I am curious if proponents of liberalism would at least agree with this analysis though:

There are three broad principles of the modern liberal state: capitalism, democracy, and liberalism.

In my view, it seems that both capitalism and democracy are subservient to liberalism. For instance, progressive liberals are willing to constrain capitalism precisely because they see it as conflicting with liberalism. Conservatives are skeptical of this, but only because they don't see unrestrained capitalism as at odds with liberalism.

There are pretty vocal groups on the left and right who are skeptical about democracy, precisely because democracy can constrain liberalism. Hence, I would say liberalism is the highest principle. "Freedom over all else," with freedom obviously being the ideal of freedom in the liberal tradition.

So what's the claim then, that all of the advancements you've listed were primarily caused by liberalism and would simply be unachievable without it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't have liberalism as such in mind at all -- though perhaps I should have, but I forgot the name of the thread! I was adding my voice to @Joshs's doubt about the apocalyptic view of history, in which things have gotten noticeably worse and we need to do something quite radical about it. I would be dubious about such a view no matter whether it was voiced with a left or a right accent. Au contraire, the evidence of historical/ethical progress in Western democracies is to me overwhelming -- again with a grim caveat about the looming environmental disaster.

I'm happy you agree that they are advancements, though.

Hence, I would say liberalism is the highest principle. "Freedom over all else," with freedom obviously being the ideal of freedom in the liberal tradition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand this. Is there a particular liberal philosopher you have in mind, who says this? I'm trying to associate "Freedom over all else" with, say, Rawls, and it doesn't fit at all. Once again I have the feeling that there's a whole conversation, largely polemical in nature, about "liberalism" going on that I've never followed. To me, liberalism is epitomized by Political Liberalism by Rawls, not by what is amusingly called "liberalism" in the US.

Gotcha, so I guess or disagreement might be this: I think the rather titanic problems of liberalism in the current moment, not least of which is the rise of the far-right and long term discontent over the replacement migration strategy vis-á-vis growth, the long term problems of globalization in the developing world (where in at least some instances it appears to retard growth and good governance), and the looming ecological crises, are not accidental to liberalism itself, but directly attributable to it




As mentioned earlier, I think Locke and Mill's justification of enslaving populations by force to "liberate them from indolence," is a prime example. Cold War colonial war rhetoric is also a good example. Obviously, the wars were so difficult because people in the occupied states largely did not want to remain part of the colonial empires. But, they had to be "freed by force" because the communitarian ideologies (Marxism, political Islam, etc.) that held sway with large segments of the population oppressed individual and market rights (liberal freedom).

Hobbes grounds the state entirely in the atomized individual in the "state of nature." The state has legitimacy just insomuch as it is a better choice for individuals qua individuals to actualize their individual freedom (generally as fulfilling whatever desires they happen to have). This is the core assumption of "social contract theory," which is certainly still present in contemporary liberal theorists. An ideal society maximizes liberty for individuals as individuals (including liberty vis-á-vis desires for material goods, which is why "economic growth" and consumption play such an outsized role in liberal theory and welfare economics).

This is the ordering of the higher (common good) to the lower, the whole to the parts (in line with reductionist tendencies in materialist thought). The common good becomes merely a colocation of individual goods. The "veil of ignorance" is all about the individual for instance, and indeed the individual as initially abstracted from all community and common goods or social identity.

By contrast, there is Hegel, one of the great critics of social contract theory:

My particular end should become identified with the universal end… otherwise the state is left in the air. The state is actual only when its members have a feeling of their own self-hood and it is stable only when public and private ends are identical. It has often been said that the end of the state is the happiness of the citizens. That is perfectly true. If all is not well with them, if their subjective aims are not satisfied, if they do not find that the state as such is the means to their satisfaction, then the footing of the state itself is insecure.”

A common critique of liberalism is that this conception of the state (which often finds its way into legal decisions, particularly in the US through the Federalist Papers) only works so long as custom, culture, etc. continue to bind individuals together as wholes. Yet liberalism, and particularly capitalism, undermine all such connections, making liberalism self-undermining.

