The Nature of Political Theory

200 The Nature of Political Theory

Finally, how seriously can we take the differences between liberalism and repub-
licanism? One problem is that contemporary republicans take little account of the
complex history of twentieth-century liberalism. Thus, if a counter example is thrown
up within, what has usually been taken to be, liberal thought, which does not corres-
pond with the republican caricature of liberalism, then, it is immediately subsumed
into the ‘unwitting republican’ category. Thus, a collection of theorists during the
nineteenth and twentieth century, who, for example, styled themselves as ‘social lib-
erals’ or ‘liberal-minded socialists’, suddenly become—with the shake of a republican
wand—unconscious or unwitting republicans. All this is rather unsatisfactory.
In fact, the republican reading of history can be regarded as unduly speculative
and teleological on this ground. However, if, for the sake of argument, one accepts
the republican caricature of liberalism, then even here there are lacunae. Thus, it
is difficult to make out a case that, say, a procedural liberal such as Hayek, for
example, always opposes law to liberty, which is one of the planks of Pettit’s argument.
Liberty clearly only existsunderthe rule of law for Hayek. Further, for Hayek, law
should be seen as largely independent of the state, reflecting rather a form of pre-
established moral or customary and spontaneous order. Hayek’s later writings even
try to give this some form of slightly weird evolutionary gloss. The state, for Hayek,
should therefore be considered an instrumentofthe rule of law. Republicanism, in
this sense, for procedural liberals such as Hayek, places too much emphasis on the
state and government designing or constructing law. Governmentunderthe law is
different from government operatingthroughlaw. Thus, republicanism is seen to
have an inadequate conception of law and liberty. Liberty, in this critical liberal
reading, is too closely defined by and linked to the ‘public thing’; it implies too
much homogenization, which touches again upon points made above. Conversely,
it is citizens confident in their personal liberty, under the law, who are the most
effective guarantors of liberty. Republicanism, in its pursuit of the values of the ‘public
thing’, is more than likely to ride roughshod over pluralism, specifically the rights of
minority interests—a point against republicanism which, ironically, is shared by both
Habermas and Hayek.

Conclusion

Minimally, the thin universalism of 1970s liberal justice theory—connected to a form
of procedural liberalism—tended to overlook the conventional situatedness of indi-
viduals. Consequently, for critics, it was seen to contain an implausible account of
the person or self. Further, thin universalism also tended to overlook cultural dif-
ference and conventional theories of action and meaning, for the sake of a more
abstract universal reasonableness. However, without stronger metaphysical agree-
ment, this ‘abstract universalism’ looked deeply suspect. The foundations were too
thin to bear the weight put upon them. Liberal universalism seemed to be skating
on very thin ice. The theoretical dissatisfaction with procedural liberalism and thin