ABSTRACT
The deontological conceptions of justice that best discover what such theories tell us about human nature and the conditions necessary for human flourishing. It characterizes them as follows: conceptions of the person; asocial individualism; universalism; subjectivism versus objectivism; liberal neutrality; and individual autonomy. The chapter examines each of these six themes, and to provide a preliminary sketch of the contours of the communitarian critique of liberalism, while outlining the shape and form of the book as a whole. The educational importance of the liberal conception of persons is brought home if we briefly consider what I take to be the central aim of a liberal education. The chapter emphasize again that my concern lies with the communitarian challenge to traditional liberal theory, and, in particular, with those strands of the communitarian critique. It examines more carefully the concept of liberal education, and argues that a liberal education represents the educational ideal most appropriate to humane societies.
