Liberalism, autonomy, and moral conflict

In this article, Professor Gardbaum presents an account of liberalism in which a particular conception of the ideal of autonomy is an essential and constitutive value. This account, which distinguishes between the liberal state's relative indifference as to which substantial ways of life its citizens choose to adopt and its promotion of choice as the basis on which they are adopted, provides the basis for Professor Gardbaum's distinctively liberal critique of political liberalism and its requirement of state impartiality toward its citizens' conflicting ideals, including the ideal of autonomy. He argues that by taking the central task of political theory to be that of accommodating the ''problem'' of moral conflict in society, political liberalism misconceives the essential nature of the liberal enterprise. Such dissensus should be understood less as the problem to which liberalism is the solution than as the characteristic product of the liberal commitment to the ideal of autonomy. Accordingly he contends, political liberalism's attempt to justify liberal political principles without relying on controversial ideals fails. Professor Gardbaum claims that freeing the liberal state from the false constraint of impartiality permits it to rake its duty to enhance choice seriously, which means that autonomy should be promoted as a substantive rather than only as a formal value.