Liberalism and the Moral Life

An essential collection of essays by leading political thinkers on liberalism at the end of the twentieth century.

Liberalism and the Moral Life presents the thoughts of twelve prominent scholars redrawing the map of liberalism: Richard Ashcraft, Benjamin R. Barber, Seyla Benhabib, William Galston, Amy Gutmann, Stephen Holmes, George Kateb, Steven Lukes, Susan Moller Okin, Nancy Rosenblum, Judith N. Shklar, and Charles Taylor. In now-classic essays that go beyond the conventional defense of liberalism based on moral skepticism or the possibility of discovering neutral principles, these writers consider possibilities for reinspiriting liberal thought. They offer fresh arguments for the moral status of individualism and argue that distinctively liberal virtues and practices not only sustain democracy, but also undergird what should be considered a moral life. Moving beyond theory, the authors point to a variety of institutional contexts within liberal democracy that provide moral education and opportunities for expressing commitment to substantive moral values.