ABSTRACT
This chapter considers whether eudaimonist virtue ethics is compatible with liberalism and what John Rawls calls the fact of reasonable pluralism. It is argued that not only is eudaimonism compatible with reasonable pluralism, but that eudaimonism, in its prioritization of virtue and a shared good, is a precondition for stable liberal democracy. This shared good has both “thin” and “thick” elements. The thin element consists in the exercise of practical wisdom within one’s socially embedded circumstances. The thick element consists of the traditions constitutive of social membership in a political community. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that the search for social unity within liberal democracies should be recast in terms of the good, rather than justice.
