Some claim that liberalism’s neutrality toward the Good encourages anomie, thereby disallowing social confirmation of beliefs, leaving the individual with an uncertainty about judgments that is opposed to confidence and self-respect. This is the “anomie challenge.” I begin by discussing toleration and neutrality and motivating the problem. I then look at responses to the challenge by liberal pluralists and liberalism’s critics. After dismissing both, I argue that the right to choose is the good to be advocated and that it allows (...) for supportive, but voluntary, social structures. I conclude that liberalism better supports self-respect than the alternatives. (shrink)

This paper critically discusses Charles Taylor’s ethical views in his little known paper “Ethics and Ontology” : 305–320, 2003) by confronting it with the moral phenomenology of Maurice Mandelbaum, as laid out in his The Phenomenology of Moral Experience. The aim of the paper is to explore the significance of Taylor’s views for the dispute between naturalists, non-naturalists, and quietists in contemporary metaethics. It is divided in six sections. In the first section, I examine Taylor’s critique of naturalism. I continue (...) to discuss his moral phenomenology in more detail in the second and third sections, arguing that Taylor’s move from phenomenology to ontology is problematic. In the fourth section, I evaluate Taylor’s strategy by comparing it with Mandelbaum’s understanding of moral phenomenology, while also extending this comparison to the issue of how to locate the source of moral experience in the fifth section. Based on these discussions, I finally conclude in the sixth section that Taylor’s hermeneutical position, although ontologically incomplete and underdemonstrated, draws attention to a question to which current moral theory does not adequately respond. (shrink)

This paper aims to come to grips with the rich philosophy of Charles Taylor by focusing on his concept of ‘strong evaluation’. I argue that a close examination of this term brings out more clearly the continuing tensions in his writings as a whole. I trace back the origin of strong evaluation in Taylor’s earliest writings, and continue by laying out the different philosophical themes that revolve around it. Next, the focus is on the separate arguments in which strong evaluation (...) is central, uncovering several methodological conflicts in Taylor’s strategies. Arguing against most of his commentators, I suggest that a distinction should be drawn between the philosophical anthropological, moral, and ontological implications of strong evaluation. As a result, the contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it clarifies the issue of strong evaluation by distinguishing the different arguments in which Taylor employs the concept. Second, it makes the case for multiple tensions within Taylor’s methods. Third, as a consequence, this analysis not only enables us to evaluate the potential and limits of his subject-centered philosophy but also separates his objectivist claims from his theories of human subjectivity, opening up the question of the metaphysical status of his ontological view. (shrink)

Multiculturalist theories of recognition consist of explanatory-descriptive social theoretical accounts of the position of the minorities whose predicaments the theories seek to address, together with normative principles generating political implications. Although theories of recognition are often based on illiberal principles or couched in illiberal-sounding language, it is possible to combine proper liberal principles with the kind of social theoretical accounts of minority groups highlighted in multiculturalism. The importance of ‘the social bases of self-respect’ in Rawls’s political liberalism is used to (...) illustrate how a liberal theory of recognition might be constructed, and it is argued that such a theory can capture some, though not all, of the concerns of multiculturalism, even though the resulting ‘politics of recognition’ is neither a ‘politics of difference’ nor a kind of ‘identity politics’. (shrink)

Abstract Juxtaposing Pierre Trudeau and Charles Taylor allows for assessing not simply an epoch in Canadian political life but more fundamentally two contrasting visions of modern government and society. The key is not in the usual contrasts: liberalism versus communitarianism or individual rights versus collective rights; but in the opposition between Trudeau?s centralized and Taylor?s decentralized vision of federalism. What emerges from analyzing that familiar difference is significant and ironic. While Taylor?s view seems more cognizant of government?s formative activity and (...) of culture in politics, it is Trudeau?s view that better upholds: (1) the role of government as both an instrument of common purposes and a protector of individual rights; (2) the significance of culture as both a carrier of democratic values and an array of distinctive ways of life. (shrink)

This dissertation examines what the author calls the Canadian social criticism component of the work of philosopher Charles Taylor. An internationally renowned scholar, Taylor's work has been much commented on. Yet there is an imbalance of attention in the reception of his work between the ample commentary pertaining to his more abstract philosophical thought, on the one hand, and the paucity of commentary concerning those aspects of his writing that carry more immediate practical relevance, i.e. his work in social criticism. (...) After introducing a basic framework for 'interpretive social criticism', the dissertation proceeds to situate different aspects of Taylor's criticism within contemporary debates, including the topic areas of democratic decline, consumerism, national unity and egalitarian politics. At one level, each of the different chapters engages with and elaborates on a facet of Canada's common public culture. Yet the central objective in bringing them together in a single program of research is to contribute to our understanding of how this still incomplete culture and political identity can best be achieved. The guiding assumption behind the research is that this would require being faithful at once to the country's social democratic tradition and to its unique potential in reconciling ethnocultural, regional and linguistic diversity. The work of Charles Taylor, as interpreted in the following chapters, helps to demonstrate what this means in the context of specific issues and debates. (shrink)