Abstract

Ever since Immanuel Kant suggested that ‘the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils’ so long as citizens’ selfish tendencies worked to counterbalance one another, critics have complained that liberalism is indifferent to individual character and, worse still, is predicated on the notion that citizens ought to be concerned primarily with their private interests and little, if at all, with the public weal. Lately, this line of criticism has been pressed with renewed force by theorists who argue that liberal states can flourish only if citizens develop the distinctive virtues that, ‘taken together … constitute a disposition to foster, support, and participate in liberal political institutions,’ but that liberal states committed to neutrality with respect to the good cannot realistically expect their citizens to develop these virtues.