ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3, I considered two possible positions: that the state ought to promote autonomy as I conceive it, and that it ought to be anti-perfectionistic. I argued that those two positions are equivalent, and hence that my own autonomy-minded liberal theory has anti-perfectionism as a centrally important strand. Their equivalence also showed that the two main competitors to my theory-neutrality-based and perfectionistic (autonomyminded) liberalism-are each committed to claims which are contradictory.1 Defenders of the former are committed to anti-perfectionism but deny that the state should promote autonomy. Defenders of the latter say that the state should promote autonomy but reject anti-perfectionism. My argument showed that neither position is tenable. However, in rejecting those theories I left open the possibility that a liberal might deny both that the state should promote autonomy and that it should be anti-perfectionistic. This chapter aims to address that fi nal possibility.
