Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 PhD, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Professor, Department of International Law and Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Introduction and Research Problem
Theories of state neutrality and perfectionism are frequently presented in contemporary political philosophy as competing and mutually exclusive approaches to the relationship between political authority and the good life. Advocates of neutrality typically regard governmental restraint among competing conceptions of the good as a requirement of respect for individual autonomy, equality, and democratic legitimacy, whereas defenders of perfectionism argue that the preservation of liberal and democratic institutions themselves depends upon the promotion of certain substantive values and virtues. This article challenges the widespread assumption that neutrality and perfectionism are fundamentally opposed traditions. It argues instead that they are better understood as convergent philosophical approaches whose differences concern primarily the extent and limits of legitimate state intervention.
From this perspective, only the two extremes—strict neutrality and comprehensive perfectionism—are genuinely incompatible. Most contemporary political theories occupy positions somewhere between these poles. The central question addressed in this article is therefore whether a political order can remain committed to state neutrality while simultaneously supporting the cultivation of virtue within society. To address this question, the article develops the idea of the capability-fostering state as a virtue-based impartial state. The proposed model seeks to move beyond both the strictly neutral state and comprehensive perfectionism by distinguishing between the virtue of the state and the virtue of society. The argument proceeds from the premise that the primary function of political authority is to expand the conditions under which citizens’ capabilities can flourish and their agency can be exercised. In this framework, neutrality is understood not as indifference toward the good but as a political virtue that constrains the manner in which the state pursues public purposes.
Findings and Discussion
The findings of this study are organized around three interrelated dimensions that constitute the normative architecture of the capability-fostering state. First, it examines the institutional virtue of the state. Second, it distinguishes the virtue of the state from the virtue of society. Third, it analyzes the non-coercive means through which the state may promote virtue and foster citizens’ capabilities. Together, these three dimensions demonstrate how limited neutrality and moderate perfectionism can coexist within a coherent model of political order.
The Institutional Virtue of the State
The article argues that the institutional virtue of the state is best understood as a form of limited neutrality. Unlike strict theories of neutrality, this conception does not require a complete separation between the right and the good, nor does it demand governmental indifference toward all values. The normative foundations of limited neutrality are identified through four interconnected principles. First, equality of opportunity is required as a condition for the expansion of citizens’ capabilities. Second, toleration is understood as recognition of the right to be wrong and as a commitment to respecting reasonable disagreement. Third, autonomy is regarded as a prerequisite for meaningful choice and moral agency. Fourth, republican freedom, understood as freedom from domination and dependence upon the arbitrary will of others, provides the political conditions necessary for the flourishing of human capabilities. Taken together, these principles constitute limited neutrality as an institutional virtue of the state.
The article further argues that the appropriate motivation of the state as a virtuous political institution is reflected in its commitment to neutrality of justification. Political authority should justify laws and policies through publicly accessible reasons articulated in a language available to all citizens. Accordingly, neutrality is located primarily at the level of justification and procedure rather than at the level of outcomes or consequences.
The Virtue of Society and Moderate Perfectionism
Having established the institutional virtue of the state, the article turns to the question of virtue within society. It argues that a distinction must be maintained between the state’s obligation to remain impartially structured and society’s need for moral and civic virtues. The cultivation of virtue therefore becomes a matter of moderate and indirect perfectionism rather than coercive moral enforcement.
Within this framework, the common good is understood as incorporating a minimal set of shared goods and virtues that emerge through public deliberation, social interaction, and intersubjective exchange of reasons. These values derive their legitimacy not from a comprehensive doctrine but from an overlapping consensus among citizens. The role of the state is to identify these broadly shared goods and to employ them as a basis for public policy.
The article emphasizes that moderate perfectionism differs fundamentally from comprehensive perfectionism. It is non-coercive, pluralistic, democratic, and society-centered. Rather than imposing a single conception of the good, it permits the civic promotion of moral ideals rooted in the shared historical and cultural traditions of a political community. Because it relies upon a minimal and relatively thin conception of the common good, it remains compatible with a significant degree of state neutrality.
Non-Coercive Promotion and Capability Expansion
A central claim of the article is that the promotion of virtue need not take coercive forms. Promotion, recommendation, encouragement, education, and persuasion differ fundamentally from threats, legal compulsion, and punitive enforcement. The most important criterion for evaluating autonomy is whether available and possible options remain open to choice. Since persuasive measures do not remove alternatives or make decisions on behalf of citizens, they need not undermine autonomy.
The article argues that the state may legitimately undertake positive measures aimed at removing obstacles to human flourishing and expanding citizens’ capabilities. Such measures are justified insofar as they create the social and institutional conditions necessary for agency, autonomy, and expansion of capability. The article further argues that republican political theory reinforces this position. While republicanism rejects strict state neutrality and emphasizes the relationship between political institutions and civic virtue, it does not require coercive moral regulation. The proposed model therefore rejects punitive and compulsory approaches to virtue promotion. Instead, state intervention should be limited to those minimal, thin, shared, and broadly accepted virtues that command public agreement.
Conclusion
The article concludes that neutrality and perfectionism need not be regarded as mutually exclusive ideals of political order. Its central contribution lies in the distinction between the virtue of state and the virtue of society, which makes it possible to reconcile limited neutrality with moderate perfectionism. The former is expressed through limited neutrality as an institutional virtue, grounded in equality of opportunity, toleration, autonomy, republican freedom, and neutrality of justification. The latter may be advanced through a moderate and indirect form of perfectionism that relies on persuasion, encouragement, and civic promotion rather than coercion.
The capability-fostering state, conceived as a virtue-based impartial state, provides a framework within which citizens’ capabilities can flourish while preserving respect for pluralism and individual agency. Such a state need not remain indifferent to virtue, yet it confines itself to the persuasive promotion of a minimal set of shared goods capable of commanding overlapping consensus. Intervention is restricted to the least costly and least intrusive means necessary to achieve legitimate public objectives, while any expansion of state burdens requires political justification and democratic support.
The coexistence of limited neutrality and moderate perfectionism therefore offers a theoretically coherent alternative to both strict neutrality and comprehensive perfectionism. By refining the concepts of neutrality and virtue and assigning each its proper sphere, the proposed model seeks to preserve the strengths of both approaches while mitigating the limitations associated with their independent forms.
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