 But these are hard to separate. Liberals and socialists stress the malleability of human nature under the influence of changeable historical conditions. The anti-conservative Rousseau had an optimistic conception of human nature, blaming government and society for failings that—according to conservatives—belong to individuals. Conservatives, in contrast, regard human nature as weak and fallible, unalterably selfish rather than altruistic (Kekes 1997: 368). Scruton is typically conservative in regarding human beings as frail creatures of limited sympathy, which they do not easily extend to those remote in space or time (Scruton 2012). (Rawls’s “limited altruism” in the “circumstances of justice” seems derived from Hume, and so might be characterised as a conservative feature of Rawls’ thought.) Conservatism is imperfectionist, anti-utopian and pragmatic, “unable to appeal to any future that is not already present and past” (Scruton 1980: 27). 