A theory of republican liberalism: The ideas of temporality and virtue in the political thought of Michael Oakeshott and Hannah Arendt

In this dissertation I construct a theory of republican liberalism through chapters on classical republicanism, Hannah Arendt, and Michael Oakeshott. My aim is to contribute to the contemporary debate over liberalism by demonstrating the relationship between temporality and the idea of teleology. Oakeshott's republican liberalism addresses a central communitarian criticism of liberal theory; namely that liberalism excludes the idea of a highest good that is embedded in public life. I focus on virtuous conduct. Virtuous conduct is a non-material "present" good that is valuable in its performance and not its "future" outcome. Virtue is an "end-in-itself" that links the unique particularity of the person with the abiding public meaning of the community. Republican liberalism provides for the experience of intrinsic worth without appeal to the flawed "narrative" or unity of temporal dimensions found in communitarian theory.; In the second chapter I contrast non-instrumental political virtue in the early modern, neo-Aristotelian ideology of "classical republicanism" with the emerging instrumental virtues of liberalism and market society. In the third chapter I present Hannah Arendt's political theory as a republican argument compatible with modern society. Arendt criticizes the centrality of "processes" in the scale of values of the modern age. Political virtue and judgement create a world of durable experience that transcends the meaninglessness of the circular life-processes that dominate liberal society.; Michael Oakeshott reformulates liberalism in order to take into account the republican belief in the perfecting quality of virtue. For Oakeshott, the transient, particular interest in a future external outcome is limited in action by the universal interest of present, moral considerations. Oakeshott develops a theory of a republican liberal personality for whom the teleological satisfaction of the moral and public moment of action is the highest experience. Oakeshott also follows the republican tradition in arguing that market life is a threat to the self-sufficiency of the good life. Oakeshott's republican liberalism is an important departure from the progressivism, instrumentalism, and materialism of contemporary liberalism.