Can Local Comparative Judgements Justify Moderate Perfectionism?

Abstract A common objection to political liberalism is that since reasonable citizens agree some ways of life are worse than others – for instance the a drug addict less worthwhile person who spends her time with family and philosophy liberals must concede state can sometimes permissibly use perfectionist reasons. I argue in this paper challenge mistaken, because comparison only tells us something about relative, not absolute, value. And real question concerns what right justificatory constituency looks like, counts as other sense, implication perfectionists could construct equally plausible idealised constituencies. This stalemate gives reason develop arguments favour our preferred constituency. We cannot view local comparative judgements isolation.