The Limits Of Liberalism

Mitchell uses the philosophies of Oakeshott, MacIntyre, and Polanyi to demonstrate the need of a reconstructed view of tradition and freedom to counter false conceptions of the liberal self.

Previous edition published in 1982.

An irony inherent in all political systems is that the principles that underlie and characterize them can also endanger and destroy them. This collection examines the limits that need to be imposed on democracy, liberty, and tolerance in order to ensure the survival of the societies that cherish them. The essays in this volume consider the philosophical difficulties inherent in the concepts of liberty and tolerance; at the same time, they ponder practical problems arising from the tensions between the forces of democracy and the destructive elements that take advantage of liberty to bring harm that undermines democracy. Written in the wake of the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin, this volume is thus dedicated to the question of boundaries: how should democracies cope with antidemocratic forces that challenge its system? How should we respond to threats that undermine democracy and at the same time retain our values and maintain our commitment to democracy and to its underlying values? All the essays here share a belief in the urgency of the need to tackle and find adequate answers to radicalism and political extremism. They cover such topics as the dilemmas embodied in the notion of tolerance, including the cost and regulation of free speech; incitement as distinct from advocacy; the challenge of religious extremism to liberal democracy; the problematics of hate speech; free communication, freedom of the media, and especially the relationships between media and terrorism. The contributors to this volume are David E. Boeyink, Harvey Chisick, Irwin Cotler, David Feldman, Owen Fiss, David Goldberg, J. Michael Jaffe, Edmund B. Lambeth, Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Joseph Eliot Magnet, Richard Moon, Frederick Schauer, and L.W. Sumner. The volume includes the opening remarks of Mrs.Yitzhak Rabin to the conference--dedicated to the late Yitzhak Rabin--at which these papers were originally presented. These studies will appeal to politicians, sociologists, media educators and professionals, jurists and lawyers, as well as the general public.

Society's drug problem will persist, and debates over how to solve it will continue, getting nowhere, until we define our terms. This book is an effort to do just that—to parse the legal, moral, and philosophical underpinnings for any discussion of drug policy. Does liberal political theory, with its commitment to individual freedom, offer any guidance in the matter of drugs, particularly regarding their legal status? Do the commitments that citizens of liberal democracies make—commitments to ideals such as rationality, equality, justice, and democratic forms of decision-making—have implications for drug policy? These are the questions addressed in this volume, which explores the possibilities and limitations of philosophical reflection on this pressing, practical social issue.The authors, distinguished political and legal philosophers, search out the justification of policies that manage problems of drug consumption and social disintegration, but do so in keeping with the moral and political commitments of a liberal democratic society. Their subjects range from the rationality or irrationality of drug consumption to the scope of liberty; from the proper aims of legislation to the rhetoric of the war on drugs, particularly as deployed by former "Drug Czar" William Bennett.

A discussion of John Locke's Letter of Toleration and John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is followed by an analysis of the concept of toleration, exploring its relationship to other central concepts in political thought and an attempt to respond to some important problems concerning toleration.

In The Limits of Liberalism, Mark T. Mitchell argues that a rejection of tradition is both philosophically incoherent and politically harmful. This false conception of tradition helps to facilitate both liberal cosmopolitanism and identity politics. The incoherencies are revealed through an investigation of the works of Michael Oakeshott, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Michael Polanyi. Mitchell demonstrates that the rejection of tradition as an epistemic necessity has produced a false conception of the human person—the liberal self—which in turn has produced a false conception of freedom. This book identifies why most modern thinkers have denied the essential role of tradition and explains how tradition can be restored to its proper place. Oakeshott, MacIntyre, and Polanyi all, in various ways, emphasize the necessity of tradition, and although these thinkers approach tradition in different ways, Mitchell finds useful elements within each to build an argument for a reconstructed view of tradition and, as a result, a reconstructed view of freedom. Mitchell argues that only by finding an alternative to the liberal self can we escape the incoherencies and pathologies inherent therein. This book will appeal to undergraduates, graduate students, professional scholars, and educated laypersons in the history of ideas and late modern culture.

Encompassing the relationship between the state and the individual, society and the individual, the nature of freedom and the concept of the person, this four-volume set covers the main tenets of the liberal tradition. The collection includes material from the rich background and history of classical writings, and also emphasizes modern scholarship and contemporary issues.Fully indexed and including a new introduction by the editor, this is an invaluable reference tool for both researchers and students in the field.