Le libéralisme politique se réfute-t-il lui-même ?

Abstract

Résumé Cet article soutient que le libéralisme politique se réfute lui-même en tant que cadre de justification. L’argument procède en deux étapes. Premièrement, on affirme que le critère auto-imposé d’acceptabilité par tous les êtres raisonnables du libéralisme politique aboutit à une logique régressive dans le contenu substantiel du consensus par recoupement. Deuxièmement, on considère que la recherche du consensus est intrinsèquement controversée en raison de son inspiration par le projet inacceptablement contesté de la réconciliation rationnelle de Friedrich Hegel. À l’aide de lectures croisées de Martha Nussbaum, John Rawls et Michael Oakeshott, on conclut que le libéralisme politique est d’emblée miné par son critère auto-imposé de détachement d’engagements controversés.

A Critique of Martha Nussbaum’s Liberal Aesthetics

“…A list of basic human capabilities will therefore need to be acceptable to people with many different views on human life, from many different cultures. 4 As De Jongh (2018) has recently summarized, Nussbaum “invites us to view her capabilities list as a delicate balance between a thick theory of the good that can resist moral relativism and a thin political program that is sufficiently uncontroversial in order to qualify as a type of political liberalism” (520).…”

Public goods in Michael Oakeshott’s ‘world of pragmata’

“…This ‘purposeless’ character of civil association is crucial, according to Oakeshott, since the imposition of a superordinate public interest on an association from which members cannot exit would sever ‘the link between belief and conduct’ on which their free and equal standing, and self-understanding, rests (Oakeshott, 1990 [1975]: 495). In short, since civil association denotes a relationship in terms of a structure of ineluctable and inescapable authority, it can only host, but is not itself, a teleocratic enterprise: the idea of compulsory purposiveness is incoherent and compromises the scope for voluntary enterprise association under the purview of rule-governed authority (De Jongh, 2018: 533–534). Recall that Oakeshott does not express a preference for civil over enterprise association, and nor should he should be misunderstood as a critic of purposiveness per se: 6 what he does criticize is the understanding and recommendation of the state as itself a cooperative enterprise, not least because historically the teleocratic state has proven to be as likely to hinder as to enable our self-chosen pursuits in the world of pragmata (Oakeshott, 1976: 367; 1990 [1975]: 119; see also Kim, 2016).…”