Autonomi och gemensamma strävanden

Sammanfattning: The liberal state, it has been argued, must be neutral between different conceptions of the good. Embodying ideals such as fairness and impartiality, state neutrality is intuitively appealing, but working as a restraint for state actions it is somewhat unsatisfactory. People make mistakes about their lives and people live less valuable lives than they could do. To then restrain the state from doing as much good as it can seems just as unappealing as neutrality at first seemed appealing. In this paper, a possible solution to this dilemma is presented. Drawing on the distinction between liberty and what gives worth to liberty, it is argued that we must never accept non-neutral restrictions of liberty itself, but may allow non-neutral politics to be pursued and may impose taxes in order to fund non-neutral state actions, although such taxation inevitably limits the worth of our liberty. It is shown that we, by adopting such a policy of limited state perfectionism, can respect and honour individual autonomy to a satisfactory degree without having to restrain the state from doing the good it can.