ABSTRACT
A major theme in recent liberal thought has been that liberalism be characterised as the view that the political and social institutions should be neutral between different conceptions of the good. Liberalism thus defined is set in opposition to perfectionist views of politics,1 exhibited most clearly in the classical political writing of Plato and Aristotle for whom the purpose of politics is the good life of its citizens. Thus for Aristotle, ‘the end and purpose of the polis is the good life’,2 where the good life is characterised in terms of the virtues: hence the comment that the best political association is that which enables every man to act virtuously
and to live happily.3 Liberal neutrality is standardly defined in terms of a rejection of this conception of politics.
