ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the experience on which the ideal of perfectibility is based, both moral and psychological. It then considers the Marxist interpretation of the ideal by way of a comparison of liberal and Marxist psychodynamics. The chapter discusses contemporary theories of political obligation, in particular those which depend upon Kantian metaethics. It describes that the moral foundations of political obligation as displayed in liberalism are more firmly established than are Marxian alternatives. Moral functionalism transforms into moral individualism as the concept of natural law inverts into that of natural rights, conceived initially as metaphysical attributes of men who recognize, in Locke's words, a "law of reason" as their moral and political guide. The concepts of moral equilibrium and psychological equipoise together constitute a coherent and empirically persuasive moral psychology, one which can explain its historical deflection.
