Political Liberalism and the Characterization of the Moral Virtues1

The Virtue ethical approach to morality is generally thought to be in tension with liberalism in politics. Their incompatibility seems to be straightforward when considering political liberalism. This is because the virtue ethical approach to morality seems to be committed to a perfectionist view of society, whereas political liberalism resists this conceptualization. But this is not the only source of trouble between virtue ethics and political liberalism. A more basic problem seems to be that, in a liberal society, there are many incompatible though reasonable comprehensive doctrines. This fact of reasonable pluralism seems to imply that the very idea of characterizing the moral virtues constitutes an impossible task in a liberal society. This conclusion is too quick, however. A non-eudaimonist, consequentialist conception of virtue can find a place within political liberalism, though this account of moral virtue must be qualified in important ways.