| Summary: | The writer argues that the concerns voiced by critics regarding the viability and ethical health of any regime that fully implemented egalitarian liberal demand for public neutrality are frequently overgeneralized or grounded in false either/or choices. He discusses the work of two of public neutrality's most prominent advocates, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, who he maintains qualify or limit the operation of the neutrality constraint in ways that should go some way to alleviating the fears of critics. He recognizes that good reasons may persist for rejecting neutrality, such as reasons rooted in challenges to either the pluralism or the “constitutive” view of inner persuasion and value that are such a large part of its general justification. However, he argues that concerns for the viability and ethical health of an egalitarian liberal regime appear somewhat misplaced and that ongoing calls for justifications of public coercion meeting the neutrality constraint will help to create a society that is both viable and ethically worthy of respect.
|
|---|