救助、社群与完美义务.pdfVIP

CATRIONA MCKINNON RESCUE, COMMUNITY AND PERFECT OBLIGATION Patricia Smith, Liberalism and Affirmative Obligation . New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, xi + 260 pp. INTRODUCTION The term “liberalism” refers to a cluster of political philosophies which have in common at least one aim: the justification of state authority enacting principles protecting the freedom of the individual. But beyond the common aim of justifying state protection of individual freedom there is much that divides liberals. One way of conceiving of these differences is in terms of the accounts given by different liberal positions of the role of the state beyond the protection of individual freedom. Using this criterion we can construct a spectrum of liberal positions ranging from minimal statist or libertarian, to welfare statist. On the contemporary scene, the two most famous advocates of views at either end of the spectrum have been Robert Nozick, addressing anti-statist anarchists on one side and welfare statists on the other, and John Rawls, whose second principle of justice mandates state action to secure equality of opportunity and extensive economic redistribution.1 Patricia Smith’s book, Liberalism and Affirmative Obligation, is an attempt to speak to and about the minimal statist end of the spectrum from the welfare statist end.2 She has a two-pronged strategy. In part I she argues for positive as well as negative duties of justice; the existence of such duties makes Good Samaritan legislation legitimate from a liberal, although not a libertarian, perspective. In parts II, III and IV she explores different manifestations of co-operative community – the family, profes- sions, political community – and argues that (voluntary, where appropriate) 1 R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Basic Books, 1974);