This thesis examines the viability of the concept of political liberalism. Since its emergence, the idea of a purely political liberalism has been the subject of a voluminous amount of discourse and debate. The concept of political liberalism has been presented as both a solution to the problems of justice and political stability troubling liberal democracies and an exemplar of all that is wrong
with contemporary political philosophy; it has, quite literally, altered the landscape and the
vernacular of contemporary political theory.
Herein it is argued that, despite the significant amount of literature that has been devoted
to the analysis of the idea of a purely political liberalism, the idea itself has yet to be subjected to the type of critique that is required if one is to assess its viability effectively. Though there have been a number of contemporary political theorists who have developed conceptions of political liberalism which they believe differ in important ways from those of their doctrinal colleagues, detailed analyses of the concept of political liberalism have and remain focussed almost exclusively
on a single formulation: namely, Rawlsian political liberalism. This singular focus has precluded
the completion of a comprehensive assessment of the viability of the concept (as opposed to a
single conception) of political liberalism as represented both by Rawlsian and non-Rawlsian
models.
This thesis confronts this problem by expanding the scope of investigation to include a
fulsome examination of other prominent paradigmatic conceptions of political liberalism namely,
those developed by Charles Larmore and Judith Shklar and in so doing provides a more
inclusive and, subsequently, thorough critique than has previously been offered. Adopting such an approach reveals that, despite protestations to the contrary, the prominent paradigmatic
conceptions of political liberalism are sufficiently similar in all important respects to enable their
conflation for the purpose of analysis; and when subjected to a thorough analysis, the idea of a
purely political liberalism proves itself to be untenable. / Political Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Politics)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/896 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Young, Shaun Patrick |
| Contributors | Kant, Sarita Louise, Preez Louw, Andre du, 1935-, Faure, A. M |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (iv, 286 leaves) |
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