Société québécoise de science politique

Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics by Douglas B.Rasmussen; Douglas J. Den UylReview by: Peter LindsayCanadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 40, No. 3(Sep., 2007), pp. 805-807Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science politiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25166165 .

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Recensions / Reviews 805

other state agencies in pursuance of women's equality with men. Though SERNAM

is woefully under-resourced, it has played the important role of introducing key pieces of pro-women legislation. At the same time, it has contributed to the fragmentation of the women's movement, as many former activists are siphoned off to work in the

state. Still, while many in Chile lament that the women's movement died at the end

of the dictatorship, Franceschet demonstrates that women's activism is alive, if strug

gling, through the work of middle-class feminist NGOs and networks of working class, rural, and indigenous women.

One of the most important contributions of this book is Franceschet's broad

and multifaceted view of what constitutes politics. Including formal as well as infor

mal political participation allows her to demonstrate the gendered character of polit ical participation. Indeed, Franceschet argues that women's marginalization is related

to the highly gendered forms that men's and women's political participation takes.

While men tend to participate in formal, party-driven, electoral politics, women remain

the engine behind community-level organizations in the informal sphere. At the same

time, this segregated participation leads to a sort of normative prescription. Few women

actually seek to participate in electoral politics and, when they do, they often do not

receive necessary support from party authorities and male colleagues. In addition, Franceschet's broad view of politics also proves false the common

assertion that "women don't do politics." She demonstrates, for example, a great deal

of back-and-forth movement among middle-class feminists between employment in

women's NGOs and the state women's policy machinery. Franceschet's broadened

view of politics also draws attention to spaces of conflict among women in these

three spheres. For example, as is well known, women legislators do not necessarily

represent women's best interests. Likewise, the women who run SERNAM have not

always been proactive about soliciting the contributions and feedback of women in

the movement.

Throughout the book, Franceschet pays careful attention to the ways that gen der interacts with social class and region of origin. She demonstrates that the politi cal resources that do exist for women are not evenly distributed among them. Working class and rural women are more likely to be marginalized from the spaces of gender inclusion, such as SERNAM, where middle-class women have some access. Despite these power imbalances and setbacks for women's political participation in the dem

ocratic setting, Franceschet holds out hope that the recent creation of broad networks

of women's organizations signals a revitalization of the women's movement and the

possibility for creating the pressure necessary to improve both their numerical repre sentation and the substantive content of their citizenship.

This volume is well situated in the literature on women and politics in Latin

America and is written in a parsimonious, accessible manner. It is ideal for use as a case study in comparative politics at the graduate or undergraduate levels. It should

also be of great interest to scholars concerned with the substance of democracy

throughout the Americas.

Patricia Richards University of Georgia

Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics

Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005, pp. xviii, 358

DOI: 10.1017/S0008423907071053

As the sub-title here suggests, Rasmussen and Den Uyl seek to defend a liberalism that does not shy away from deep moral commitments. Instead they seek one with a

"robust moral framework," one that rejects "the claim that ... liberalism is necessar

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806 Recensions / Reviews

ily connected to moral minimalism or skepticism" (15). As they point out, this is not an especially new idea, and indeed much of their argument for a more philosophi

cally invested liberalism is in general sympathy with the vision Mill articulated 150 years ago. (They happily go back even further, to Spinoza.)

Their particular twist on this notion of "liberalism as a theory of the good" rests in the strong emphasis they place on Aristotelian thinking. The clearest state

ment of that emphasis comes 75 pages in: "We wish to take basically a classical

teleological eudaimonistic approach to ethics and a more or less Aristotelian approach to metaphysics and epistemology, and use these as a foundation for a modern

looking political theory, that is, one that emphasizes the liberty of the individual"

(75). So far so good. In pursuit of this Aristotelian liberalism, much of their energy is spent estab

lishing liberal rights as "metanorms," that is, as "principles that have to do with secur

ing, maintaining, and, most importantly, justifying that condition in society necessary for the possibility that the various forms of human flourishing are not in structural

conflict" (266) . When unpacked fully, the idea seems uncontroversial enough, as

rights in the liberal sense certainly aim to rise above?thereby leaving unscathed?

individual conceptions of the good. Again, so far so good. So what's not to like? While my differences with Rasmussen and Den Uyl are

primarily substantive, it was not substance that got us off to a bad start. That came

on page 1, where they twice quoted at length from their own previous books (in the

first instance via the opening chapter's epigraph). Whether this self-referencing was

an effort at self-promotion or self-clarification I cannot say (my hunch is both), but

it continued unabated for the remainder of the book. My unscientific guesstimate is

that 30 to 40 per cent of the references are to their own writings.

