Abstract

The special merit of this book is that it not only focuses our attention on crucial drawbacks of modern liberalism but also offers a convincingly articulated alternative. In defending this alternative, Norton invokes the resources of Greek classical thought, especially the views of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Leaning on that tradition, he proposes that we foster a developmental, eudaimonistic conception of the human self, in contrast to modern liberalism's tendency to favor a static, atomistic notion of the individual, who is primarily driven by economic motives and is encouraged to acquiesce in minimalist morality, reducing it to legalistic rule-following. Besides providing an illuminating historical account of cultural forces that are responsible for the neglect of classical liberalism in favor of the modern liberalism, Norton describes the consequences of that shift: "The effect of modern minimalism is to afford moral life little space for the aspiration that is a definitive human trait; it is a small room with a low ceiling and not much of a view. A telling consequence of this has been to redirect human aspirations away from the confines of morality and toward the apparently limitless horizons afforded by the laboratory and the market".