Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and Politics

by George Sher

Many people, including many contemporary philosophers, believe that the state has no business trying to improve people's characters, or elevate their tastes, or prevent them from living degraded lives. They believe that governments should remain absolutely neutral when it comes to the consideration of competing conceptions of the good. One fundamental aim of George Sher's book is to show that this view is indefensible. A second complementary aim is to articulate a conception of the good that is worthy of promotion by the state.

Genres: Philosophy

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 13, 1997

Reviews

[Sam Mattingly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very well-written and compelling book. I think he does a good job taking down the view that valuing autonomy straightforwardly supports the principle of neutrality. I think a lot of liberals who support neutrality (briefly, the idea that the state ought to remain neutral on questions of the good, similar to secularism but applied to more things) defend their view as if they’re the moderate ones and that if you don’t agree with them you must be some sort of authoritarian theocrat. But in reality, the form of neutrality that many people like Rawls, Dworkin, and Gauss support is nothing short of radical. It rules out, for instance, state funding of public works of art, museums, and school programs that are not essential for competency as a citizen. Gauss is explicit in saying that the principle of neutrality requires that after school music programs should not be funded because someone could reasonably disagree with the program. I think Sher does a good job of pointing out that in order to support neutrality as an absolute constraint (rather than just a pro tanto reason) one needs to not only claim that autonomy is important, but that it takes priority over all other considerations. And why should it? Moreover, even if autonomy should take priority over all other considerations, or even if it is a necessary condition for all other goods to be realized, it simply doesn’t follow that perfectionist measures which temporarily inhibit autonomy will therefore have the effect of limiting it over the course of someone’s life. Perhaps someone will act less autonomously at first when they take up a certain activity because, say, the state incentivized it or discouraged the other option that they would’ve chosen. But given that the activity in question is valuable (as stipulated by perfectionism), the person might come to choose the option because it is valuable. I think this argument Sher develops grants even more to the neutralist than is necessary, but even when he grants as much as he does he still reveals neutrality to be somewhat of a lost cause in its traditional form.

Also, Sher exposes the sheer lunacy of the idea that moral skepticism supports liberal neutrality. Some people think that because we cannot really know what is good or bad, we should therefore not allow the state or some group of elites to decide what is good. But as Sher points out, nothing about perfectionism requires that a group of elites decides what goods the state pursues. It could be required that the goods that are pursued are democratically decided. Also, and this is really the biggest issue, if we should be skeptics about our ability to discern what makes a life go well, why should we trust our ability to discern what is just and right? We cannot be skeptical on this too, if we want to support neutrality, because neutrality is supposed to be a principle that is advanced on the grounds of justice. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that anyone who supports neutrality on the grounds of moral skepticism is making a fundamental error.

There were however a few things I didn’t like about this book. Throughout the book, Sher runs together issues of justice and the good. Of course, he is aware of the distinction but he often conflates them. Also, I think he conflates perfectionism as a theory of well being and perfectionism as a political philosophy. The two aren’t entirely related, but Sher seems to think that one cannot reasonably be a political perfectionist while affirming a subjectivist view of well-being. But this is not clear to me, as people can disagree not just about what is objectively good but about what would cause the most pleasure or preference satisfaction. Thus, one can support things like public museums or programs intended to promote civic virtue or community on the hedonistic grounds that doing so will cause the most pleasure/happiness. Another issue I had with this book is that the last chapter, Sher’s positive account of perfectionist well-being is very convoluted and hard to follow. Also, I found it very implausible.