In his later writings, the British philosopher Bernard Williams increasingly turned his attentions to issues concerning practical politics and in political theory. He advanced a moderately sceptical and realist liberalism that features distinctive views concerning the appropriate relations among moral, ethical and political theory, and concerning legitimacy, freedom and equality, and democracy. This article examines these and related features of his thinking and locates them in the context of currently influential formulations of liberalism.

How should we understand the relationship between discipline and freedom? What do either or both have to do with the idea of resistance to others and/or to culturally, socially or politically established norms and expectations, authorities and powers?