Title: The good life as a public good /
Authors: Hartogh, Govert den
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Year: 2000
Subjects: Policy sciences Moral and ethical aspects.; Political planning Moral and ethical aspects.; Liberalism Moral and ethical aspects; Social values.
Abstract: "According to the neutrality thesis, in designing state policies governments should not allow themselves to be informed by any particular conceptions of the good life. The aim of this book is to contribute to the debate about this thesis in two specific ways. In the first place, the limits of acceptable state perfectionism are examined, not on a general level but by reference to some particular concerns of government policy: transgenic animals, future generations, the promotion of the arts, minority cultures, the allocation of scarce health care resources, the integration of mentally handicapped people into the community, and the expression of national identities.
Contents: Transgenic animals and liberal democracy : the Dutch case / W. Achterberg -- Sustainability and the principle of neutrality / H. Ph. Visser 't Hooft -- Liberal morality and the extinction of cultures / A.W. Musschenga -- The liberal arts : should a liberal state support the arts? / C.W. Maris -- Priorities in collective health care provision : why the search for criteria failed / Govert den Hartogh -- Integration, community and neutrality : integrating the mentally disabled as an interdependent public good / J.S. Reinders -- The paradox of liberal nationalism / Frans Jacobs.