Liberal Neutrality and the Domain of the Political.

This paper suggests and defends a principled way to mediate between the two important but conflicting demands for pre-politically secured individual sovereignty and democratic influence over the matters affecting the many. Revisiting the writings on liberal neutrality and drawing on the Rawlsian distinction between liberty and what gives worth to liberty, it is argued that state policies affecting individual liberty must be pre-politically settled and neutral in aim, while policies affecting the distribution of resources giving worth to liberty may be left open for democratic decision making. This would allow democratic assemblies to adopt non-neutral goals and to distribute resources so as to subsidize non-neutral activities, but would prohibit them from relying on liberty-restricting policies to reach their goals. Thereby, by restricting the means available rather than the range of permissible political goals, we can secure individual liberty without having to restrict the domain of the political as harshly as is done by strict neutralists such as John Rawls or Ronald Dworkin. Finally and in line with this argument, it is suggested that liberal theory should pay less attention to which goals the state may strive towards, and more to how it may do what it sets out to do. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]