yea, i wrote a paper on that once, the state can't remain strictly neutral, but there's a difference between the state saying ok, choose what you like, implicitly valuing individual choice -- versus saying expressly endorsing self-realization, consumerism, hedonism, asceticism, salvation, etc. (Ve haff vays of making you free! happy, rich, saved, fulfilled, etc.) That's why i said, as much as possible. of course liberalism involves a conception of the good, including freedom, tolerance, and diversity, but what's the alternative? Really, now. oppression, intolerance, uniformity? That what you'd advocate?
--- bhandari at berkeley.edu wrote:
> "the state should remain as neutral as possible in
> its policymaking
> between competing conceptions of the good life."
>
> But of course this contradicts itself because the
> good has been identified
> with maximum room for individuated individuals to
> pursue in an atomistic
> state their own versions of the good. This does not
> allow competing
> conceptions of the good life but catapults one above
> all the rest.
>
> Rakesh
>
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