Liberalism and the Defence of Political Contructivism

Contemporary liberal political justification is often accused of preaching to the converted: liberal principles are acceptable only to people already committed to liberal values. Catriona McKinnon addresses this important criticism by arguing that self-respect and its social conditions should be placed at the heart of the liberal approach to justification. A commitment to self-respect delivers a commitment to the liberal values of toleration and public reason, but self-respect itself is not an exclusively liberal value.

CATRIONA MCKINNON is Lecturer in Political Philosophy at the University of York. She is the co-editor of The Demands of Citizenship and The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: Reasonable Tolerance, and is the editor of the journal Imprints: A Journal of Analytical Socialism.