Abstract

The article presents a critique of the conceptual space that Gargarella claims for his thought: a republican socialism to the left of egalitarian liberalism. For this aim, I discuss the features that, according to Gargarella, defines the liberal tradition. Those features are dependent on the criticism that republicanism directs to liberal tradition. The article shows that Gargarella’s definition of liberalism is obtained at the cost of a reduction of all forms of liberalism to two kinds: conservatives and egalitarians, which excludes the one defended by value pluralism. Value pluralism challenges some relevant aspects of Gargarella’s republican socialism: the presuppositions of deliberative democracy and the idea of a compatible catalogue of individual and collective rights.