Can liberalism be salvaged?

Wolfe's "Natural Law Liberalism"

Ryan Anderson has a review (subscribers only) of Chris Wolfe's new book, Natural Law Liberalism, in National Review. Here is an excerpt from the review:

Central to Western political liberalism is the notion that disagreement can be resolved through common deliberation ­ and that representative constitutional democracy is the best institution for such deliberation. This makes us think that any kind of clash can be solved through rational discussion of the truths we share. At the same time, however, our modern system is founded on skepticism about the ability of people and their governments to define and enforce a universal vision of the good life. This makes us think that there aren’t any real truths to be shared.

It is in response to such worries that Christopher Wolfe has written his new book, Natural Law Liberalism. Wolfe is a Marquette University political scientist who focused his early work on constitutional interpretation and judicial activism. He founded the American Public Philosophy Institute to support the efforts of such thinkers as Robert P. George, Russell Hittinger, and Hadley Arkes, who have been working to rearticulate the natural-law foundations of political life. Natural Law Liberalism is Wolfe’s contribution to the effort.

By liberalism, Wolfe means the whole range of modern political thought, from the early Enlightenment through the American Founding ­ the philosophical theory of government that emphasizes human equality, personal liberty, individual rights, participatory government, and the rule of law. And natural law, as Wolfe conceives it, is the long Western tradition of reflection on the nature of human flourishing and the rational principles that can guide human action and choice. His thesis is simple: If political liberalism is to justify itself at home and abroad, it must return to the classical tradition of Western thought and embrace natural-law theory as the account of its foundations.

So a "liberal" community needs to follow natural law and natural justice? Or is Professor Wolfe trying to do more than this? I would be interested in reading his take on liberalism, and what he takes the first principles of liberalism to be--alas, it's $75! Perhaps something I can order from Barnes and Noble, with its 10% off coupon.

So governments and legislation need to be guided by a proper and full understanding of the human good. This is true for any government... but is it really liberalism if the Natural Law becomes the admitted foundation of government? Would the liberal theorists of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries recognize it as such? Some of the American founding fathers recognized that virtue was necessary for good government and for the citizens -- but how can one bring about virtue if liberalism does not accept the traditional (i.e. Aquinas's) understanding of the purposes of law, and the necessity of tradition, custom, and discipline/education to bring virtue about?

The greatest weakness of natural law theorists who try to reconcile NL with liberalism (most of whom are Catholic) is they fail to recognize that size is a problem. Liberalism is tied to the rist of the nation-state, and to the historical forces behind it. More once I am able to read the book...

the book (published by Cambridge University Press) -- the publisher's description:

Political philosophy and natural law theory are not contradictory, but - properly understood - mutually reinforcing. Contemporary liberalism (as represented by Rawls, Guttman and Thompson, Dworkin, Raz, and Macedo) rejects natural law and seeks to diminish its historical contribution to the liberal political tradition, but it is only one, defective variant of liberalism. A careful analysis of the history of liberalism, identifying its core principles, and a similar examination of classical natural law theory (as represented by Thomas Aquinas and his intellectual descendants), show that a natural law liberalism is possible and desirable. Natural law theory embraces the key principles of liberalism, and it also provides balance in resisting some of its problematic tendencies. Natural law liberalism is the soundest basis for American public philosophy, and it is a potentially more attractive and persuasive form of liberalism for nations that have tended to resist it.
• Unique in proposing a form of liberalism rooted in natural law theory
• Offers a relatively non-technical description of natural law theory intended to be compatible with contemporary forms of natural law theory
• Describes and defends a form of liberalism compatible with traditional morality and religion

Contents
Part I. Contemporary Liberalism: 1. Contemporary liberal exclusionism I: John Rawls’s antiperfectionist liberalism; 2. Contemporary liberal exclusionism II: Rawls, Macedo, and ‘neutral’ liberal public reason; 3. Contemporary liberal exclusionism III: Gutmann and Thompson on ‘reciprocity’; 4. Contemporary liberalism and autonomy I: Ronald Dworkin on paternalism; 5. Contemporary liberalism and autonomy II: Joseph Raz on trust and citizenship; 6. ‘Offensive liberalism’: Macedo and ‘liberal education’; Part II. Liberalism and Natural Law: 7. Understanding liberalism: a broader vision; 8. Understanding natural law; 9. Liberalism and natural law; 10. ‘Cashing out’ natural law liberalism: the case of religious liberty; 11. A natural law public philosophy.

Links
Christopher Wolfe (Thomas International)
American Public Philosophy Institute (Marquette)
From Constitutional Interpretation to Judicial Activism: The ...