No description available.

Thesis advisor: Stephen Hudson / There has been a growing consensus within political philosophy that liberalism is the most rational form of political organization. The arguments in favor of liberalism are theoretical and also based on historical observations. The view of liberalism as a moral conception of the good life, however, seems to betray its original historical purpose, namely, to provide a peaceful political forum despite competing comprehensive doctrines. How can liberalism be a thick moral conviction of its own if it was meant to temper such zero-sum convictions? To pose this question more concretely: If historic wars between strong religious convictions were tempered by provisional liberal ceasefires, could we accept the evolution of liberalism into a strong conviction of its own? This paradoxical development of liberalism in history runs parallel with contemporary philosophical debates. Whether the most proper conception of liberalism is comprehensive, and whether it is legitimized upon such comprehensiveness are both hotly debated. Exploring these historical and philosophical avenues uncover what I think is a need for a conception of comprehensive liberalism. It is beyond my scope here to formulate a new conception of liberalism that decisively settles the debate. I do, however, point to reasons why comprehensive liberalism should be the focus of contemporary efforts. First, I find that history shows a trend of liberalism growing into a positive doctrine of its own. Second, I invoke two famous traditional conceptions, one successful and one failed, which fuel our baseline intuitions of liberalism with comprehensive, not political justifications. Finally, I show that while contemporary philosophy surrounding liberalism developed a political conception, it cannot avoid slipping towards comprehensiveness. Taken together, my argument is that any enforceable and useful theory of liberalism must be grounded on thick and comprehensive philosophical premises. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

This thesis is a critique of the prominent strand of contemporary liberal political theory which maintains that liberal political authority must, in some sense, rest on the free consent of those subjected to it, and that such a consensus is achieved if a polity’s basic structure can be publicly justified to its citizenry, or to a relevant subset of it. Call that the liberal legitimacy view. I argue that the liberal legitimacy view cannot provide viable normative foundations for political authority, for the hypothetical consensus it envisages cannot be achieved and sustained without either arbitrarily excluding conspicuous sectors of the citizenry or commanding a consent that is less than free. That is because the liberal legitimacy view’s structure is one that requires a form of consent that carries free-standing normative force (i.e. normative force generated by voluntariness), yet the particular form of hypothetical consent through public justification envisaged by the view does not possess such force, because of its built-in bias in favour of liberalism. I also argue that the liberal legitimacy view is the most recent instantiation of one of two main strands of liberal theory, namely the nowadays dominant contract-based liberalism, which seeks to ground liberal political authority in a hypothetical agreement between the citizens. My case against the liberal legitimacy view, then, contributes to the revitalisation of the other main approach to the normative foundations of liberalism, namely the substantivist one, which legitimates liberal political authority through an appeal to the substantive values and virtues safeguarded and promoted by liberal polities.

Raymond Aron is widely recognised as France's greatest twentieth-century liberal, but the specifically liberal quality of his thought has not received the detailed historical analysis that it deserves. His work appears to fit so well within widely accepted understandings of post-war European liberalism, which has been defined primarily in terms of its anti-totalitarian, Cold War orientation, that its liberal status has been somewhat taken for granted. This has been exacerbated by an especially strong perception of a correlation between liberalism and anti-totalitarianism in France, whose late twentieth-century renaissance in liberal political thought is viewed as the product of an 'anti-totalitarian turn' in the late 1970s. While the moral authority accumulated through decades of opposition to National Socialism and Soviet communism made Aron into an anti-totalitarian icon, his early contribution to the rediscovery of France's liberal tradition established his reputation as a leader of the renaissance in the study of liberal political thought. Aron's prominence within this wider renaissance suggests that an historical treatment of his thought is overdue, but while the assumptions underpinning his reputation are not baseless, they do need to be critically scrutinised if such a treatment is to be credible. In pursuit of this end, two main arguments are developed in the present thesis. These are, first, that Aron's liberalism was more a product of the inter-war crisis of European liberalism than of the Cold War and, second, that his relationship with the French liberal tradition was primarily active and instrumental rather than passive and receptive. The first argument indicates that Aron's liberalism developed through a dialogue with and partial integration of important strands of anti-liberal crisis thought during these inter-war years; the second that earlier liberals with whose work he is frequently associated - notably Montesquieu and Tocqueville - had no substantial formative influence on his political thought. These contentions are interrelated in that Aron's post-war interpretation of his chosen liberal forebears was driven by a need to address specific problems arising from the liberal political epistemology that he formulated before the Second World War. It is by establishing in detail the link between Aron's reading of Montesquieu and Tocqueville and these earlier writings that the thesis makes its principal contribution to the existing literature on Aron, but several other original interpretations of his work are offered across its four thematic chapters on 'Political Epistemology', 'Anti-totalitarianism', 'The End of Ideology' and 'Instrumentalizing the French Liberal Tradition'. Regarding Aron's relationship with the wider late twentieth-century recovery of liberal political thought in France, it contends that the specific liberal renaissance to which he contributed most substantially emerged not as part of the anti-totalitarian turn, but in hostile reaction to the events of May 1968. This informs a broader argument that French liberal renaissance of these years was considerably more heterogeneous than is often assumed.

