What’s the Matter with Liberalism?

What’s The Matter With Liberalism?

Robert Beiner

During the 80’s, liberalism was the popular ideal for political thought throughout Europe. The west won the cold war and Europe hailed the views of the market-oriented liberal west. It was considered to be the best idea of a society by many. Like all political views, there were and are many critics of this mindset of the superiority of liberalism. Robert Beiner, as one of these critics, elaborates his anti-liberal views by proving points through philosophical discourse. He references many recognized philosophers and mixes their theory with his own to describe why he considers liberalism to be a weightless argument.

Beiner begins by recognizing the great philosophers as literary masters. He appreciates the ability to highlight the weaknesses and strengths of society by telling a tale. The importance of truth seeking in both writing literature and philosophy seem to be a trait Beiner emphasizes. He correlates the purposes of each through their objectives in society. Philosophy “supplies clever arguments for favoring one set of policies rather than another” and writers “try to illuminate needs and desires of human life that the subjects themselves may have failed to acknowledge” (Beiner). I deduce from these definitions that a philosopher supplies his arguments by illuminating the needs and desires of humans. In other words, one may tell a great story in attempt to reveal needs and desires that justify ones support for specific policies. I find this to be the case with most great philosophers. I agree with Beiner that many great philosophers are literary artist such as Plato and his great work Republic. At the same time, Beiner reflects on some of the differences between the types of writings, literature and philosophy. He reflects upon the ability of literature to invoke the imagination while philosophy must be grounded in pure truth.

Beiner’s critique of liberalism begins claiming the need for normative ethics. To draw such conclusions, he compares physical fitness to ethical fitness. He remarks that there are norms of physical fitness, such as “overweight, out of shape, or sluggish” (Beiner). He suggests that ethical fitness is very similar. One can make conscience decisions improving or worsening ones ethical fitness similarly to how one improves his physical status; and normative judgments should be imposed just as those of physical fitness. This is clearly implied with the exert: “Just as we can say that it is undesirable when someone is obese, unfit, and sufficiently out of shape that he or she cannot ascend a flight of stairs without panting, so we can say with no less legitimacy that it is undesirable when individuals become so ethically unfit that they are incapable of sustaining friendships, or when they corrupt their own moral ends in order to satisfy base impulses such as stinginess or greed” (Beiner). To support this argument, Beiner indicates that Aristotle based his teachings of the ethics on this principle of normative ethics by assuming that his students would already be equipped by upbringing and the ethos of their community to be receptive to his characterization of ethical well-being. I understand this viewpoint based on liberalism accepting all preferences as the prerogative of the individual thereby not having norms to what should and should not be acceptable or ethical. Aristotle based his teachings of ethics on a compilation of values that conduce to an excellent human life, which were normative as Beiner claims. Under this preface, Beiner implies that liberalisms loyalty to the individual is impossible. The impossibility lies in communal or societal set standards to respect the choice of everyone to be a prerogative without judgment, as Beiner interprets liberal philosophy.

A communitarian argument against liberalism requires a further look at communitarian theory. Communitarianism emphasizes, “that the self is embedded in the community, in the sense that each individual is a kind of embodiment of the society that has shaped his or her desires, values and purposes” (Heywood 35). This draws attention to the conceptual impossibility of separating an individual’s experiences and beliefs from the social context that assigns them meaning. This is why Beiner refers to the