In developing a new theory of political and moral community, J. Donald Moon takes questions of cultural pluralism and difference more seriously than do many other liberal thinkers of our era: Moon is willing to confront the problem of how community can be created among those who have very different views about the proper ends of human life. Experiencing such profound disagreement, can we live together in a society under norms we all accept? In recent years, traditional ways of looking at this query have come under attack by post-modernists, feminists, and thinkers concerned with pluralism. Respectfully engaging their critiques, Moon proposes a reformulated liberalism that is intended to overcome the problems they have identified.
J. Donald Moon is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University.
"There is much to admire in Moon's patient and wide-ranging analysis. . . . Constructing Community is a clear, and clearly important, contribution to liberal theory and practice."—Journal of Politics
"In a wonderfully written and superbly argued work, Moon proposes a notion of liberalism that avoids the pitfalls of essentialist conceptions of the liberal political community while incorporating the emphasis on individual liberties, agency rights, and the discursive potentiality for agreement that have defined this intellectual tradition in the past."—Choice
"A pleasure to read. Moon develops a liberal approach to political theory that takes account of the plurality of the views that people hold-not only about their lives, but views about what a good society would be."—Jeremy Waldron, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
"Moon produces a skillful and spirited defense of rights.... Political liberalism emerges from this book corrected and enhanced."—George Kateb, Princeton University
"This work is a pleasure to read. Moon develops a liberal approach to political theory that takes account of the plurality of the views that people hold—not only about their lives, but views about what a good society would be. And he shows that, despite moral pluralism, a liberal strategy can be constructed for the organization of a society around the value accorded to human agency. . . . Moon deals explicitly and at length with feminist claims and their place in wider liberal theory, and he is one of the first political philosophers in this tradition to do that."—Jeremy Waldron, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
"Constructing Community is a noteworthy achievement. It deals with an impressively wide range of hard questions, and it is exceptionally fair-minded . . . . Moon produces a skillful and spirited defense of rights at a time when, on all sides, theorists are finding ways of disparaging rights for the sake of promoting a partial cause.... Political liberalism emerges from this book corrected and enhanced."—George Kateb, Princeton University
