Liberalism and the Best-Judge Principle

Abstract

The central tenet of liberalism has been taken to be value agnosticism, operationalized in the rule that each person must be taken to be the best judge of his own interests. There are, however, various ways to take that ‘best-judge principle’. The strongest form of the claim is here shown to be untenable. The most defensible weaker form is shown to provide only equivocal support at best for the sort of laissez-faire policy prescriptions standardly associated with liberal and neo-liberal political theory.