Liberalism

Christopher Insole wants theologians who attack “liberalism” to be more careful about what they’re attacking. He favorably cites Robert Song, who distinguishes the constitutional liberalism of Locke and Kant from the laissez-faire liberalism of Hayek from the welfare liberalism of Hobhouse.

Fair enough. But Insole’s own definition of liberalism seems to be vulnerable to precisely the theological criticisms that Song and Oliver O’Donovan, among others, attack: “by ‘political liberalism’ I mean the conviction that politics is ordered to peaceful coexistence (the absence of conflict), and the preservation of liberties of the individual within a pluralistic and tolerant framework, rather than by a search for truth (religious or otherwise), perfection and unity. The crucial ambition of this sort of ‘political liberalism’ is a refusal to allow public power to enforce on society a substantial and comprehensive conception of the good; driven as it is by its central passion for the liberties of individuals over and above the enthusiasms of other individuals and collectivities.”

Isn’t this privileging of individual liberties a “substantial . . . conception of the good”? And doesn’t the non-pursuit of truth, perfection and unity imply a pursuit of something else – of tolerance and pluralism as the highest political aims? As Alasdair MacIntyre has pointed out, the story of no final stories is still a story; and a political order dedicated to ensuring tolerance is still a political order dedicated to a version of what is “good” for political order.