Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The new liberalism and the liberal–communitarian debate
- 1 Liberal community: an essay in retrieval
- 2 T. H. Green on individual rights and the common good
- 3 T. H. Green's complex common good: between liberalism and communitarianism
- 4 Private property, liberal subjects, and the state
- 5 Neutrality, perfectionism, and the new liberal conception of the state
- 6 Bosanquet's communitarian defense of economic individualism: a lesson in the complexities of political theory
- 7 The new liberalism and the rejection of utilitarianism
- 8 Staunchly modern, non-bourgeois liberalism
- 9 The new liberalism and citizenship
- Select bibliography
- Index
6 - Bosanquet's communitarian defense of economic individualism: a lesson in the complexities of political theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The new liberalism and the liberal–communitarian debate
- 1 Liberal community: an essay in retrieval
- 2 T. H. Green on individual rights and the common good
- 3 T. H. Green's complex common good: between liberalism and communitarianism
- 4 Private property, liberal subjects, and the state
- 5 Neutrality, perfectionism, and the new liberal conception of the state
- 6 Bosanquet's communitarian defense of economic individualism: a lesson in the complexities of political theory
- 7 The new liberalism and the rejection of utilitarianism
- 8 Staunchly modern, non-bourgeois liberalism
- 9 The new liberalism and citizenship
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The “communitarian critique of liberalism”
“We are witnessing a revival of communitarian criticisms of liberal political theory. Like the critics of the 1960s, those of the 1980s fault liberalism for being mistakenly and irreparably individualistic.” In the face of these communitarian challenges, many liberals – like most of the contributors to this volume – seek to show that liberalism is not, after all, “irreparably individualistic.” In particular, most of this volume's contributors are inspired by the new liberals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who, in the face of an earlier wave of “communitarian critiques,” advanced two apparently closely related theses. First, the new liberals insisted that liberalism, understood as a doctrine upholding individual freedom to pursue different ways of living, does not depend on an individualistic or “atomistic” conception of society; indeed, a vibrant liberal theory can (and perhaps must) be built on non-individualistic foundations. Second, it was believed that once we understand the social metaphysics underlying an adequate liberalism, our understanding of the liberal political program will alter – to embrace the welfare state. In Hobhouse's eyes, a “public-spirited liberalism” integrated the core liberal commitment to liberty with a socialistic “solidarity” expressed in state provision for disadvantaged members of society.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The New LiberalismReconciling Liberty and Community, pp. 137 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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