Liberalismo vent'anni dopo

Liberalism Twenty Years On

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

This article is a review of Nicola Matteucci's Il liberalismo in un mondo in trasformazione (Liberalism in a World in Transformation), originally published in 1972 when liberalism – especially in Italy – appeared to be a losing ideology. Galli stresses how, in two chapters written specially for the new edition, Matteucci does not see liberalism simply as the winner of the fight with communism. For him liberalism is not the political theory in which the transcendent subject achieves his own single, individual liberty: it is a political practice which permits actual, historical individuals – the true actors of politics – to create their own plural liberties. Galli also highlights the fact that Matteucci's liberalism has a constitutionalist slant. Jurisdictio occupies a position of preeminence over legislative power. From the moral viewpoint, finally, Matteucci, after Benedetto Croce, denies that liberalism is founded on the theory of utilitarianism. He believes, moreover, that if liberal theory must by necessity take into account the findings of social sciences, its very core (the doctrine of liberty) belongs to the sphere of moral philosophy.