Liberalism as a "civil religion". A Hegelian Reading of Political Liberalism.

Abstract

I postulate that through a Hegelian reading of the ontological background that underlies the doctrine of political liberalism it is possible to expand its theoretical scope beyond the normative questions of political philosophy in which it is usually restricted under the most common readings; pragmatic and Kantian. Hegel recognizes in the historical affirmation of the principle of equal-freedom the heritage of the Christian message, but as J. Doull has argued, it is only in America that the Hegelian ideal of freedom embodied in the state has been fulfilled on this basis. From here a fundamental difference follows in the way the paradigm and ethos of liberalism are experienced in the United States and Europe, respectively.