The Solution to the Liberal Conundrum is Hiding in Plain Sight
How to preserve freedom and moral order
Sparks are flying in my nerdy little corner of the internet right now. Public intellectuals are debating the merits of liberalism.1
On one side of the debate are the “post-liberals.” This includes writers such as the Notre Dame political scientist Patrick J. Deneen, the New York Times writer Ross Douthat, and the Harvard legal scholar Adrian Vermeule. These writers argue that liberalism has “failed”: by prioritizing personal rights and freedoms at the expense of a unifying moral order, liberalism has eroded a shared vision of the common good. This has led to a host of social ills, from loneliness to political polarization. Liberalism, they argue, must be replaced with a different political “regime” with a more muscular vision of the good life.
On the other side are the classical liberals, including journalists Jonathan Rauch, Matthew Yglesias, Noah Smith, and Jerusalem Demsas. They argue that liberalism is essential. By ensuring people have the ability to pursue their own values, liberalism gives people the freedom they need to thrive. Sure, it may not offer the strongest sense of meaning or solidarity, but attempting to do so through political ends risks putting people in a moral straightjacket. Liberalism may not be a perfect system, but it’s the best we’ve got
Far from esoteric quibbles about abstract political theory, these debates have national significance. Deneen is a major influence on J.D. Vance, the heir-apparent to the Trump dynasty. So expect to see Deenen’s ideas echoing in Vance’s stump speeches in the 2028 Presidential campaign. Meanwhile, Democrats are doing some soul-searching as they struggle to reassemble a coherent political strategy after a devastating 2024 election loss. Critical to this will be figuring out how to address questions of justice, purpose, and solidarity.
No Small Task
Here’s the problem: Everyone is wrong.
No, we don’t need to abandon liberalism.
No, liberalism is not the best we can do.
Instead, what we need is a political vision that preserves the values of liberalism while offering a stronger sense of moral order.
Developing this vision is no small task, especially considering it’s not the first time philosophers have grappled with this challenge. Yet research by the Beacon Project offers clues about how to resolve this dilemma. In fact, our work suggests the solution to the liberal conundrum may be hiding in plain sight.
Homo contribuens
Let’s go back to basics.
Like all political philosophies, liberalism offers a vision of the “social contract” (that is, what we owe each other) based on a particular understanding of human nature. This is reflected in the well-known phrase Homo economicus: the idea that human beings are rational agents acting in their own self-interest. In this view, the common good arises as a result of everyone pursuing these interests. (As Adam Smith famously put it: “[man] intends only his own gain, and he is...led by an invisible hand to promote an end which has no part of his intention.”)
This view that people are self-interested “consumers” of goods and experiences has dominated our politics and economy for centuries, bringing us wonderful things like the Apple computer and 2-day shipping, as well as not-so-wonderful things like wealth inequality and planned obsolescence.
Yet this view of human nature is incomplete.
Yes, people are self-interested. But, as the psychologist Victor Frankl showed in his influential book Man’s Search for Meaning, people have an even more fundamental need: namely, the quest for a sense of purpose—a belief that one’s life amounts to something, that one matters.
Mattering. It’s a basic requirement for a flourishing life. Yet it can’t be achieved through consumption alone. To matter, one must feel as though one’s presence is felt in the lives of others. One must feel as though one makes a difference, that one has impact, that one has something to offer.
As Frankl wrote:
Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself.
Call it Homo contribuens—contributing man.
An Old Idea
The difference between Homo economicus and Homo contribuens is a subtle one. We’re not all Mother Theresa. Instead, our deepest needs and motivations are inextricably tied to the needs and motivations of others. We can’t flourish if we don’t feel that we matter, and we can’t feel that we matter if we don’t feel believe we are making a difference in the world.
This idea isn’t new. As matter of fact, philosophers and scientists have been saying it for centuries:
The historian Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, noted that Americans help each other because they understood their fates were intertwined. He called it “enlightened self-interest.”
The psychologist Alfred Adler argued in the 1930s that mental health depends on a person’s capacity to contribute to the well-being of others. He called it the “doctrine of social interest.”
The philosopher Michael Sandel recently argued that contribution is a fundamental feature of healthy societies. He calls it “contributive justice.”
