 Rorty’s liberal ironist, recognizing – indeed, affirming – the contingency of her own commitments, is explicitly ethnocentric (ORT, “Solidarity or Objectivity”). She accepts that bourgeois liberalism has no universality other than the transient and unstable one which time, luck, and discursive effort might win for it. Recognizing the contingency of these values and the vocabulary in which they are expressed, while retaining the commitments, is the attitude of the liberal ironist (CIS, essays 3,4). Liberal ironists have the ability to combine consciousness of the contingency of their own evaluative vocabulary with a commitment to reducing suffering – in particular, with a commitment to combatting cruelty (CIS, essay 4, ORT, Part III).