Abstract

The relationship between politics and virtue has been a controversial issue. While some significant scholars of politics make a sharp distinction between what is political and what is not, others underline the impossibility of separating politics from the virtues despite the fact that the unity of political and virtuous lives had been more apparent in Ancient and Medieval times. This paper aims to re-consider the problem of virtue in terms of liberal politics in general and the liberal principle of neutrality in particular. In doing so, it distinguishes three different arguments, namely `inescapability of virtue`, `virtue lost` and `reclamation of virtue` arguments. First argument underlines the impossibility of separating politics from virtue, even liberal principle of neutrality is itself virtuous. Second argument shows the impossibility of virtuous politics in modern liberal politics for it is only Ancient politics that makes virtue possible. Third argument on the other hand criticizes liberal neutrality and individualism which undermines virtue politics. However, it is optimistic about the articulation of communal virtues into the liberal context. As opposed to these three arguments, this paper offers a Rawlsian solution which centralizes justice in particular as the first virtue of a well-ordered liberal society. It argues that without negotiating fundamental rights and equal liberties, the Rawlsian solution transcends the limitations of the liberal neutrality by articulating political virtuous into liberalism. As a result, the paper concludes that liberal democracies would be politically virtuous without imposing any particular virtuous life conceptions.