There are pretty vocal groups on the left and right who are skeptical about democracy, precisely because democracy can constrain liberalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Democracy can constrain liberalism?

Well, people naturally can vote to power undemocratic authoritarian people, who do away with democracy, the rights of the individual and the rule of law. Yet is that democracy in the end? Few if any authoritarians, even the Marxists, say they are doing away with democracy (but are just improving it to listen actually to the people).

Now democracy constraining capitalism and the market mechanism can indeed happen, but I don't think that is "constraining liberalism". The usual case is for example social democratic parties limiting the free market in the objective of curtailing the excesses of the free market, which typically tends in reality to form an oligopoly in the market, not the theoretical and perfect "free market". And people are happy with this. Most liberals and even libertarians understand that not everything can be solved by the market mechanism and naturally you have to have solid institutions for capitalism and the markets to perform well.

Besides, those that are sceptical about democracy (or neoliberalism) are nearly everybody simply angry about how badly the whole system is working currently: that it's only the rich or those close to power that benefit, or that there is corruption or inefficiency or useless bureaucracy. It's really only a very few people that are inherently against democracy as the vast majority believe that "the people" are still quite rational and capable of handling a democracy.

the rather titanic problems of liberalism in the current moment, — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, as long as we don't equate these alleged problems with "the apocalyptic decline of Western civilization"!

I think Locke and Mill's justification of enslaving populations by force to "liberate them from indolence," is a prime example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of liberal political theory? Extreme cherry-picking, wouldn't you say? :smile:

Cold War colonial war rhetoric is also a good example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, of rhetoric, not liberal political philosophy.

An ideal society maximizes liberty for individuals as individuals — Count Timothy von Icarus

This I would accept as a traditional liberal political tenet, but set on its own, it sounds as if there has never been an issue about what kind of maximization is appropriate or possible, nor how social identity may further individual flourishing. We both know that isn't so. Not for nothing is Rawls' book called A Theory of Justice, not A Theory of Liberty.

The "veil of ignorance" is all about the individual for instance, and indeed the individual as initially abstracted from all community and common goods or social identity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But it needn't be, as Rawls makes clear. If common goods and social identity are part of what you want the ideal state to value, then you'll choose accordingly from behind the veil, even though you may not know your own status. This isn't to say that the original-position thought experiment isn't rife with problems. Perhaps for that very reason, it's proved enduringly useful, as philosophers like Nussbaum work to clarify and improve it.

OK, as long as we don't equate these alleged problems with "the apocalyptic decline of Western civilization"!

I maintain that Western Civilization has been in serious decline since the death of Marcus Aurelius and the ascension of his son to the purple! :cool: :rofl:

Extreme cherry-picking, wouldn't you say? :smile:

No, and it seems absurd to me to call this cherry picking when all the major liberal states engaged in absolutely massive colonial projects that they justified in the terms of liberalism, for most of their history, across most of the world's landmass, affecting most of the human population, largely stopping only when military defeat forced them to stop (and arguably, they just continued it by other means under neo-liberalism via less direct coercive measures to force liberalization, e.g. in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc., including backing armed groups, coups, etc.)

Locke and Mill I pick because they are foundational liberal theorists, but I could just as well point to America's Founding Fathers (the oldest example of liberalism in practice) or the justification of colonial rule and slavery by the liberal scions of the French Revolution. The big drive for abolition (which only targeted the most egregious practice of this sort) came from Christianity (as it did in Europe at the end of antiquity, where slavery was largely abolished), not liberalism. The "Battle Hymn of the Republic," is not a secular or deistic ode for instance.

Did some liberals object to these practices on liberal grounds? Yes, particularly to the exceptionally egregious institution of African chattel slavery, although even most of those who balked at hereditary slavery nonetheless championed colonial expansion over the rest of the American continent on liberal grounds (and the subsequent genocide of the native population).