Moving to a less petty stylistic complaint, the book is cumbersome and diffi

cult to follow. My sense is that the authors agree with me on that point as they spend an inordinate amount of time recapping where they have been (and, as mentioned, not just in this book) and explaining where they are going. Unfortunately the efforts

at clarification are to little avail: looking at their roadmaps just gave me the sense

that either the maps, or I, were upside down. The problem here is that for such a

major undertaking, too much of the discussion is mired in minutiae which, while

often clear in themselves, obscure rather than clarify the book's central argument. And this leads me to my principal substantive difficulty with the book, which is

that after three hundred plus pages I remained wholly unconvinced that if we start

with Aristotle we could possibly end with Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard or EA.

Hayek or Milton Friedman or any of their other inspirational figures. I applaud their

efforts at deepening our understanding of liberal politics, and defend wholeheartedly their conviction that "one can advocate ethical perfectionism without having to advo

cate political perfectionism" (267). Liberalism clearly needs a bit of Aristotle. If in

the end, however, we are to take seriously Aristotle's vision of human flourishing, even one as individuated and heterogeneous as they defend (with which I have no

quarrel), it is only by the most wilful abstraction from history and politics that one

could then claim that "political liberty prohibits coercion" (267) or that the "basic

negative right to liberty translates into compossible [a frequent word of theirs] and

equal freedom for all" (281). As much as they bend over backward to acknowledge the importance of social and community life in the search for self-direction, they fail

to recognize the gravity of the justice issues and the nature of the political obliga tions entailed by such a life.

In the end, their position comes down to familiar Cold War simplicity, as the

legitimate middle ground (i.e., the one in which all liberal political theorists outside

the libertarian fringe reside) is pushed aside in favour of an either/or choice between

their ideal of self-direction in name only and the self-perfection of Aristotle's character

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Recensions / Reviews 807

building polis (replete perhaps with the monism of Ethics X). To sweeten the pot in

favour of the former, they offer the solace that comes with standing on principle: "While no systematic state aid for the extremely poor may seem unsympathetic to

some, it is the principled approach, and it furthermore reinforces our claim that not

all of what should happen in ethical life?namely, in this case, charitable activity? is, or should be, a function of the political" (311, emphasis added).

One certainly can believe that poverty is an ethical and not a political problem,

just as one can believe that "the prohibition against the initiatory use of physical force and coercion" is the only "metanormative concern" (310). One can believe what ever one wants, after all (especially, perhaps, if one is a libertarian). Fortunately, it is

just as easy for readers to reject such nonsense, to argue, for instance, that the cre

ation of an economy is no less a political act than is the regulation and oversight, via

welfare state provisions, of its political effects. And while acting on false beliefs may indeed be taking a principled approach, that fact should not overshadow the more

obvious point that other principled approaches?ones grounded in political reality? are, necessarily, to be preferred.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl have followed their libertarian forerunners in construct

ing a philosophically neat and tidy world. It remains, however, a world in which the

self-directed individuals whom they champion would certainly not care to live.

Peter Lindsay Georgia State University

Political Thought in Canada: An Intellectual History Katherine Fierlbeck

Peterborough ON: Broadview Press, 2006, pp. 178

DOI: 10.1017/S0008423907071065

Katherine Fierlbeck's project to provide "a brief exegesis of some of the more impor tant political and philosophical debates in Canada's history" (6) is a difficult one, as

she herself notes, because the criteria for determining which thinkers and ideas to

include are contested. Fierlbeck selects a rich range of well known and under

theorized thinkers and, more importantly, she historicizes the links between political ideas and events so as to contextualize the development of political thought. Although she recognizes that there is no single school of Canadian thought, the unifying theme

of the book is that of national identity. While no one text can bring together the enormous breadth and depth of polit

ical thought within the place known as Canada, the author places limits on the scope of the book such that key ideas related to Canadian nation building receive cursory attention. This is a consequence of privileging Anglo-liberal ideas which, while fun

damental to an understanding of Canada, has the effect of eclipsing the rich body of

historical and contemporary thought that is informed by feminist, Indigenous, anti

racist and postmodern perspectives and representations of Canadian history. In addi

tion, Fierlbeck states from the outset that the book will not closely examine ideas

related to the nature of democracy in Canada, federalism as a political institution, debates over Aboriginal peoples or French-Canadian political thought, since these are outside the framework of the text. These are fundamental to political thought in

Canada and thus, despite the author's claim, many of these topics are in fact briefly

explored because they are unavoidable.

Fierlbeck organizes the book into three sections: "Defining a Nation," "Social

Justice," and "Culture and Accommodation." Section 1 opens with a chapter on "The

Colonial Legacy" (chap. 3), which carefully examines the intellectual heritage of Brit ish Toryism, liberalism and constitutionalism. This chapter, however, neglects to closely consider the impact of racist and colonial ideas, many of which are intrinsic to the

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