Though humanism is the moral code that people will converge upon when they are rational, culturally diverse, and need to get along, it is by no means a vapid or saccharine lowest common denominator. The idea that morality consists in the maximization of human flourishing clashes with two perennially seductive alternatives. The first is theistic mor

All agree that liberal ideals of freedom, equality, the rule of law, representative government and individual rights can only be defended with the help of social virtues such as fraternity, duty, loyalty, humility and honour.

the willingness of liberal systems to accept self-criticism is, in fact, the feature of liberalism that critical methods like postmodern Theory exploit to undermine it. When done cynically, as with Theory, it can destroy people’s trust in the liberal system and obscure from them that it is this system that has made modernity possible.