Is liberal society sustainable?

29 June 2009


The Sky’s the Limit: A Defense of the Common Good


 In Contemporary Political Philosophy, Will Kymlicka concludes his chapter on communitarianism by describing what he calls “the challenge of the forward-looking communitarian.” He says that “virtually all political theorists today” face this challenge: “sustaining bonds of ethical community in an era of individual choice and cultural diversity” (Kymlicka 2002: 272). As the proliferation of diversity strains the “traditional sources of social unity,” political theorists must identify “new stronger sources of commonality” to uphold the ethical bonds of citizenship. Without a shared sense of community, citizens are less likely to accept the obligations at the foundation of redistributive justice. This serves as the impetus for a ‘politics of the common good,’ and the communitarian critique of the liberal self and state.


In the rest of the chapter, Kymlicka defends a liberal interpretation of the common good (based on the endorsement constraint and state neutrality) against the communitarian alternative (based on the embedded self and state perfectionism) (220). I will examine these competing interpretations, and compare their different conceptions of self and state. I will argue for a middle-ground interpretation of the common good that avoids problems found in both the endorsement constraint and state perfectionism, and then defend this interpretation from objections based on the liberal ‘just savings’ principle.

I. The Self



 Kymlicka presents the liberal interpretation of the common good in the fourth section of his chapter on communitarianism. For Kymlicka, the way we promote the common good is by letting people “choose for themselves what kind of life they want to lead” (212). Since denying anyone this self-determination fails to treat them as equals, liberals defend full self-determination for all “justice-respecting” conceptions of the good life. Indeed, “liberals insist that every competent adult be provided with a sphere of self-determination which must be respected by others” (213). Thus, the proper role of the state is to provide people with a fair share of resources to pursue their own conception of the good life. The state should generally remain neutral as to citizens’ conceptions of the good, so as not to restrict their self-determination. Any attempt by the state to promote a particular conception of the good is subject to the “endorsement constraint,” whereby an individual must endorse a conception of the good “from the inside” before the state can legitimately restrict self-determination (222). Beyond that, the self is free to determine their ends as they see fit, and to rationally revise them over the course of their life without interference from the state.


Kymlicka then presents the communitarian interpretation of the common good. Whereas the liberal interpretation reduces the common good to “the interests of the members of the community” (220), communitarians interpret the common good as “a substantive conception of the good life” to which all members of the community should conform. The role of the communitarian state is to encourage people to adopt this privileged conception of the good, independent of the “pattern of people’s preferences” (220). Instead of locating the common good within the sum of individual preferences, communitarians propose that a conception of the good be imposed on the community by a perfectionist state. This state-sponsored conception of the good defines the community’s way of life, and takes precedence over individual claims to self-determination.


Because communitarians see the self as constituted by its community, there is no need for the state to permit individuals to question and revise their ends. Kymlicka considers three arguments against the liberal account of the self based on this communitarian premise: that it “(1) is empty; (2) violates our self-perceptions; and (3) ignores our embeddedness in communal practices” (221). First, Charles Taylor argues that without a social situation to determine its ends, the freedom of the self is empty. Instead, we must accept whatever goal that our situation “sets for us” (222). Kymlicka responds that the liberal emphasis on freedom is intended, not to rid us of a sense of purpose, but to enable us to revise and pursue our own purposes freely. Without freedom to revise and reject our ends, our lives could not be valuable, because we would not be free to lead them “from the inside, in accordance with our beliefs about value” (222). Taylor asserts that our lives are informed by “the given,” a set of circumstances that form an “authoritative horizon” which we are not free to revise or reject. But for Kymlicka, “nothing is authoritative before our judgement of its value” (224). The self is free to determine its own ends and pursue them independent of social situation.


Michael Sandel objects to this liberal account of the self. He argues that requiring us to assume Rawls’s “original position” of rational moral agents with no knowledge of their background strips us of the motivations that make us who we are. For Sandel, the self is irreducible from the “constitutive ends” set for it by its community. A politics of the common good that expresses these shared ends will allow us “to know a good in common that we cannot know alone” (224). Kymlicka responds that Rawls is not asking that we imagine an “unencumbered self” with no ends or goals whatsoever; rather, he simply wants us to recognize that “no end or goal is exempt from possible re-examination” (225). Instead of attempting the unfeasible task of imagining ourselves as “unencumbered” by any constitutive ends, the liberal account of the self asserts that we periodically imagine ourselves as encumbered by different sets of ends, or as “another ‘encumbered’ potential self” (225). Thus, in order to critique the liberal view of the self, Sandel must not only show that the unencumbered self is unimaginable, but also that we cannot imagine ourselves as encumbered by any different sets of ends (225).


