Original title: Liberalizmo tapatumo problemos
Publishing date: 2003
Publisher: Versus Aureus
Language: Lithuanian
Pages: 239
Description:
The book, compiled from the author’s articles, which were published earlier on the topic, is aimed at showing that modern liberalism is a much broader phenomenon than merely the fundamental theoretical versions formulated by John Locke and Friedrich Hayek, which were best applied in practice in England in the times of Margaret Thatcher. The author discusses the historical circumstances of liberalism formation, its main representatives without missing Lithuanians Stasys Šalkauskis and Antanas Maceina. Differences of political and cultural liberalism are analysed in detail, the most recent discussions in the European and American political philosophy about the origin of modern liberalism and its prospects are presented. Moral issues of liberalism are analysed. The author considers inability to promote the development of moral character in individuals probably the main drawback of modern liberalism. It is stated that John Rawls, Robertas Nozickas and Ronald Dworkin, who overvalued the individual’s anatomy, neutrality with regard to various conceptions of good life and human rights and freedoms, forgot about moral education. The author relates this to current moral downturn: crime, drug abuse, decay of family values, inconsistency of the educational system and the entrenching of the mass culture of the lowest level. Having intellectually covered the multi-dimensional tradition of liberalism theory, which is full of contradictions, the crisis of the liberalism identity is postulated by stating that there is plenty of barbarism, which may be directly related to the ideology of liberalism itself, in the liberal society.
Cite as: Jokubaitis, A. (2003) Liberalizmo tapatumo problemos, Vilnius: Versus aureus.
