Many liberals believe that government should not base its decisions on any particular conception of the good life. Many believe, further, that this principle of neutrality is best defended through appeal to some normative principle about autonomy. In this essay, I shall discuss the prospects of mounting one such defense. I say only “one such defense” because neutralists can invoke the demands of autonomy in two quite different ways. They can argue, first, that because autonomy itself has such great value, (...) the state can produce the best results by simply allowing each citizen to shape his own life; or they can argue, second, that even if non-neutral policies would produce the most value, the state remains obligated to eschew them out of respect for its citizens' autonomy. Here I shall discuss only the first and more consequentialist of these arguments. (shrink)

Is a policy of economic growth compatible with the neutrality of the State? Some liberals (Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman, Larmore, Kymlicka) think so. I do not. I begin by explaining and discussing the different meanings of the neutrality thesis, then I show that, whatever meaning we give to the idea of neutrality, it is very difficult to argue convincingly that a policy of economic growth does not favour some conceptions of the good.