But saying that just because there were some unheeded liberal voices against colonial expansion across North America, into India, into almost all of Africa, into China (attempted but partly repelled), and the Middle East, or say, opening Japan to trade with artillery fire, etc., that this isn't "real liberalism" would be a bit like saying collectivization wasn't "real communism" because a handful of communists opposed it.

Democracy can constrain liberalism?

I think so. Desegregation was unpopular, even in the North where it largely had to do with bussing for schools (e.g. riots in Boston). It would have lost as a ballot question, even if African Americans were allowed to vote. If you're familiar with the way democracy interacted with sectarian politics in pre-war Lebanon or post-war Iraq, I think you can find lots of examples of this sort of tension between democracy and individual liberty.

The Western liberal states have benefited from largely homogenous populations, so they haven't had these same tensions (lately). But that's because of both huge, sometimes coercive campaigns to create homogeneity and titanic rounds of ethnic cleansing to sort people across Europe.

Besides, those that are sceptical about democracy (or neoliberalism) are nearly everybody simply angry about how badly the whole system is working currently: that it's only the rich or those close to power that benefit, or that there is corruption or inefficiency or useless bureaucracy. It's really only a very few people that are inherently against democracy as the vast majority believe that "the people" are still quite rational and capable of handling a democracy.

Right, skepticism over "illiberal democracy" doesn't tend to result in a wholesale abandonment of democracy. Rather, complaints against Brexit, Trump, Erdogan, Orban, etc. are generally against "populism" and a democracy that is "too direct." Hence, advocacy for changes like a switch to closed list parliamentary systems, where party elites pick the MPs and people just vote for a party and their platform, or the advocacy for rank choice voting specifically as a means to preclude radical shifts in policy (both of these policies might be good ideas BTW).

For progressives, checking democracy generally involves strengthening the reach and independence of the administrative state (the "deep state" of career professionals, technocracy) often at the expense of the directly elected executive and using courts (and so appeals to other elites , judges) to expand rights that voters cannot overturn. Or progressives recommend something like a city manager system, where the executive is selected by elected representatives with the help of the administrative state itself. Whereas conservatives have tended to just want to weaken the state so that it cannot be wielded by the "people" against the individual.

Right, that's a pretty common response, and in line with Fukuyama's argument. Liberalism is inevitable and human nature. I disagree on that obviously. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So do I. There is no political or economic system which is inevitable and optimally reflective of human nature. The nature of human nature is to transform itself via cultural development.

Monarchy and Marxism were no more or less natural than liberalism. When in the course of history one political-economic system replaces another it doesnt mean the previous structure was unnatural , false, unethical or not workable, only that the culture eventually outgrew it. The more successful a cultural order the more thoroughly it transforms the possibilities available to thought and the more effectively it sets itself up for its own surpassing.

Like Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger, I foresee a post-liberal order, but this means building upon , while transforming, the insights that allowed liberalism to surpass previous systems of thought. You, by contrast, dont seem to want to build upon liberalism but instead reject it wholesale. This suggests two possibilities to me. The first is that the guiding inspiration for the new order you want to create involves ignoring the past three centuries of liberal thought in favor of religious and philosophical ideas propounded prior to the rise of liberalism and capitalism. The second possibility is that your definition of liberalism is so narrow that you don’t recognize how your own vision fits within the three-century-old spectrum of liberal thought. The first possibility places you somewhere in the vicinity of the Far Right, but I’m not prepared to slap that label on you.

Just to highlight this: I agree, and too often, in authoritarian hands, it turns into "Make X Great Again!" with results we can all observe daily. We, meaning Western democracies, in fact have taken a whole new approach, in roughly the last century, and as a result things are vastly better off for women, poor countries we used to exploit, working people, people of color, and people with illnesses and disabilities — J

:100:

I maintain that Western Civilization has been in serious decline since the death of Marcus Aurelius and the ascension of his son to the purple! :cool: :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, that Commodus was a severe disappointment . . . downhill ever since.

it seems absurd to me to call this cherry picking when all the major liberal states engaged in absolutely massive colonial projects that they justified in the terms of liberalism, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, we're just at cross-purposes in terms of what we're referring to as "liberal." I call citing such views cherry-picking because they are (far) outliers in terms of liberal philosophical theory. (And are you sure about Mill and "enslavement"? He says the opposite in "The Negro Question.") To put it mildly, this isn't what we study when we study Locke and Mill, any more than we give time to Kant's racism or Heidegger's Nazi nonsense. It's too easy to pick the worst things Philosopher X said, and claim you've characterized their views fairly.

