Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom

Intermediate groups— voluntary associations, churches, ethnocultural groups, universities, and more—can both protect threaten individual liberty. The same is true for centralized state action against such groups. This wide-ranging book argues that, both normatively and historically, liberal political thought rests on a deep tension between a rationalist suspicion of intermediate and local group power, and a pluralism favorable toward intermediate group life, and preserving the bulk of its s...