List of liberal theorists

It included the ideas of self-determination, the primacy of the individual and the nation as opposed to the state and religion as being the fundamental units of law, politics and economy.

Since then liberalism broadened to include a wide range of approaches from Americans Ronald Dworkin, Richard Rorty, John Rawls and Francis Fukuyama as well as the Indian Amartya Sen and the Peruvian Hernando de Soto.

Considering each in turn, Aristotle rejects Monarchy as infantilizing of citizens, Oligarchy as too profit-motivated, Tyranny as against the will of the people, Democracy as serving only to the poor, and Aristocracy (known today as Meritocracy) as ideal but ultimately impossible.

His political philosophy, seen in works like The Virtuous City,[3] stressed the importance of justice and the common good in governance, influencing both Muslim and European thought.

[8] He states that republican leaders need to "act alone" if they want to reform a republic, and offers the example of Romulus, who killed his brother and co-ruler to found a great city.

[9] Republics need to refer to arbitrary and violent measures if it is necessary to maintain the structure of the government, as Machiavelli says that they have to ignore thoughts of justice and fairness.

[citation needed] Though his own ideological position is open to debate, his work influenced Spinoza, Locke, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and many other liberals.

In government, Montesquieu encouraged division into the now standard legislative, judicial and executive branches; in society, he perceived a natural organization into king, the people and the aristocracy, with the latter playing a mediating role.

In his Wealth of Nations Adam Smith outlined the key idea that if the economy is basically left to its own devices, limited and finite resources will be put to ultimately their most efficient use through people acting purely in their self-interest.

Smith also advanced property rights and personal civil liberties, including stopping slavery, which today partly form the basic liberal ideology.

Prior to the outbreak of the revolution, she authored Réflexions sur les hommes nègres (1788), calling for better treatment of black slaves.

Bentham was not a libertarian: he supported an inheritance tax, restrictions on monopoly power, pensions, health insurance, and other social security, but he called for prudence and careful consideration in any such governmental intervention.

Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836) Stanisław Staszic (Poland-Lithuania, 1755–1826) was a Catholic priest, philosopher, geologist, writer, poet, translator and statesman.

Friedrich Schiller (Germany, 1759–1805) Mary Wollstonecraft (United Kingdom, 1759–1797) is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be only because they lack education.

As such, his work on political economy and logic helped lay the foundation for advancements in empirical science and public policy based on verifiable improvements.

Herbert Spencer (United Kingdom, 1820–1903), philosopher, psychologist, and sociologist, advanced what he called the "Law of equal liberty" and argued against liberal theory promoting more activist government, which he dubbed "a new form of Toryism."

Şinasi used his newspapers, Tercüman-ı Ahvâl and Tasvîr-i Efkâr, to promote the proliferation of European Enlightenment ideals during the Tanzimat period,[40] and he made the education of the literate Ottoman public his personal vocation.

Şinasi, influenced by Enlightenment thought, saw freedom of expression as a fundamental right and used journalism in order to engage, communicate with, and educate the public.

[43] Ludwig Joseph Brentano (Germany, 1844–1931) Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (Czechoslovakia, 1850–1937) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (Austria, 1851–1914) Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) Thorstein Veblen (1857–1926) is best known as the author of Theory of the Leisure Class.

Veblen was influential to a generation of American liberalism searching for a rational basis for the economy beyond corporate consolidation and "cut throat competition".

Also a Nobel Prize winner in economics and predictor of the Great Depression like fellow Austrian School economist and mentor Ludwig von Mises.

Karl Raimund Popper (Austria/United Kingdom, 1902–1994) developed the idea of the open society, characterized by respect for a wide variety of opinions and behaviors and a preference for audacious but piecemeal political reform over either conservative stasis or revolutionary utopianism.

Raymond Aron (France, 1905–1983) Donald Barkly Molteno (South Africa, 1908–1972), known as Dilizintaba ("He who removes mountains"), was a constitutional lawyer and a parliamentarian but above all, an academic.

John Kenneth Galbraith (Canadian-born economist who worked in the United States, 1908–2006) Isaiah Berlin (Latvia/United Kingdom, 1909–1997) is most famous for his attempt to distinguish 'two conceptions of liberty'.

Positive conceptions assumed that liberty could only be achieved when collective power (in the form of church or state) acted to 'liberate' mankind from its worst aspects.

James Buchanan (United States, 1919–2013) is known for his economic theories of the political process, which were among the first to take seriously the concept of politicians as rational actors that respond to incentives.

Joseph Raz (Israel/United Kingdom, 1939–2022) Ronald Dworkin (United States, 1931–2013) The British philosopher, broadcaster, and politician Bryan Magee (1930-2019) wrote some books of political philosophy.

His fundamental claims, among others, are that liberalism is best defined as the attempt to avoid cruelty to others; that liberals need to accept the historical 'irony' that there is no metaphysical justification for their belief that not being cruel is a virtue; that literature plays a crucial role in developing the empathy necessary to promote solidarity (and therefore lack of cruelty) between humans; and that private philosophising and public political discourse are separate practices and should remain so.

He advocated an unapologetically reductionist political philosophy characterized by meticulous analysis of the moral aspects of each social interaction, and did not shy away from addressing hard philosophical issues such as the original appropriation of property.

Will Kymlicka (Canada, 1962– ) tries in his philosophy to determine if forms of ethnic or minority nationalism are compatible with liberal-democratic principles of individual freedom, social equality and political democracy.