The Myth of Liberal Neutrality

One of the cherished ideals of the secular progressive movement is called liberal neutrality. That basically means that the government gives people a certain amount of freedom and wealth and then people are free to choose their own version of the good life. That may mean carving marble statues of pelicans. It may mean joining a lesbian commune. It may mean joining a strict religious subculture. Whatever. Whatever you want to do, you should be able to do it. There is only one rule: don't force your ideals on someone else.

The problem is that liberals do not even make a good faith effort to actually support liberal neutrality. Instead they fall into the communitarian camp, which promotes a progressive view of what it means to lead the good life. Now, that may sound a little tyrannical and oppressive but it is necessary. For example:

1. Are people allowed to choose for themselves who has moral status and who can be freely oppressed? Are they allowed to draw their own lines for their circle of moral consciousness? If so then liberal neutrality collapses into nihilism. Racists will exclude members of ethnic minority groups and so on. This is obviously crucial because Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the decision that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade, based its support in part on the idea that "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
   
2. What about school choice? People are free to send their children to private school, but they still pay taxes to public schools. The government penalizes and rewards people for the choices they make. Now, progressives can defend the public schools on various grounds (badly, I think, but that's another debate), but this is no longer liberal neutrality. It is communitarianism. Let's have a debate and everyone goes along with the winner.
   
3. Are people allowed to own a gun? If the answer is no then this is a flagrant violation of liberal neutrality. Now, progressives can argue that gun ownership is bad society (again, badly I think) but this is communitarian. Let's have the debate and force everyone to along with the winner.
   
4. Are people allowed to eat fatty foods and ride a motorcycle without a helmet? I would find it ironic if liberals (1) set up universal health care on the grounds that liberal neutrality demands giving people the means to lead the good life and of course, health care is a large part of that, then (2) began telling people how to live their lives in order to keep health care down, and then (3) continued to champion liberal neutrality.
   
5. Are Muslim women allowed to wear veils? The French said no.
   
6. Islam is full of interesting challenges to liberal neutrality. My favorite is the recent Swiss ban on minarets (towers on top of mosques) because they were often deliberately built taller than church steeples. Liberal neutrality says that Muslims should have this freedom, but it allows me to reverse a common egalitarian argument. Liberal neutrality claims to make no decisions about our lives and communities, but it itself necessarily makes a choice. It a chooses a world with unplanned communities and an ungainly hodgepodge of architectural styles, often driven by social status and one-upsmanship. Preserving charming villages with historical character is not allowed with liberal neutrality except in the off chance that everyone who lives there has 'preserve the charming character of the village' as part of their vision of the good life.
   
7. Are men free to have many wives? If so then what about that pesky problem about the fact that for every man with ten wives, nine men must go wifeless. Islam has a nifty solution: send them to holy war. If they die they'll have a harem in heaven. If they live some others would probably die and there will be more women. And besides, as a military veteran they'll probably be higher in status and able to attract more wives. But for some reason I don't think that is something that people who subscribe to liberal neutrality would accept.