LIBERAL PERFECTIONISM AND THE VIRTUES

Is Rawls’s political liberalism so thoroughly aligned with the principle of neutrality that no chance is left for proposals aimed to strengthen a liberal ‘conception of the good’? The argument I develop here tries to establish the grounds for a ‘virtue-based liberal perfectionism’ that, drawing on the present debate between liberal neutralists and perfectionists, re-introduces the virtues as a category of goods so far mainly neglected in the theoretical context of liberal theory. The argument does not start from empty but is grounded on Rawls’s views on the virtues and self-respect as sketched in his major works. Rawls’s views seem also very compatible with Kramer’s recent proposal of an aspirational perfectionism. I propose to make some steps further in the direction already shown by their contributions. My conclusion is in favour of an enlarged understanding of ‘public reason’ in which reasonableness does not hinge any more just on ‘reciprocity’ but, following Von Wright, on everything that is concerned with ‘the right way of living’.