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I'm not a secular libertarian like Dee or a secular utilitarian like Ann. But I'm not a theologically based conservative like Fred either.

There are more alternatives, including some that we don't talk much about. I want to go back to something that I said earlier about some of the assumptions of liberalism. The liberal theory of strong individual rights is based on a number of assumptions that I find questionable.

- Many liberals think of the individual as autonomous. I think the autonomous individual is a myth. We owe almost all that we are to the society around us.

- Libertarian liberals like Dee tend to reduce all our moral obligations to either respecting the rights of others or observing contracts that we have made with others. I think there are duties and responsibilities to others that go beyond that.

I see the individual as much more a part of society in an essential way. I have been reading some of the communitarian philosophers and critics -- Mary Ann Glendon and Michael Sandel for example. And I am beginning to wonder whether the basis of liberal social theory -- with its emphasis on the autonomous individual and individual liberty -- has fatal problems.