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Liberalism Under Attack

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2015

J. Roland Pennock
J. Roland Pennock*
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Emeritus
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Extract

The title of this article is much broader than its subject matter, which discusses political liberalism only and only a selection of the attacks that have been made upon it and some of the responses they have elicited. More specifically, certain large and important topics are almost wholly excluded: to wit, the Marxist attacks, the concept of liberty, and rights and justice.

It will appear as we proceed that the arguments develop on various levels: philosophical (especially epistemological) foundations, practical ethics, and theories of governmental operation. However, these will not be used as the basis of organization in what follows.

Liberalism may be considered as a kind of individualism, a fact that is relied upon by both its proponents and its opponents. Individualism comes in many varieties (see Lukes 1973). Oversimplifying, I shall reduce them to three. The first of these (with which many critics of liberalism identify it) may be called “atomistic” individualism. It represents the extreme view of the priority (both chronologically and in terms of value) of the individual as opposed to society. The works of Thomas Hobbes, F. A. Hayek, and Robert Nozick are representative of this type of theory. They tend to think of the individual as having a fixed nature dominated by rational self-interest, emphasizing the satisfaction of preferences. In the words of Christopher J. Berry, individuals “are depicted variously as alienated, selfish, competitive, possessive, apathetic, and so on” (Berry 1989, 2).

Type
Essays on Liberalism
Information
The Political Science Teacher , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Winter 1990 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1990

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