Taylor
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Opposition to homosexual marriage in the United States derives from a fear that such marriages will ultimately undermine patriarchal power. Our society is not liberal at all, but instead derives its legitimacy from a social contract that is originally based on sexual domination. Please write an essay evaluating this statement paying close attention to contract theorists and their critics.
” Republicanism has been revived as a modern ideology. Disillusion with classical liberalism, because it has led to unrestrained capitalism, and with Marxism, because it has resulted in political tyranny, has created a vogue for a republican philosophy, with a commitment to effective legal restraints on the executive, an active ideal of participatory citizenship, and a belief that the collective good should take priority over private interest. Thus defined, republicanism appears to be an attractive, nonsocialist alternative to capitalism and globalization.”
Keith Thomas. “Politics: Looking for Liberty.” The New York Review of Books. May 26, 2005.
“Democracydemands too much, pre-empts too much of human life to be a proper ideal. But is political liberalism itself a form of comprehensive doctrine? Rawls, of course, denies it; and while that denial may be justifiable, the question helps to expose the repressive elements in Rawls liberalism.”
Sheldon Wolin. 2004. Politics and Vision. Princeton: Princeton University Press. P. 549.
Of all the critiques of liberalism that we have encountered this semester, the most compelling seem to be those from a tradition generally referred to as “republicanism