Research On The Liberal Perfectionism Of Joseph Raz

The debate around neutrality-perfectionism is one of the main topics in contemporary political philosophy, which many important philosophers such as Rawls, Dworkin has devoted to. Liberal neutrality acclaims that the government should stay neutral on the ideals of good life. Apart from that, another important feature of contemporary liberalism is its close relationship with individualism. However, what Joseph Raz has greatly advocated in his The Morality of Freedom is the target of this essay. He supports perfectionism which admits the objective value of the ideal of personal autonomy and the positive duty for governments to develop and maintain a good environment that would support such ideals, as well as discourage those bad ideals. What’s more important, he also rejects the individualism-based liberalism, and tries to find a non-individualistic base that supports liberalism. Although his theory is suffering from various challenges, I think that what makes our efforts worthwhile here is his such contributions as:first, he provides strong arguments for challenging the feasibility and validity of liberal neutrality; and second, he suggests a possible approach that connects liberalism and perfectionism, and even liberalism and communitarianism.