Либеральный консерватизм Пьера Манана

Вопросы философии. 2026. № 5. С. 128–140.

Rutkevich A. M.

In academic world Pierre Manent is known as a historian of political thought, but nearly a half of his books were written on themes of political philosophy and philosophy of right. Practically all of them are translated into English, he himself is better known and more influential in the USA than in France. His views are usually described as conservative liberalism, his performances for general public are characterized as “Euroscepticism” and “Souverenism” – he criticizes EU and
the breaucracy of Bruxelles. For Manent the fundamental form of organization of political and social life for Europe is a national state, distinguished by him from two previous ones – city-state of Antiquity and Middle Ages and the Empire.
The development of modern nations began from absolute monarchies, and the liberal thought inherited from them the problems of sovereignity, representation and further of democracy. From Hobbes and Locke, liberal theory evolved, culmi­nating in Tocqueville’s teaching, which already contains those aporias that are significant today – Tocqueville noticed the impasse that liberal democracies have reached with the dominance of the current ideology of “human rights”. People of all tribes and peoples, social groups and cultures are recognized as having equal rights, which every human being is endowed with from birth. Then we must talk about the natural state that precedes them all and represents “civitas dissoluta”, a set of isolated and disconnected individuals, each of whom considers himself the bearer of all rights, in particular the right to be considered as who he considers himself to be, and at any moment to change his mind – gender, race, age, not they are constants. For Manent this fiesta of changeable identities is the testimony of decadence of the Western civilization. He rejects the doctrine of human rights based on “French theory”, opposing it the ancient tradition of Natural Law.

Keywords: права человека, либерализм, политическая мысль, human rights, liberalism, natural law, нация, political thought, естественный закон, nation, Manent, Манан