Abstract
Abstract This paper elucidates several aspects of the liberal discourse concerning the welfare state. It is argued that the basic principles of liberalism (the ahistorical economic concept of the self, the fallacy of a naturalistic notion of competition and a state without the foundation of a sovereignty of the people in the tradition of Immanuel Kant) have to be questioned. Thus, a historical- epistemological consideration of the liberal discourse might attaina richer and more meaningful explanation regarding the difference between liberalism and the welfare state. So the liberal self and its desire for competition are normative imperatives and have to be enlarged in respect of a categorical imperative as the basic principle of the welfare state.
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