Front cover image for Against liberalism

Against liberalism

John Kekes
Liberalism is doomed to failure, John Kekes argues in this penetrating criticism of its basic assumptions. Liberals favor individual autonomy, a wide plurality of choices, and equal rights and resources, seeing them as essential for good lives. They oppose such evils as selfishness, intolerance, cruelty, and greed. Yet the more autonomy, equality, and pluralism there is, Kekes contends, the greater is the scope for evil. According to Kekes, liberalism is inconsistent because the conditions liberals regard as essential for good lives actually foster the very evils liberals want to avoid, and avoiding those evils depends on conditions contrary to the ones liberals favor
Print Book, English, 1997
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1997
xi, 244 pages ; 24 cm
9780801433610, 9780801484001, 9780801431715, 9780801482786, 0801433614, 0801484006, 0801431719, 080148278X
35599243
1. What Is Liberalism?
2. The Prevalence of Evil
3. Individual Responsibility
4. Collective Responsibility
5. The Errors of Egalitarianism
6. Justice and Desert
7. Justice without the Liberal Faith
8. Pluralism versus Liberalism
9. The Sentimentalism of Benevolence
10. What Is Wrong with Liberalism?