This thesis examines Folkpartiets (FP) view of the Swedish school from 1990 until 2014. During this time, the media depicts Folkpartiet (FP) as increasingly conservative. Quotes from their party programs and election manifestos during this period is analysed to try to find out if this is indeed the matter. The thesis is predominantly qualitative and both the Swedish school and Folkpartiets (FP) history is described. In the theoretical part describes also both the liberalism and the conservatism as ideologies. In terms of results it appears that Folkpartiet (the Liberal Party) has changed in a more conservative direction. Alternatively is a discussion if it can be about a more social liberal orientation instead.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / History / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

My dissertation examines the rights of children in the context of liberal conceptions of justice. The theoretical aspects of the dissertation concern liberal paternalism, autonomy, and the adequacy of Rawls's argument for the lexical priority of liberty. I apply my theoretical conclusions to practical issues of medical decision making for children, compulsory education, parental and state authority, and the age of majority. I begin with an analysis of paternalism in liberal political theory and its justificatory bases in the concepts of rationality and autonomy. On the basis of empirical studies of children's rationality I draw the preliminary conclusion that the age of majority should be lowered to fourteen years. Next, I consider utilitarian justifications for paternalistic treatment of children. I conclude that utilitarianism leads to an illiberal paternalism that would both maintain the present age of majority and call for expanded compulsory education and compulsory parent training. In light of utilitarian objections to rationality-based paternalism I consider whether the scope of liberal paternalism might be expanded to give greater weight to welfarist concerns. I argue against Rawls's lexical priority of liberty and for a more flexible balancing of liberty against welfare within the conception of justice as fairness. Turning to concrete problems, I analyze recent cases in law involving transplantation of organs between siblings, and argue that the nature of intimate relationships provides a ground for the partial compromise of freedom of the person in the context of family medical needs. However, I contend that adolescents should have authority to make their own medical decisions at age fourteen. I consider the proper scope of parental authority to shape the lives and values of children. I consider the justification and scope of compulsory education and propose a non-compulsory incentive system for continued education after the age of fourteen years. On the basis of my earlier argument for balancing welfare against liberty, I claim that it is permissible and advisable to set a higher age threshold for drinking, driving, marriage, and military service than is set for majority generally.

This dissertation constructs a "non-ideal theory" of justice: a systematic theory of how to respond justly to injustice. Chapter 1 argues that contemporary political philosophy lacks a non-ideal theory of justice, and defends a variation of John Rawls' famous original position - the Non-Ideal Original Position - as a method with which to construct such a theory. Finally, Chapter 1 uses the Non-Ideal Original Position to argue for a Fundamental Principle of Non-Ideal Theory: a principle that requires injustices to be dealt with in whichever way will best satisfy the preferences of all relevant individuals, provided those individuals are all rational, adequately informed, broadly moral, and accept the correct "ideal theory" of fully just conditions. Chapter 2 then argues for the Principle of Application - an epistemic principle that represents the Fundamental Principle's satisfaction conditions in terms of the aims of actual or hypothetical reformist groups. Chapters 3-5 then use these two principles to argue for substantive views regarding global/international justice. Chapter 3 argues that the two principles establish a higher-order human right for all other human rights to promoted and protected in accordance with the two principles of non-ideal theory. Chapter 4 argues that the two principles defeasibly require the international community to tolerate unjust societies, provided those societies respect the most basic rights of individuals. Finally, Chapter 5 argues that the two principles imply a duty of the international community to ameliorate severe poverty, as well as a duty to implement "fair trade" practices in international economics.

Balancing the rights of the individual to lead a self-determined life while accommodating traditional identity groups is a central goal of liberal society. The modernity argument suggests that processes within modernity are capable of liberalizing societies. The emergence of modern information technology has drastically increased the speed of the liberalizing influence of modernity to the point that this goal is threatened. However, using tools found within discourse theory, traditional identity groups may be able to mitigate these incoming influences to such a degree as to rebalance these liberal goals.