Whether there is such a thing as "major liberal states" justifying bad actions in terms of a benighted understanding of philosophical liberalism, I leave to you. And of course the atrocious colonialism of European nations is the opposite of rare; you and I agree there, no cherry-picking involved. I just think blaming it on liberal political theory is too easy.

BTW, I think this is fair if the measuring point is 1925 (a century). But what if we use 1975, half a century? Or the end of the Cold War, when neo-liberalism was really taking off and liberalism ceased to have any competition to "keep it honest." Certainly, there has been some expansion of rights since then, but also a lot of backwards steps.

Since then, median wages across the developed world have stagnated despite gains in productivity from the information revolution, while wages for lower income workers have actually tended to fall in real terms. Economic growth has tended to almost totally benefit a small elite, and economic mobility has been declining. The Black-White wealth gap in the US expanded to become larger than under Jim Crow, while America's underclass endures homicide rates above those of the Latin American states used to justify refugee status (or states with active civil wars in some cases).

Plenty of other similar stuff I'm sure you're familiar with. My point would be that if a trend extends across half a century, and appears to be accelerating, it isn't a hiccup.



Mill was against the institution of slavery as practiced, on liberal grounds. However, in "Considerations on Representative Government," he calls for compulsion over “uncivilized” peoples in order that they might lead productive economic lives, even if they must be “for a while compelled to it,” including through the institution of “personal slavery.” This is very similar to Locke's justification of slavery as "freedom from indolence," many of the American Founder's justification of slavery as "temporary but necessary," and liberal justifications of colonialism up through the 20th century.

I don't think these are equivalent to something like Kant or Hegel's statements on race because these sorts of justifications were used in revised form by liberal theorists and statesmen through the ends of colonialism and the justification of some of the more unsavory parts of neo-liberalism look very similar. If freedom is primarily (or at least largely) freedom to consume, then "economic growth" becomes a justification for all sorts of actions because it is "emancipatory in the long run." Also, they come directly out of the vision of freedom and the "state of nature" anthropology, they aren't some sort of ancillary comment tacked on to theories that would otherwise negate such views.

The justification for colonialism also looks a lot like the justification for tearing down the Church and forcing monks and nuns out of the monasteries and convents in France, Italy, and Spain (or the mass executions of clergy in France). The people have to be "freed from custom" to live more individualist, productive lives. Hence, it isn't just a sentiment grounded in racism, the same logic extended to the Infernal Columns' actions Vendee in France.

"Considerations on Representative Government," — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for this reference, I wasn't aware of it. Sigh, even Mill . . . racism runs deep.

Looking over the historical moments you cite, all I can do is repeat that such a picture would have us believe that some monolithic thing called liberalism never gave a damn about morals or justice or good government, caring only for individual freedoms no matter the cost, tearing down whatever was necessary to achieve them, etc., etc. That is very far from what I see in Rawls, the liberal theorist whose work I know best, and what I know of modern history (though I am not a historian). Meaning no disrespect, have you actually read A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism? There's much in both books that would interest you, I think.

Right, skepticism over "illiberal democracy" doesn't tend to result in a wholesale abandonment of democracy. Rather, complaints against Brexit, Trump, Erdogan, Orban, etc. are generally against "populism" and a democracy that is "too direct." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Populism is many times very illogical. Populist can praise liberal/libertarian values and in the same time go against them. Perfect example of this is when populist claim to be "free speech warriors" and also curtail and limit views that they don't support.