To defend this claim, Sandel argues that our ends are not determined by our own judgments of value, but that they are already present in the social context in which we are embedded. Instead of rationally revising our ends over time, we gradually become aware of the ends and attachments that constitute our identity. We neither choose nor reject these attachments; rather, “we find ourselves in them. Our goals come not by choice, but by self-discovery” (227). Kymlicka responds that this account violates “our deepest self-understanding,” since we can always question and reject whatever attachments we find ourselves embedded in. To the extent that communitarians accept our ability to revise and replace our ends, they offer nothing further than the liberal view of the self.


Thus we see the differences between the conceptions of the self found in the liberal and communitarian interpretations of the common good. Liberalism sees the self as fully capable of revising its ends in accordance with its judgments of the good life, and denies the precedence of any authoritative horizon over individual self-determination. Communitarianism sees the self as fully constituted by its social situation, embedded in a context of attachments and relationships that it is not free to revise. According to Kymlicka, Taylor’s defense of this view “fails to show that we must take communal values as given, that it is empty to say that such communal values should be subject to individual evaluation and possible rejection” (224). He says that Sandel’s defense fails to show “why individuals should not be given the conditions appropriate to that re-examining [of their ends]” (227). 


But a middle-ground interpretation of the self can succeed where Taylor and Sandel supposedly fail. If we can identify a situation in which all individuals are embedded, then the constitutive ends set for us by that situation will not be open to rejection or revision by the individual. The self-determination of individuals will be subject to this authoritative horizon. I propose the planet and its community of inhabitants as such an authoritative horizon, and the obligations inherent in the role of inhabitant as a set of constitutive ends that cannot be rationally revised. The self is not free to revise those ends to which it is bound as an inhabitant of the planet, since all possible conceptions of the good life must be grounded in this basic shared context. The planet as an authoritative horizon is partially constitutive of the ends of every individual, and the revisability of any individual’s ends will be subject to this limiting horizon. Between the liberal claim that ends are fully revisable by the individual, and the communitarian claim that ends are fully constituted by context, I propose this middle-ground interpretation of the self as an inhabitant of the planet, with the rational revisability of its ends limited to those not set for it by the authoritative horizon of the planet. As inhabitants of the planet, we are set with attachments we cannot reasonably reject.

II. The State

With this view of individuals as inhabitants of the planet in mind, we proceed to Kymlicka’s discussion of the state. Communitarians argue that a state that remains neutral on conceptions of the good is incapable of securing the “social conditions of freedom” (246), and that a politics of the common good is required to uphold everyone’s right to self-determination. Alternatively, liberal neutrality restricts the influence of the state in order to preserve a free and independent marketplace of ideas. Kymlicka considers three arguments against the position of liberal neutrality. First, communitarians argue that the state must protect the pluralism of the cultural marketplace where conceptions of the good are exchanged, and make sure that everyone is presented with a fair range of options as to all possible conceptions of the good. Liberals respond that the freedoms of speech and assembly guarantee that the best conceptions of the good will flourish in the cultural marketplace, and that the state should thus limit its involvement in the marketplace to securing those basic freedoms. However, Kymlicka acknowledges that this type of neutrality can harm future generations: “The interests people have in a good way of life, and the forms of support they will voluntarily provide, do not necessarily involve sustaining its existence for future generations. […] So even if the cultural marketplace can be relied on to ensure that existing people can identify valuable ways of life, it cannot be relied on to ensure that future people have a valuable range of options” (247). Liberals assume that the best way of life, understood as the most “satisfying” to the individual, will naturally flourish in the marketplace of ideas, while communitarians believe that the state must actively promote the best way of life. If a conception of the good that satisfies contemporaries diminishes the welfare of future generations, the neutral state is powerless to challenge its market dominance. 


This raises the second argument over state and non-state forums as the appropriate site for determining conceptions of the good life. While communitarians reject the distinction between the “social” activities of voluntary associations and the “political” activities of the state, liberals believe that the coercive state will only distort “genuine” deliberation on the good (251). For Taylor, this skeptical regard for the state is the source of liberalism’s “crisis of legitimation,” and a more active, non-neutral state is required to restore the solidarity that motivates the sacrifices and burdens demanded by justice. Kymlicka concedes this final argument, and admits that the liberal theory of justice must devise a new way to uphold the bonds of community, acknowledging that “there are ‘severe doubts’ about the long-term viability of the liberal model” (253).


