By Eric MacGilvray
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Pp. xvi, 221, $39.99 hardcover.
In Liberal Freedom, Eric MacGilvray writes, “The central argument of this book is that contemporary academic liberalism rests on a flawed and idiosyncratic understanding of what liberalism is” (p. 121). MacGilvray’s target is the tradition of liberalism that emerged from the work of John Rawls in the latter part of the last century, which has come to dominate academic political theory since. He argues that this conception of liberalism has spread from academia to political discourse, leading to extreme polarization and political sclerosis.
The highly theoretical, idealized, and justice-based conception of liberalism popularized by Rawls and his followers is flawed, according to MacGilvray, because it reads much of the history and diversity of liberal thought out of the liberal canon. In response, MacGilvray proposes a better understanding of liberalism consistent with its history that takes its core concern—freedom—seriously. In so doing, he develops an