Even Adam Smith, famous for his “invisible hand” metaphor in the Wealth of Nations, argued in a separate (better!) work that people have a basic “interest in the fortune of others.” He called it “sympathy.”
The idea is already there. We just need to take it seriously.
Restoring (Moral) Order
If liberalism, which articulates a particular vision of the social contract, is built on an incomplete picture of human nature, this raises the question of how that contract might change if we replace Homo economicus with Homo contribuens.
One of the main changes speaks directly to the question of moral order.
Moral order is the idea that society recognizes and promotes a “right” and “wrong” way to go about things.
One way that moral order can be promoted is through laws. We have laws against assault, for example, because we’ve agreed as a society that people should not be allowed to harm others without consequences.
Another way that moral order can be promoted is through social norms—that is, culturally-mediated expectations about how people ought to behave.2
Social norms are a form of soft power. If you violate them, you don’t go to jail. Instead, you experience social sanctions in the form of, say, social disapproval, or gossip.
Humans have been using social norms to promote desirable behavior for millennia. Some have argued they are the “secret to our success.”
The liberal tradition promotes a particular set of norms. One quintessential liberal norm is toleration. Another is civility. Some have even extolled the importance of a good sense of humor.
Notably, liberal norms are thin, meaning they permit a wide latitude of acceptable behavior. Toleration, for example, is a thin social norm, since it asks us to place fewer demands on others’ actions.
Thin norms make sense if our starting assumption is Homo economicus. If we are operating under the belief that people are fundamentally self-interested, but we don’t know what these interests are, then the safest bet is to let them choose their own path, lest we end up forcing them to violate those interests. This idea is what underlies the famous liberal maxim, “Do what you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others.”
But if our starting point is Homo contribuens, the picture changes. Homo contribuens offers a richer picture of human motivation—namely, that people have a need and capacity to contribute—and, as a result, gives rise to a stronger set of social norms.
What would this look like?
It looks like embracing a shared understanding of the ways that culture and society can augment or undermine a life of contribution, and of the active role each of us has in creating this life for ourselves and the people around us.
It looks like a collective recognition of the ways each person’s unique capacities for contribution might be shared or squandered, and of the practices one might engage in to promote the former and stave off the latter.
It looks like a set of social norms that encourage participation, self-cultivation, and contribution.
It looks, in short, like moral order.
Freedom and Constraint
Wait a second, you might say. If you start talking about people’s responsibility to contribute, won’t that undermine their freedom to choose their own path? Isn’t that the kind of authoritarianism the liberals have been warning us about?
Not at all. Homo contribuens simply states that people have a need and capacity to contribute. It doesn’t say anything about how they contribute. From the perspective of the framework, the only requirement is that people’s contributions give them a sense of meaning and purpose.
The moral order we’re talking about, therefore, encourages human flourishing while allowing individuals the opportunity to choose their own path.
This is an updated form of liberalism: a political philosophy that offers a richer vision of the “good life”—that is, a life of purpose and contribution—without undermining freedom.
At the Beacon Project, we call this potentialism: the view that society should be structured to realize human potential, and that this potential is achieved when we recognize people’s right and responsibility to contribute.
The New Synthesis
Potentialism resolves the liberal conundrum by putting the human need and capacity for contribution at the center of the story.
When you do this, you start to see things differently.
You see people not just as consumers of society but as active creators of it.
You see people not as isolated individuals but as interconnected beings.
You see society as a shared enterprise where our ability to thrive depends on others’ ability to do the same.
You see freedom as not just freedom from coercion but freedom to contribute.
You see communities as support mechanisms for the discovery and cultivation of people’s gifts and talents.
I started out by saying that the intellectual heavyweights debating the merits of liberalism are both wrong.
But they’re also both right.
Freedom is essential. So is a shared sense of the common good. The question is whether this balance can be preserved.
I think it can. We just need to realize the truth about ourselves.
Want to learn more about potentialism? See our short introduction here.
By “liberalism” I mean political liberalism—the political philosophy centered on individual liberty, consent of the governed, equality before the law, and restricted government power.
For a wonderful exploration of the role of norms in civic culture, see the recent report Habits of Heart and Mind.
The French revolutionaries understood this. Liberté and egalité are not enough. We need the fraternité too.
Humility, balance and responsibility- combined behaviors that have never failed us, personally or collectively. We can do this. Nice piece here. A tad long. But thank you.