic or religious identities, suggesting that there is a correct, plural view of identity that politics can legitimately endorse. Influential philosophically concerned economists in 6 Philosophy & Public Affairs influenced by various forms of normative utilitarianism have simply not attended to the issues of respect raised by their commitment to a com- prehensive normative ethical doctrine as the basis for political principles and policy choices. It is certainly possible for consequentialist and wel- farist views to be reformulated as forms of political liberalism. It also might be possible for them to defend their perfectionist doctrines against Rawlsian challenges. But the failure of their proponents to con- front the issue head-on means that this work has not yet been done. It is my hope that the challenge contained in this article may stimulate this further work. ii. berlin’s pluralism, raz’s pluralism Berlin’s pluralism is the target of Larmore’s critique and Rawls’s refor- mulation of that critique, so we must attempt to characterize it, despite lawwhowrite extensively onwelfare, proposing political principles for a pluralistic society, and yet do not confront the issue of political liberalism, are Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); Eric Posner, “HumanWelfare, Not Human Rights,” Columbia Law Review 108 (2008): 1758–1802; and Matthew D. Adler, Well-Being and Equity: A Framework for Policy Analysis, draft prior to final copy edit (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Both Posner and Adler defend a plural-valued type of consequentialism for political purposes, without taking sides one way or the other on whether this political doctrine is comprehensive, or partial and politi- cal; Kaplow and Shavell are comprehensive welfarists, without confronting the challenge political liberalism raises for their view. On the policy side, where such distinctions make a real difference to people’s lives, the philosophically informed and generally admirable Sen/Stiglitz/Fitoussi report on quality of life commissioned by President Sarkozy of France similarly is totally silent about the comprehensive/political distinction: see J. E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Report of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, (2010). On the side of nonwelfarist political philosophy, the distinction between political and comprehensive is neglected by Anthony Appiah in The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), although it lies right at the heart of his philosophical project (to articulate a form of liberalism that is compatible with pluralism), and although he discusses Rawls in some detail: seemy review-discussion in Journal of Social Philosophy 37 (2006) 301–13. It is also neglected in the excellent book Disadvantage by Jonathan Wolff and Avner De-Shalit (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), where it does seem quite germane to their enterprise of establishing general welfare principles for ethnically and economically divided societies, though the authors build on philosophical work ofmine on capabilities that emphasizes the distinction. 7 Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism the allusive and cryptic nature of Berlin’s discussion.10 For Berlin, plu- ralism is the denial of monism about the ultimate sources of value.11 Observing thatmany political doctrines have beenmonistic about value, he tells us that we should not accept monism, for reasons both practical and theoretical. In practical terms, suggests Berlin, monism has been a source of tyranny and bigotry: it is no accident that “The Pursuit of the Ideal” opens with a catalogue of atrocities perpetrated during the twen- tieth century in the name of some monistic ideal. But the more impor- tant argument made by Berlin is that monism is false, and pluralism is true. Monism is the doctrine that there is just “one true answer and one only” to questions about the ultimate sources of value (PI, p. 5).12 Plural- ism, by contrast, is the view “that there aremany different ends that men may seek and still be fully rational, fully men, capable of understanding each other” (PI, p. 9). In a later essay collected in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, he elaborates. Pluralism asks us: To look upon life as affording a plurality of values, equally genuine, equally ultimate, above all equally objective; incapable, therefore, of being ordered in a timeless hierarchy, or judged in terms of some one absolute standard.13 Pluralism, then, is a thesis about values and their objective status, and a thesis that is supposed to be true. How are the practical and the theoretical theses connected? Clearly the truth of the thesis of pluralism is understood to give support to political principles based on it, but exactly howdoes its truth figure in the argument for liberal political principles? Berlin does not make this clear, but it appears that the truth of the theoretical thesis is a necessary prop for the liberal doctrine of toleration and noninterference. If only one 10. In order to move on to the primary issue, the critique of Berlin by Larmore and Rawls, I focus on the texts that Larmore relies on to characterize the position he criticizes. I do not purport to offer a comprehensive exegesis of Berlin’s views on liberalism. 11. Here I agree with Larmore, “Pluralism and Reasonable Disagreement,” in The Morals of Modernity, especially pp. 155–63. 12. I cite the essay, referred to in this article as PI, in the version given in Isaiah Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), pp. 1–16. 13. Berlin, Crooked Timber (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 79. 8 Philosophy & Public Affairs view were true, it is not clear whether any independent reasons would lead Berlin to favor liberal noninterference with the views that have been found to be false.14 From now on, like Raz,15 I distinguish pluralism of the sort relevant to Berlin and Raz from what I shall call internal pluralism, a view that both Berlin and Larmore do not clearly distinguish from pluralism of the sort on which they focus.16 Because the distinction is philosophically impor- tant and largely ignored in this debate, apart from a brief remark by Raz, we must pause briefly to discuss it. Internal pluralism tells us that there are several distinct, intrinsically valuable elements that can be combined in a single, reasonably unified picture of a good human life. The internal 14. Thus at PI, p. 15, Berlin favors putting some views off-limits, on the grounds that they conflict with “common” values that are accepted by all the diverse forms of life that pluralism supports; those views (including Nazism and views that advocate torture for pleasure) are not to be tolerated. 15. See Raz, “Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle,” p. 316, where Raz defines the type of pluralism that interests him as “the view that there are various forms and styles of life which exemplify different virtues and which are incompatible,” and then observes that “[t]here is nothing to stop a person from being both an ideal teacher and an ideal family person,” thus distinguishing pluralism of his sort from what I call “internal plural- ism.” Raz, of course, does not assert, implausibly, that there would never be difficult conflicts in the life of someone who is both a teacher and a family person; the point is that the life is one that can be lived, because the two ideals do not make demands that are in principle incompatible. 16. Nor does Larmoremake this distinction, when he states, in The Morals of Modernity, that pluralism is a characteristically modern position. Internal pluralism is ubiquitous in the ancient Greek and Romanworld, the Indianworld, and no doubt inmany other ancient cultures. The formof pluralismwithwhich Larmore ismost concerned—the idea that there are several “reasonable” comprehensive views of how to live—appears to be older in India than in the West: an edict of the emperor Ashoka (around the third and second centuries BCE) says that “the sects of other people all deserve reverence for one reason or another.” But a similar idea is on the scene at least in the Romanworld, and Cicero’s correspondence with his Epicurean friend Atticus shows us an interesting version of it. Cicero, who certainly does not like Epicureanism, and who has a very different comprehensive doctrine, says, in a letter of 61 BCE, that he and Atticus are so close that nothing separates them “apart from our choices of an overall mode of life” (praeter voluntatem institutae vitae). He then says that his friend was led to his choice by a haud rep