ABSTRACT
The liberal project was the project of specifying universal limits to the authority of government and, by implication, to the scope of political life. The task of liberal theory was to specify the principles, and sometimes the institutions, in which this universal limitation on political power was expressed and embodied. To be sure, as a species of the Enlightenment project, the liberal project was often associated with, and dependent on, an historical philosophy of progress, which affirmed that different political regimes were appropriate and legitimate in different historical circumstances. None the less, the goal of liberal theory remained that of specifying principles for the limitation of political power which were universally authoritative in that they applied to the best regime for the entirety of humankind – if only in an unspecified future phase in the historical development of the species. It was acknowledged in liberal theory that the best regime might be unattainable in some historical milieux, and in such circumstances the task liberal thought set itself was that
of providing a non-ideal theory of second-best arrangements, which approximated but did not try to meet the requirements specified for the ideally best regime. Again, liberal thinkers recognized that the institutional structure of the best regime might, and indeed would, legitimately vary in different historical contexts. Even where the best regime was attainable, its forms would properly vary, depending on their circumstances and antecedents. With these caveats, however, the goal of liberal theory was, and – in so far as the liberal project still lingers on – remains, the articulation of principles for the limitation of governmental and political power that have universal authority.