The illogical aspect of this is even more clear when we look at authoritarian system like Marxism-Leninism. Democracy ought to have functioned through the party, and in fact the term "Soviet" is an adjective that comes from the Russian word for council or assembly. How democracy can work when the whole ideology starts with there being the class-enemy of the capitalists shows this fatal flaw in the thinking. In fact populism makes this separation of the "ordinary people" and the "evil elites" also, which basically undermines the faith in democracy from the start. Populism has the tendency to favor "strong men" who are needed because the republic doesn't work at the moment.

The case about democracy being "too direct" is basically made by there being a Constitution that cannot be changed with a simple minority or in some cases, at all. I do welcome these kinds of safety valves.

I'm not sure if Mill was necessarily motivated by racism. His initial examples on slavery are from ancient Europe. He just has a view of "natural man" as wholly without liberty that I find questionable.

Looking over the historical moments you cite, all I can do is repeat that such a picture would have us believe that some monolithic thing called liberalism never gave a damn about morals or justice or good government, caring only for individual freedoms no matter the cost, tearing down whatever was necessary to achieve them, etc., etc.

I read Rawls a pretty long time ago now, and I am not sure if I had a chance to finish the book. I don't think liberalism "never gave a damn about morals, justice, or good government." Liberal theorists often write about these at great length. They just tend towards defining them in terms of the individual. Good government is a priority, and can be given extremely expansive focus in progressive liberalism, but it's also there primarily to enable the freedom of the individual to flourish. There is a marked contrast here with classical and Marxist political theory. Individual freedom is generally raised up over morality because moral questions are privatized to the extent possible (with "rights" holding down what morality enters into the public sphere). This only makes sense. If you have a theory of government that avoids giving answers on man's telos, instead making this a private, individualized matter, then what is important is enabling the private exploration and attainment of that telos, whatever the individual determines it to be.

Lots of liberal theory sounds utopian, that's true. I remember thinking that with Rawls. But this is also true of plenty of Marxist theory, and even some "Third Position" crypto-fascist theory that stays away from racism and militarism. It's certainly true of Hegel as well. Obviously, no theory is realized perfectly, but I think a useful question is if contradictions or intrinsic tensions in the theory lead towards problems in their implementation. I think this is the case in both liberalism and Marxism. It's perhaps most obvious in conservative liberalism in the way it necessarily sidelines and renders irrelevant the very cultural and religious institutions it most wants to conserve by excluding them from the state and thus the broadest conception of the common good (through a commitment to "small government") while also fetishizing a market that tends to bulldoze culture.

I do recall one specific explanation from Rawls to the effect that his theory must exclude a notion of "just desert." This tends to hold just as true for conservative liberal theories, which instead look at rights. By contrast, progressive and conservative politicians and citizens are constantly justifying their platforms in terms of just desert. The difficulty for liberal theorists is that, once the question of man's ultimate telos is privatized, one loses any ability to ground standards of excellence, and thus of desert.

This is maybe the most important contradiction, in that it seems to contradict human nature. I have seen many an avowed moral anti-realist, and many people who claim that political theory should not be based on morality, but I've never seen them discuss any political topic at length without falling into continually invoking standards of excellence and desert. A focus on rights alone leaves political theory chestless (and arguably losing any sense of telos also leaves all notion of rights critically undermined. Fukuyama, a great advocate of liberalism, expresses just this concern at the end of The End of History and the Last Man.)

Lots of liberal theory sounds utopian, that's true. I remember thinking that with Rawls. But this is also true of plenty of Marxist theory — Count Timothy von Icarus

And my personal favorite, Habermasian social democracy, as well. It seems to come with the territory, since our states are so far from utopian.

If you have a theory of government that avoids giving answers on man's telos, instead making this a private, individualized matter, then what is important is enabling the private exploration and attainment of that telos, whatever the individual determines it to be. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is where I think you misunderstand liberalism, or the Rawlsian version, at any rate. You apparently have the idea of a government that can "give answers" on matters such as human telos, or avoid doing so. But what would this mean in practice? How does a state "give an answer"? The liberal replies: by imposing authority, by precluding or impeding the realization of answers that disagree with the state position. And this it must not do, if a reasonable degree of individual freedom is to be preserved. Or, if by "give an answer," you simply mean that a state can name founding principles while ensuring that active, legitimate opposition is respected ... well, that is liberal democracy!

