Abstract

In Against Liberalism, Kekes successfully criticized liberalism by revealing its intrinsic contradictions and its utter detachment from reality. In A Case for Conservatism, however, Kekes unsuccessfully argues for the conservative position by banishing from it any trace of metaphysics, natural law, and theology, while constraining it to a Modernist framework and an empiricist, subjectivist methodology. Moreover, Kekesian conservatism contains some of the same basic contradictions and detachment from reality as the Rawlsian liberalism he criticizes.