Is freedom worth the risk? – Liberalism and the challenge of Dostoyevsky
Is freedom worth the risk? – Liberalism and the challenge of Dostoyevsky

Summary/Abstract: Most contemporary liberal thought is concerned with the institutional framework within which we may live our lives. It is, therefore, a mundane or earthly thought, i.e. it renounces what it derisively calls metaphysical speculation on the good life. I want to argue here that the mundanity of liberal thought hinders its understanding of the liberal order. The kernel of truth of that order I take to be (still): the transcendent dignity of human beings. Since the old philosophical vocabularies that established this dignity are now regarded as obsolete, I indicate with this term merely that an individual person is more than what she presents herself to be; that the person is more than the sum of experiences, achievements, comportments, and choices she has taken so far. Contemporary liberal thought must do more than merely acknowledge this –which it often does. It must think it. That is, liberal thought must become metaphysical.

• Details
• Contents