Natural Law Liberalism and the Malaise of Modernity

This book examines modernity itself. A single overarching policy recommendation is defended, namely, that the West ought not to defect from modernity’s core commitments to the sciences, market economics and liberal democracy despite the litany of complaints that have been, and continue to be levelled against it. But in addition to this overarching recommendation, numerous policy suggestions are made. The reader will find discussions as wide-ranging as electoral regimes and judicial procedure, banking regulations and the ethics of a modern civil service. What binds these disparate subsidiary recommendations together is that they are designed to meet the challenges facing modernity while remaining true to its core commitments. These subsidiary policy recommendations, in turn, are not developed in an ad hoc manner, but are themselves motivated by a distinct philosophy of modernity which is termed natural law liberalism.

Stephen Boulter is Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University.