Toleration, diversity, and global justice

Abstract

This dissertation is an examination of the problerr of global diversity and justice within a liberal framework.Specifically, it considers how hvo current influential but competing interpretations of liberalism, political liberalism and comprehensive liberalism, fare with respect to this problem.At another level then, this work is an evaluation of the important debate between these hvo conceptions of liberalism.Despite the current popularity and influence of global liberalism, libenl theory continues to he plagued by internal difficulties and tensions.For instance, what is the limit of liberal toleration?Should a libeml global order accept as legitimate nonliberal ways of ordering political society?And can a libenl global theory accept the idea of the rights of peoples?That is, lo what extent can an individualistic political morality endorse collective rights?These two related sets of questions are the motivating concerns of this work.Political liberalism and comprehensive liberalism offer different responses to these questions.While much of the current debate behveen these two views of liberalism has been within the context of a single state, I believe that extending this discussion to the global context will provide us with the basic concepts with which to clarify the global questions of concern to us.Moreover, and very interestingly, it seems to me that thus extending this debate will give us a new setting against which to further test each of these liberal conceptions, allowing us therefore an extra measure by which to evaluate this important contest within liberal theory.I argue that comprehensive liberalism provides an interpretation of liberal political morality which is more faithful to the basic liberal ideal that individuals be at liberty to form, pursue and revise their conceptions of the good life.By contrast, political liberalism, I contend, fails to give due weight to individual liberty.While this shortcoming is most vividly exposed in its global application, I show that it stems ultimately from political liberalism's mistaken stress on toleration as the fundamental libeml principle.