EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Freedom and Normalization: Poststructuralism and the Liberalism of Michael Oakeshott

Jacob Segal

American Political Science Review, 2003, vol. 97, issue 3, 447-458

Abstract: This paper discusses “normalization” as a problem for the liberal order through a detailed examination of the liberal political theory of Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott links the poststructuralist normalizing problematic with the “existential” dilemma of human finitude. In liberalism, he argues, selves become disciplined and normalized when they respond to finitude with an overemphasis on instrumentality. They understand freedom as an instrumental good, a means to external ends. Oakeshott reformulates liberalism based on another response when selves appreciate experience as a self-sufficient or intrinsic good. They understand freedom as a first-order good valuable for itself and this lessens the normalizing pressure. I argue that F. A. Hayek's theory of liberalism confirms Oakeshott's warning about an overemphasis on instrumentality. I show the importance of Oakeshott's work in that he restates the distinction between the public and the private and demonstrates the limits of contemporary liberal theories insofar as they neglect the problem of normalization.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:97:y:2003:i:03:p:447-458_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:97:y:2003:i:03:p:447-458_00