Kant’s Perfectionist Liberalism

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter argues that perfectionist liberalism is vulnerable to the criticism of paternalism, that liberal perfectionist theories infantilize members by choosing their ends for them. The author’s Kantian form of perfectionism improves on these theories by adopting a single goal as its end, namely, independence, thereby not infantilizing members, but encouraging their self-mastery. At the same time, Kantian liberal government can still advance the ends cherished by contemporary perfectionists—friendship, art, excellence—by reconceiving them as essential instruments for the cultivation of independence. In addition, Kantian liberal perfectionism improves on contemporary perfectionism by focusing on the meaning of life as central to governments’ efforts, rather than the good life. As this chapter argues, the good life tends to focus perfectionist governments’ attention on the present, fostering temporary goods enjoyed by individuals here and now. They fail to address, then, enduring, communal goods which will outlast all human beings living now on earth.