Kenneth McIntyre: Nomocratic Pluralism – Plural Values, Negative Liberty, and the Rule of Law

A Reading of Voltaire, Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier

Nomocratic Pluralism: Plural Values, Negative Liberty, and the Rule of Law

By Kenneth McIntyre

 

Recently released by Palgrave Macmillan last year, JMC fellow Kenneth McIntyre’s Nomocratic Pluralism: Plural Values, Negative Liberty, and the Rule of Law argues that liberty under the rule of law is a key concept of liberty and cannot be subsumed by the other primary implications of the acceptance of value pluralism:

This book is a contribution to the ongoing conversation about value pluralism and its relation to political life. Its uniqueness lies in its insistence that the acceptance of value pluralism involves placing certain limitations on what is an acceptable form of government and what functions governments ought to be legitimately performing. In a new approach coined “nomocratic pluralism,” this volume argues that liberty under the rule of law, which is not merely liberty where the law is silent, is a key concept of liberty and cannot be subsumed by the other primary implications of the acceptance of value pluralism: that political communities must reject positive liberty as a political value, and place a high, but not absolute, priority on negative liberty as a political value. The concept of liberty under the rule of law is particularly suited to accommodate a great variety of individual and group conceptions of value and the moral good, and thus, along with negative liberty, should be a primary value for those who accept value pluralism.

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Kenneth McIntyreKenneth McIntyre is a Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include the philosophy of history and social science, the philosophy of law, American political thought, ordinary language philosophy, and the political philosophy of the British idealists (especially Oakeshott and Collingwood). He has written two books, The Limits of Political Theory: Oakeshott’s Philosophy of Civil Association and Herbert Butterfield: History, Providence, and Skeptical Politics, and has published articles on social contract theory, the philosophy of history, the concept of ideology, and ordinary language philosophy and political theory (among other subjects).

Professor McIntyre is a JMC fellow.

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