Liberalism, again

Jim Rogers of Texas A&M responds to my posts about liberalism, where I quoted a couple of passages from a recent essay by John Milbank. Rogers writes:

“I do think that there is probably a liberal anthropology that can be criticized in a way similar to Milbank. But sometimes I wonder if both liberals and anti-liberals impute too much theoretical weight ‘anthropology’) to what is really just a very practical and non-controversial intellectual move.

“I think what Locke (and Rawls, and perhaps others, although not all) are doing with the ‘state of nature’ or the “veil of ignorance” is asking the question – what institutions (or “constitution”) would we adopt if we were concerned about promoting social welfare generally, and not our own individual interests. So they make a move that any of us would make: ‘Well, what might I advocate if I didn’t know I was middle class; if I didn’t know I was a 21st century American, if I didn’t know I was Anglo,’ etc.

“Even the Bible invites this sort of counterfactual thinking. When it tells judges not to distort decisions for the rich, it’s saying, ‘Set aside what you think this person can do for you, and limit your decisions to the pertinent facts and principles.’

“To be sure, I think some liberals do take it too far, and themselves mistake the instrumental usefulness of the counterfactual for a real ‘anthropology.; But their mistake doesn’t excuse the anti-liberals who think that in attacking this faux-anthropology of the too-literal-minded liberal that they’ve grabbed onto the center of liberalism. Instead, they may have merely followed the deadend of not-so-clever liberals who themselves mistook form for substance by thinking that liberal theory really requires deracinated individuals to order to make its argument.”