PHIL 335 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Basic Norm, Limited Government, Reductionism
Document Summary
Liberalism"s overriding aim: to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom. 3) implies particular attitudes about science of skepticism. Historically, its deepest grounding is in the convictions of the defenders of toleration. Rather, the acceptance, the drawn, the affinity is lying in the sense of horror that liberals and early defenders of toleration share at what shklar calls cruelty. Cruelty = deliberate infliction of physical and secondarily emotional, pain upon a weaker person or group by stronger ones in order to achieve some end, tangible or intangible, of latter" (think of religious persecution !!!) So, shklar contrasts liberalism of fear using this idea, to other types of liberalism: Liberalism of natural rights (locke): attempt to fulfill pre-ordained normative order. Liberalism of personal development (mill): idea that freedom is necessary for personal and social progress. In contrast to these types of liberalism, the liberalism of fear puts cruelty first.
