IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v9y2010i2p177-212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On two critics of justificatory liberalism: A response to Wall and Lister

Author

Listed:
  • Gerald Gaus

    (University of Arizona, USA, ggaus@email.arizona.edu)

Abstract

In replying to Steven Wall’s and Andrew Lister’s thoughtful essays on my account of justificatory liberalism in this issue, I respond to many of their specific criticisms while taking the opportunity to explicate the foundations of justificatory liberalism. Justificatory liberalism takes seriously the moral requirement to justify all claims of authority over others, as well as all coercive interferences with their lives. If we do so, although we are by no means committed to libertarianism, we find that that many of our cherished values, moral intuitions, and political aspirations no longer ground the range of authority over others many of us would claim. In this sense, justificatory liberalism is a theory of limited authority and limited government — which is what a genuinely liberal theory must be.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerald Gaus, 2010. "On two critics of justificatory liberalism: A response to Wall and Lister," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 9(2), pages 177-212, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:9:y:2010:i:2:p:177-212
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X09345678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X09345678
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X09345678?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:9:y:2010:i:2:p:177-212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.