Depth: Foundation
Shared questions
- Which liberties, rights, and opportunities must a legitimate political order secure?
- Can state neutrality coexist with redistribution and democratic self-government?
Internal disagreements
- Liberals dispute property, markets, welfare, neutrality, democracy, and whether freedom is best protected by non-interference, fair opportunity, public justification, or material independence.
Key texts
- Two Treatises of Government · 1689 — Locke connects consent, natural rights, property, and a right of resistance.
- On Liberty · 1859 — Mill defends individuality and limits coercion through the harm principle.
- A Theory of Justice · 1971 — Rawls gives basic liberties priority within a theory of fair social cooperation.