The Self and the Other: Liberalism and Gandhi |
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Authors: | Bindu Puri |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India |
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Abstract: | This paper makes an attempt to philosophically re-construct what I have termed as a fundamental paradox at the heart of deontological
liberalism. It is argued that liberalism attempts to create the possibilities of rational consensus and of bringing people
together socially and politically by developing methodologies which overcome the divisive nature of essentially parochial
substantive conceptions of the good. Such methodologies relying on the supposed universally valid dictates of reason and notions
of procedural rationality proceed by disengaging men from the divisive particularities of their plural value contexts. That
disengagement is sought to be achieved by conceptualizing the individual as self sufficient in her moral and epistemic being
thereby conceptually isolating individual man from the other. The liberal effort to create rational consensus which can bring
people together then gets off the ground by isolating the individual from the other. This I have termed as the paradox of
the self and the other or alternatively the paradox of social atomism and universalism. As a possible philosophical alternative
this paper makes an attempt to re-construct Gandhi’s conceptualization of the relationship between swaraj as self rule and Satyagraha as non-violent resistance. This Gandhian connection, it is argued, has the potential to transform the moral psychology of
our response to the other, thereby posing a challenge to the modern, predominantly liberal, conceptualization of such a response. |
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