Modus Vivendi

Following Hume, Berlin and Oakeshott, Rorty inherits and supports liberalism of modus vivendi, and he puts forward Ironic Liberalism. Firstly, Rorty criticizes strong rationality. He firmly opposes a widespread and indiscriminate form of strong rationality. By strong rationality, there is no chance that an ideal political plans can be created and problems of human political practice solved easily. In contrast, Human beings need to explore the political and moral life step by step through the weak rationality to achieve the real freedom. Secondly, he designs a liberal utopia. As a liberal of modus vivendi, Rorty advocates a minimum of freedom and divides the individual’s life into public area and private area to integrate the perfection of individual into the justice of the society, thus moving towards a freer, more united and less cruel utopia. Thirdly, he links loyalty to solidarity. As a new kind of modus vivendi, Rorty’s ironic liberalism is also regarded as a type of unrealizable personal idea by critics.