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Conservatives, liberals, and “the negative”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2014

Evan Charney*
Affiliation:
Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0239. echar@duke.eduhttp://www.duke.edu/~echar/

Abstract

The authors connect conservatism with aversion to negativity via the tendentious use of the language of threats to characterize conservatism, but not liberalism. Their reliance upon an objective conception of the negative ignores the fact that much of the disagreement between liberals and conservatives is over whether or not one and the same state of affairs is negative or positive.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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