John Humphreys wrote: "Elsewhere Elias brings up the possibility of a common goal, introducing the Platonic arguments about absolute values to counter the perceived liberal position of relative values. But liberalism does not insist that values are relative. The general liberal position is simply that you should not use violence to enforce values on others."

Yep.

Phillip Elias wrote: "Thanks for picking up on my error re: Heidegger. That quote is from Spanish philosopher Antonio Millan Puelles. I don't pretend to be an expert on either. Just been to a few lectures..."

Quite.

The danger of citing sources you've never read. The risk being, as Humphreys points out in the first quote, above, that one misconstrues to the point of embarrassment.

I would think that an elementary criticism of this piece is that it at no point defines liberalism. Where is the literature review distinguishing different strands of liberalism and considering the last 50 years of debates between their proponents? Are we talking Rawls or Nozick, Hart or Dworkin, Raz or Waldron? And what of this natural law and natural rights debate without Finnis, Fuller and Strauss?

Feels like the morning after the night before too many pints of Roger Scruton washed down with a few shots of conservative pop-philosophy. Christ, I was waiting for Lynne Cheney to drop in.

All in all, a most apt reflection on the CIS and on the state of political theory in Australia, as it exists outside of a handful of the more cloistered graduate programs.

Geoff -- I would like to offer a brief defence of the CIS & Philip.

I agree (sorry Philip) that this essay may not have been a worthy winner, for the reasons I identify in my response. However, Philip was constrained by a word limit and a topic... so he could hardly be expected to explore liberalism to the depth that you seem to suggest.

Further, I think it is a bit harsh to consequently hang the CIS. In many places the CIS is offering some thought-provoking and ground-breaking analysis and policy ideas. Norton on higher education and Saunders on welfare have offered valuable opposition to the status quo position and have enriched those debates.

Geoff,

A brief word regarding your criticisms. It seems that you have a lot of experience in the area of political philosophy. I don't pretend to.
I'm interested in history and the underlying 'deep waves' in ideas. I'm interested in the history of philosophy as divided into modern, premodern and postmodern. I'm intersted in the anthropology of social contract theories and of postmodernism.
True, I didn't research Rawls or Dworkin or Nozick for this essay. I didn't distinguish the 'different strands of liberalism'. If I did I think my 2000 word limit would have been up before I made a single argument.
'Does government have a role...': this is a big question, with no simple answer. Of course I was going to simplify and generalise.
And what did I mean by liberalism? I meant the tendency towards an exaggerated autonomy for the human person. I think this is the anthropological basis for liberal political philosophy. I think this is an error, and that this error is the basis for Western society's inability in some areas to come up with appropriate ethical norms and to face the challenges of relativism.
I apologise for my essay not being a bibliography of modern political philosophy but I'm sure you'd know the best place to find such a source.

Can there be a legitimate role for government, in shaping the values and attitudes of its citizens? - Great topic, thank you Phillip Elisa.

How do we get to trade a culture of "No" with a qualified "Yes"?

Can there be an Australian debate for a philosophy, that identifies a set of theoretical absolutes, without the habitual practice of disparaging comtempt and cultural disdain?

Is there any substance in claiming we are a nation crowned with "moral sovereigns"? - Then why the reluctance to address areas of incorporeal "moral chaos"?

Why do so many Australians turn off? Choose to ignore the scourge of development indices, those perceptibly locked-in by a moral crisis reflecting linkages broken in general standards of lawful and moral compliance. As Mannes discribes, we have shut down into a “shadowland of moral chaos”. This world can be seen through the evidence of "increasing suicide rates, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and the breakdown of marriage and families".

While I agree with a Kant imperative, that a human person must always be treated as an end in itself, never as a means to an end, I see conflict between a social culture growing towards self moral harm, and a nation having problems coping with value systems that may differ from what may be understood, as the comfort zone of mainstream?

This is because the mainstream ethic appears hell bent on a individualistic sense of "freedom", a new form of slavery, devoid of the kind of scruples necessary for shared understandings about there being a common law, in the eye of being Australian.

For example Australia has a deprived sense of culture based apon government having a role in dealing with a person's crime, but not with their relevant vices. While this may seem appropiate, to protect individual freedoms, it is the basis that gives the government and everyone else the opportunity to wash their hands of having any "responsiblity" of consequence through a social contract, that may otherwise show capacity to deal with a growing nature of social ills