As with the earlier discussion of the self, I propose a middle-ground view of the state that is neither neutral nor perfectionist. The state should not impose a totalitarian regime on every aspect of an individual’s life, but neither should the state unconditionally permit individuals to pursue a conception of the good that will ultimately undermine the community as a whole, including foreign and future inhabitants of the planet. The state should promote pluralism in the marketplace of ideas, operating as an educator of the public and a steward of the environment when the pattern of preferences pursued by the community proves unsustainable, or detrimental to future generations. A paternalistic state is required when the “social choice function” (220) of the community’s combined preferences produces the collective action problems endemic to self-interested behavior, such as the overexploitation of resources and the overconsumption of goods. The state must weigh considerations beyond the sum of individuals’ interests, and promote what is good for the community as a whole when it conflicts with self-determination. The state should not promote a perfectionist conception of the good, where the political process is used to determine a single way of life to which all the state’s citizens must conform. Rather, the democratic state should be charged with identifying a conception of the good for the community as a whole, distinct from the good of any one individual, and with enforcing this good of the community as a whole as a moral ceiling on self-determination. The state can then educate the public about these conditions necessary to the common good, and help them “discover” the constitutive ends set for them by the planet.


Thus, the communitarian state is in a position to ask citizens for such practices as thrift, self-sacrifice, and delay of gratification. In this way, the politics of the common good does not promote a perfectionist conception of the good life, but neither does it reduce the good of the whole community to the sum of its members’ interests. Since members’ interests can prove unfair to foreign and future generations, a limited state paternalism is required to counterbalance the tendency of the marketplace to reflect only the interests of the current generation of citizens. As Kymlicka acknowledges, “nothing in principle excludes the possibility that governments can identify mistakes in people’s conceptions of the good” (216). The middle-ground interpretation of the common good, as it pertains to the state, argues that governments should act on that possibility, thus weakening the endorsement constraint. The state should enforce those ends which we as inhabitants of the planet all share, rather than subjecting the good of the whole community of inhabitants to the endorsement of contemporary co-citizens.


So far, I have argued for a middle-ground interpretation of the common good, based on a limited revisability of ends and a limited state paternalism. The self is only capable of revising those ends not set for it by the community of inhabitants, and the state is only authorized to advance the good of the community as a whole, not an individualized conception of the good. By taking the planet as partially constitutive of our ends, we have the basis for a politics of the common good that overcomes the territorial and individual boundaries of liberal justice without losing the bonds of ethical community. By weighing the good of the community as a whole against the sum of its members’ interests, we lay the ground for the state to legitimately impose restrictions on the self-determination of its citizens without having to meet the endorsement constraint. Thus, when the social choice functions of enfranchised contemporaries put foreigners and future generations at an unfair disadvantage, the state, and global institutions based on intergovernmental alliances (‘the global governance system’), is authorized to restrict the autonomy of its citizens for the greater good of the whole, through time.

III. The Just Savings Principle




In section 44 of A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve this problem of future generations with the principle of just savings. “Each generation must not only preserve the gains of culture and civilization, and maintain intact those just institutions that have been established, but it must also put aside in each period of time a suitable amount of real capital accumulation” (Rawls 1971: 285). By deciding how much they are owed by their fathers, agents in the original position are to decide how much they are required to leave for their sons, and adjust the social minimum provided to their contemporaries accordingly. Once the basic structure of just institutions has been established, then “the net accumulation required falls to zero. At this point a society meets its duty of justice by maintaining just institutions and preserving their material base” (287). The amount of savings required will thus vary from generation to generation, with generations leading up to the just institutions obligated to set aside a larger percentage of their total social product, based on the net accumulation of capital.


This savings principle, however, is in tension with the difference principle, in that sacrifices by an earlier generation create an intergenerational inequality which cannot be corrected by the latter generation that undeservedly benefits from those sacrifices. Once the current generation has imposed costs on itself to provide savings to future generations, there is no way those future generations can repay the debt to their ancestors, a debt to which they had no opportunity to consent. Rawls addresses this tension in section 49 of Justice as Fairness: “The principle of just saving holds between generations, while the difference principle holds within generations” (Rawls 2001: 159). Interestingly, Rawls acknowledges that the difference principle “does not require continual economic growth” beyond the establishment of a just basic structure for society. Once enough has been saved up to maintain the ‘material base’ of just institutions, increased capital accumulation is “allow[ed]” but not “required” (159).


