From the Introduction:
…Liberal reluctance to take strong moral stands regarding the kind of lives it is good for human beings to live is motivated by a concern to protect liberty. However, to assume that we can protect liberty without substantive moral commitments involves a misunderstanding of both liberty and morality. Liberty can exist only within a culture of moral responsibility. But such a culture of responsibility can exist only when it develops organically out of relationships of trust and care, rather than the relationships of power and authority that are so beloved by conservatives. Thus, we must formulate a progressive liberalism that clarifies the intimate connection between a culture of responsibility, social justice, and our individual aspirations to lead good lives that can be realized only within such a culture. In short, liberalism needs a politics of moral purpose if it is to rebuild its moral credentials. The ultimate aim of this book is to clarify the conceptual foundations of such a politics and to show how our institutions can embody the trust, care, and responsibility needed to confront twenty-first-century problems.
Conservatives have declared a culture war—a battle for the soul of America. This is a war that liberals would prefer not to fight, for they risk their virtue, the virtue of tolerance, when battle lines are drawn and weapons are locked and loaded (to use Pat Buchanan’s unfortunate phrase). However, in engaging this battle for the soul of America, liberals will not be risking their virtue. A progressive liberalism is more than simple tolerance or inclusiveness; it responds to the call of human flourishing and seeks to make available for everyone the social conditions that enable flourishing. And this call can be understood only in moral terms, because our flourishing depends on fostering a culture of responsibility and care that refuses the lure of exploitation, the addiction of violence, the languor of indifference, and the convenience of authoritarianism. Conservatism incubates these contagions that plague human history; only progressive liberalism stands as a cure. But if conservatism is to be defeated, we must first come to a clearer understanding of the nature of conservatism, the source of its appeal, and most important, the reasons for its failure to create a decent society. We must do a better job of understanding the obstacles to progressive politics and blunt the force of conservatism’s deceptive values agenda that has dominated politics for much of the past thirty years. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously said, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Galbraith may indeed be right, and the recent economic collapse helps confirm his judgment. But conservative arguments cannot be dismissed as cynical rationalizations since they persuade many sincere and well-intentioned Americans. We must confront their arguments about culture and moral values rather than trying to change the subject. We can win the future, only if we win the debate about how we arrived at this perilous position. I will argue that it is not only bad economics or poorly conceived foreign policy but also bankrupt moral values that have tarnished America’s promise…There is, of course, much to be said about the conflict between conservative and liberal approaches on a variety of issues. However, disagreements on these issues are a product of a more fundamental disagreement about moral value. This is not primarily a book about economics, policy, or political strategy, though it has implications for all of these. It is a book about the foundations of morality and how our reigning political ideologies misunderstand those foundations.