Thunder versus Enlightenment:A response to Thunder
Abstract
GeorgeCrowder Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia Ithank David Thunder for his stimulating comments. I agree with him that the issues debated here are important for public policy, but I don't accept that he has presented any good reason to reject my case for Enlightenment or autonomy-based liberalism. Taking the side of Galston's Reformation or toleration-based liberalism, Thunder makes two main claims: first, that a toleration-based liberalism, Thunder makes two main claims: first, that a meaningful right of exit needn't commit us to individual autonomy in the strong Enlightenment sense; second, that value pluralism doesn't generate such a commitment either. I'll address these claims in turn. Exit and Autonomy It's important to recall the context of the first claim: the pro-toleration argument that there's no harm in tolerating illiberal practices that are inter- nal to groups as long as people can leave the group if they choose to. Galston concedes that genuinely to be able to leave a group involves the absence not just of physical interference but also of `mental' imprisonment. Picking up on this psychological dimension of the capacity to exit, I argue that this must bring with it a capacity for critical reflection on one's own