It is a commonplace amongst communitarians, socialists and feminists alike that liberalism is to be rejected for its excessive ‘individualism’ or ‘atomism,’ for ignoring the manifest ways in which we are ‘embedded’ or ‘situated’ in various social roles and communal relationships. The effect of these theoretical flaws is that liberalism, in a misguided attempt to protect and promote the dignity and autonomy of the individual, has undermined the associations and communities which alone can nurture human flourishing.

My plan is to examine the resources available to liberalism to meet these objections. My primary concern is with what liberals can say in response, not with what particular liberals actually have said in the past. Still, as a way of acknowledging intellectual debts, if nothing else, I hope to show how my arguments are related to the political morality of modem liberals from J.S. Mill through to Rawls and Dworkin. The term ‘liberal’ has been applied to many different theories in many different fields, but I’m using it in this fairly restricted sense. First, I’m dealing with a political morality, a set of moral arguments about the justification of political action and political institutions. Second, my concern is with this modem liberalism, not seventeenth-century liberalism, and I want to leave entirely open what the relationship is between the two. It might be that the developments initiated by the ‘new liberals’ are really an abandonment of what was definitive of classical liberalism. G.A. Cohen, for example, says that since they rejected the principle of ‘self-ownership’ which was definitive of classical liberalism (e.g. in Locke), these new liberals should instead be called ‘social democrats.’My concern is to defend their political morality, whatever the proper label.

Different people live different lives. Each life consists of experiences that are not shared with the other lives. These facts are sometimes referred to as the ‘separateness of persons.’ Some writers have appealed to the separateness of persons to support or to criticize moral views. John Rawls thinks that the separateness of persons supports egalitarianism, while Robert Nozick believes that it supports a rights view. I will call the claim that the separateness of persons counts in favor of a particular moral view the ‘positive connection.’ Both these writers think that utilitarianism is objectionable because it ignores the moral importance of the separateness of persons. I will call the claim that the separateness of persons counts against a moral view the ‘negative connection.’

In this paper I will discuss several different attempts at explaining the connection between the separateness of persons and specific moral views. I will begin by describing how egalitarianism, unlike utilitarianism, treats individual lives as morally important units. I will discuss the kind of egalitarianism that aims at equality, but the same points could be made about egalitarian views that give priority to helping the worst off or require that everyone should receive at least a specified minimum share of resources or happiness.

This Bible quotation can be understood as a rudimentary conception of personal morality, affirming that the moral assessment of your (anyone’s) life depends, in part, upon your conduct toward your least fortunate neighbors. But a conception of personal morality does not capture all that matters morally about our lives - we must also consider our social institutions. These may be morally flawed; for example, they may define positions of utter dependence (for slaves, serfs, and women, in some historical societies). And such flaws are not natural or necessary. Social institutions are created, perpetuated, and changed by human beings, who may then bear some responsibility for such flaws. Thus morality may demand more than to treat the oppressed with kindness and charity: It may require efforts toward institutional reform. And such a requirement presupposes a further moral conception: for the assessment of social institutions.

Hobbes’ account of these issues is conspicuously brief and puzzling. Indeed it has been criticized by some commentators as ‘confused.’ I hope to show, however, that it appears confused only because it has not been read with sufficient precision. Properly understood, Hobbes’ account is both exact and profound. It is also, in my view, far more interesting as a conception of natural right than the modern ‘confusions’ which have come to be read into it.

To show this, the text must be read as it is presented: on its own terms, analytically and exactly. In what follows, therefore, I shall focus upon Hobbes’ definitive account of the right of nature in chapter XIV of Leviathan, with only minimal reference to other passages and other works. I do not pretend that this is the only possible approach to Hobbes on this point; but it does show how his account may be read intelligibly, and with greater respect for the power and precision of his thought.

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues for a position he calls transcendental idealism. And although it comes as no surprise to claim that Kant was an idealist, it is far from clear how this idealism should be understood. Traditionally, Kant’s idealism has been understood as a version of phenomenalism. ‘Objects of experience’ (appearances) are constructions of mental data caused by mind independent reality (the realm of things in themselves). This reading has been labeled the ‘ontological’ interpretation since on this view ‘objects of experience’ are ontologically dependent on our minds and ontologically distinct from the world outside of our minds. And, corresponding to the supposed ‘two worlds’ of objects, it is thought that Kant allows for two perspectives from which objects can be described. Human descriptions are limited to the mere collections of sense data while God can describe the set of objects outside our mind as they really are ‘in themselves.’

To many atheists the existence of evil seems to provide a conclusive argument against the existence of God. God is by definition omnipotent and perfectly good; a perfectly good being will remove evil in so far as he can, an omnipotent being can remove any evil he chooses, so if there is a God there will be no evil, but there is evil, hence there is no God. Theists normally challenge this argument by challenging the premiss that a perfectly good being will remove evil in so far as he can. The theistic defence is usually put as the defence that many evils are logically necessary conditions of greater goods, and hence a perfectly good being may allow them to occur in order to bring about the greater good; so a perfectly good being may well allow some evils to occur.

Towards the ends of their reviews, Annette Baier and Jean Hampton allow, if only momentarily, the real spectres to surface. Baier writes, ‘Gauthier rightly sees the dangers of exploitation and subjection inherent in a kin-based and affection-dependent morality, so purports to try for something totally different. Even if our moral natures cannot recognize themselves in Gauthier’s version of them, the problem that drives the attempt [for an individualist and unsentimental morality] is a real one, and so far, I think, an unsolved one; unsolved for morality as well as for moral theory.’ Hampton writes, ‘Gauthier will point out that anyone who insists that a human being has objective value must develop a theory that will not only justify that claim but also explain what reason one would ever have for respecting this value. I believe this is a challenge one has no choice but to accept, given what the moral facts are.’