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Beyond Rights and Price: Liberalism with Taste
Can individuals still experience meaningful moral relationships with one another in a liberal, commercial society that is not based on one vision of the common good? Relatedly, can liberal, commercial society support and encourage the development of moral judgment? My project argues that since its emergence, liberalism has been concerned with moral development in addition to the protection of individual rights, justice, rule of law, and the flourishing of markets. Focusing on the thought of David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville, I show how taste serves as a solution to problems brought about by modernity such as faction, self-deceit, individualism, and value determined only by the market. I define taste as a form of aesthetic judgment that is formed through intersubjective discussion and affective reasoning. I demonstrate how the development of taste parallels and supplements the development of moral judgment. While scholarship in political theory traditionally draws on Kant’s highly rational and apolitical understanding of aesthetics, I show how the capacity for this affective aesthetic judgment can develop two politically desirable outcomes in a society that requires both self-governance and collective decision-making: individual autonomy and bonds between individuals.
I explore the social relationships and moral judgment that are possible in liberal society because of the market, limited government, rule of law, and individual rights. While these components are considered the essential parts of a liberal society, I argue that liberalism also needs taste. Taste serves as a supplement to market relations and the legal framework of rights, fostering the moral possibilities of commercial society and the emotional connections between citizens that are necessary for a robust liberal politics. My project contributes to on-going debates in political science about the potential for morality in a market economy; the role of emotion in political discourse; and the benefits and costs of liberalism.
Publications
“Patriotic Exceptions to Free Trade: Adam Smith and Political Judgment” forthcoming. Social Philosophy & Policy.
Edited Volumes
Book Reviews
Works in Progress
“No Man is an Island Entire of Itself: Adam Smith on Autonomy and Judgment”
“Tocqueville and the Sociality of Work in Liberal Democracy”
“Tocqueville and the Political Economy of Bankruptcy in Nineteenth-Century America” (R+R Political Science Reviewer)
“The Division of the Virtues: Equality in Adam Smith’s Thought” (with Isabelle Thelen)
All working papers are available upon request.
Popular Writing
Liberalism and Judgment; Against Fixed Standards. March 2020. Response to Daniel B. Klein, “Smith, Hume, and Burke as Policy Liberals and Polity Conservatives” Liberty Matters forum, Liberty Fund
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