Steven Wall rejects this “egalitarian” savings principle, arguing that it is inconsistent to “compartmentalize” justice into intra- and inter-generational contexts (Wall 2003: 91). Instead, Wall argues that Rawls is actually committed to a “prioritarian” savings principle (87) that can justify minor costs to early generations with adequate benefits to later generations. Thus, while the egalitarian savings principle only requires a generation to save up enough to fund the material base of just institutions (the “basic level” of savings), the prioritarian principle justifies a later generation’s claim to whatever amount of savings it considers fair, up to a level of material abundance at which “the problem of distributive justice may cease to apply” (94). “In the gap [between the basic level and abundance], the parties in the original position, given their motivation [as self-interested maximizers], could not accept the claim that additional wealth is either valueless or a positive hindrance for those they represent.” Thus, Wall argues that the difference principle is only relevant in the intragenerational context of justice among contemporaries, and that Rawls is actually committed to a fundamentally prioritarian schedule of savings and distribution in both the intra- and inter-generational contexts. For Wall, the egalitarian difference principle is secondary to the obligation to provide just savings to future generations, allowing for material benefits to descendants even to the distinct disadvantage of contemporaries.


While the egalitarian savings principle at least allows for a steady-state economy, the prioritarian savings principle justifies economic growth beyond the basic level, and indeed requires savings by less well-off generations up to and including the material abundance of future generations. But the circumstances of justice are not a condition to be overcome through material advance. Unchecked economic growth only increases the severity of injustices visited upon foreign and future inhabitants of the planet whose interests are not considered in the pattern of preferences expressed by the citizens of a liberal state. Wall’s prioritarian savings principle has the perverse outcome of requiring ever larger savings as accumulation of capital goes up, meaning that succeeding generations will inherit ever higher levels of unsustainable growth, in excess of the planet’s limited ability to sustain such growth. Neither Wall nor Rawls considers the scenario of a wealthy generation possessed of just institutions being succeeded by a less well-off generation as a result of economic decline. Both theories assume unlimited positive economic growth, and never consider the possibility that the only way to prevent injustices to posterity could be to limit that growth. At least by not abandoning the difference principle, as Wall does, Rawls leaves room for a claim by future generations to not be made worse off by the advantages enjoyed by the current population. Thus, the egalitarian savings principle retains the advantage. But even this egalitarian savings principle is not suited to the task of intergenerational justice, because it only permits, and does not require, the state-enforced moderation of economic growth for the sustainability of the community as a whole.

IV. The Common Good


 As we have seen, I argue for a stronger role for the state than that required by the egalitarian savings principle. Because the good of the community as a whole is distinct from the sum of its members’ interests, equal consideration of all inhabitants of the planet, including foreign and future inhabitants, requires a limited paternalist state authorized to restrain the self-determination of its citizens within the bounds of the planetary horizon. The savings principle requires certain percentages of the social product to be set aside for future generations, but it does not require the accumulation of capital to be limited in any sense. Between the liberal self characterized by fully revisable ends and the communitarian self whose ends are fully constituted by context, I have defended a middle-ground interpretation of the self that recognizes its ends as partially constituted by the authoritative horizon of the planet. Between the liberal state based on neutrality and the communitarian state based on perfectionism, I have defended a middle-ground position of limited state paternalism that provides for the good of the community as a whole over and against the sum of its members’ interests. This middle-ground interpretation of the common good provides a basis for global justice that liberalism, due to its commitments to the endorsement constraint and state neutrality, cannot attain. With a global governance system authorized to moderate economic growth, we can pursue a common right to self-determination grounded in the limits set by the planet we all share. Global democracy and sustainability thus become a good we may know in common that we cannot know alone.



Works Cited

 Kymlicka, Will. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Chapter 6: Communitarianism, pp. 208-283. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002.

 Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Section 44: The Problem of Justice Between Generations, pp. 284-293. Oxford University Press, London. 1971.

 Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Section 49: Economic Institutions of a Property-Owning Democracy, pp. 159-160. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. 2001.

 Wall, Steven. “Just Savings and the Difference Principle.” In Philosophical Studies, vol. 116, pp. 79-102. Oct., 2003.