The virtues of plurality and abstraction. On why it is easier to legitimize the European project by using values rather than an identity, civilization or way of life

Weymans, Wim
(2025) European Ways of Life Legal and Philosophical Perspectives — ISBN: [9781035307678], p. 21-39, published

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  • Weymans, Wimorcid-logoUSL-B
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Abstract
When the new European Commission wanted to promote or defend the ‘European way of life’ in 2019, it met with fierce criticism, while its continued defence of ‘European values’ remained uncontroversial, although both terms appear similar in content. How can this different reception of these two terms be explained? An historical examination of the slow rise of ‘European values’ and of the gradual fall of rival concepts, will help clarify both European values’ current success as a unifying and legitimizing concept as well as the European way of life’s recent failure. If ‘European values’ – unlike the ‘European way of life’ – are today so appealing, it is first because, unlike all of its rivals, ‘European values’ are used in the plural and second because the term ‘European values’ was gradually and successfully abstracted from any ‘thick’ and divisive civilizational content (with which the ‘European way of life’, is still associated.
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Weymans, W. (2025). The virtues of plurality and abstraction. On why it is easier to legitimize the European project by using values rather than an identity, civilization or way of life. In Luigi Corrias and Ronald Tinnevelt (ed.), European Ways of Life Legal and Philosophical Perspectives (p. p. 21-39). Luigi Corrias and Ronald Tinnevelt. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035307685.00007