Abstract

Many have thought that liberal politics must be neutral about values. However, prominent liberal theories of John Rawls and Robert Nozick failed to be neutral. Their politics finally appealed to minimal ideas of value. Even these minimal ideas of values are not sufficient for liberal politics since they are too thin to account for many valuable things we cherish. We need to introduce more substantive ideas of liberal values into politics. ;Liberty and equality are usually regarded as two basic liberal values. They are only formal values until their objects are specified. Equal liberty as their combined form empowers people to seek good things as well as bad things. Hence the formal values of liberty and equality gain their dignity only when they are used to seek worthy objects such as art, science, accomplishment, enjoyment of beauty, understanding, and deep personal relations. This is not to say that these values should be imposed on the citizens of a liberal society. But a liberal state should provide adequate opportunities for the pursuit of these values. Just imagine a state which allows only the formal liberty and equality, but no meaningful opportunities for the pursuit of these values. Such a state may be liberal, but awfully impoverished. ;The liberal conception of individual rights must be reconsidered. It is generally assumed that they are absolute and self-contained. But individual rights are not very meaningful unless they are associated with corresponding values. For example, the right of education is meaningful only because education is valuable to our life. Furthermore, individual rights are not so absolute as to trump all other considerations of values, since in some cases these considerations are more urgent than them. These considerations can be legitimately balanced against rights in those cases. ;In this way, once we accept a set of liberal values besides autonomy and equality, we can justify liberal politics as a way of seeking the publicly acknowledged good as common good. A compulsory education, the subsidy of art and science beyond justice, and a political campaign against drug-abuse can be legitimate policies of a liberal state.