In The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama argued that the trajectory of political development showed that the triumph of liberal democracy over its rivals was within sight. Though Fukuyama’s long-term projection might still be correct, his short-term optimism inspired by the thaw after the collapse of Communism seems to have been misplaced. The emergence of political Islam, the reversion of Russia to autocratic practice if not forms and the continued vitality of the Communist Party of China all argue that the march of liberalism is not proceeding in a steady fashion but halting for a respite[1]. Granted, liberalism is the most vital political philosophy in the world today, in name, if not in fact. One of the hallmarks of liberal thought are axioms about human nature, human rights and human dignity, ideas that are today accepted in principle, though often breached in many polities. Many sophisticated utilitarian conceptions of a liberal political order, for instance that of John Rawls, still have in place inviolable rights which are sacrosanct no matter the general cost vs. benefit calculation methodologies. Rawls’ own philosophy, articulated at length in A Theory of Justice, has been criticized by some as overly abstract and lacking in any grounding in the reality of the human condition. Such critiques are as old as liberalism, David Hume criticized the theories of nature used by Locke & Hobbes in the 18th century as well as heaping common sense scorn on abstractions such as social contracts. Contemporaneously in The Blank Slate Steven Pinker castigates modern political philosophy for looking to 18th century works as seminal and neglecting the real contributions toward an understanding of human nature and the nature of early human social life that modern science and history can shed light on.
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