Also, as I've noted before, to say "what is important is . . ." implies that it's the only important thing. But Rawls considers many factors to be important, not least of which is finding a just balance between "enabling private exploration" and gumming up the works for everybody. It's essential to keep this concern for balance in mind when discussing Rawls. He simply doesn't fit the model of "advocate of individualism."

many people who claim that political theory should not be based on morality — Count Timothy von Icarus

Who are these people? Rawls is obsessively concerned with morality, ethics, and justice -- he just doesn't see them in the terms you do. He strongly believes that justice is best served by the government's regarding basic issues of religion and morals as "diverse and irreconcilable." The crucial emphasis is on regarding. We must insist on public neutrality in this arena -- demand that our government take this attitude -- regardless of what we may personally hold true, if we want a just society.

Good government is a priority, and can be given extremely expansive focus in progressive liberalism, but it's also there primarily to enable [the freedom of] the individual to flourish. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Suppose you removed the bracketed phrase, so we're just talking about individual flourishing. Wouldn't that be OK? It certainly would be to me, and I think to Rawls. So what is it about "freedom" that seems so wrong-headed to you? Is it the idea that humans may flourish best when they are not politically or economically free? Genuinely not sure what you have in mind here.

[Rawls] strongly believes that justice is best served by the government's regarding basic issues of religion and morals as "diverse and irreconcilable." — J

This was badly phrased, and gives the impression that Rawlsian liberalism would take no stand on, for instance, matters of public safety. What Rawls in fact says (in the opening pages of Political Liberalism) is that democratic societies will always be marked by disagreement on some moral doctrines, and that some of these disagreements may be both "perfectly reasonable" yet irreconcilable. Part of the job of a good liberal government will be to find a workable balance for these disagreements within a state that protects the rights and safety of its citizens.

Apologies for the poor gloss.

So what is it about "freedom" that seems so wrong-headed to you? — J

For my part, I find the slogan "freedom" annoying in this context because of it's extreme myopia. It is all too easy in the context of a society to notice the restrictions on what one may do and so to wish for freedom. But freedom from social (and hence governmental) constraints means the loss of all the freedoms that are the result of social and governmental constraints.
To begin with the trivial, a universal rule that we should drive on the left (or right) side of the road restricts us all, but also gives us freedom from the dangers of negotiating traffic in the absence of such a rule. The laws restricting our freedom to break contracts give us the freedom to make contracts, and the restrictions on what one may do with other people's property give us the freedom to own our own property (and do what we like with it). The restriction on my ability to enforce my desires on other people means that I don't have to be continually battling with other people who wish to enforce their desires on me. And so on.

When faced with criticisms of liberalism, it seems to me that most apologists seem unable to try to justify liberalism outside its own terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was very puzzled by this remark. It seems to me that any comprehensive, or would-be comprehensive, theory of this kind will be unable to justify itself except on its own terms. I must be missing something. A counter-example would help.

Often, champions of liberalism (I speak here of political theorists and popular authors) utterly fail at seeing even the haziest outlines of the apparent unfreedom critics see in liberalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is exactly right. On the other hand, I have noticed that people who hold different theories often seem to have a similar difficulty in seeing the problems that liberals see in their theories. Finding the common ground on which disagreement can be articulated and dissected is very hard.

But the biggest issue with liberalism was neatly identified by Popper (I think in "The Open Society"). Liberals can tolerate anything, except intolerance.

And so on. — Ludwig V

Of course. Some sort of absolute personal freedom to do anything whatsoever is a non-starter -- and has nothing to do with liberal political philosophy. I can't think of anyone, actually, for whom this is a "slogan" -- some early 20thC anarchists?

The context in which this came up was whether there's something sketchy about a government organizing itself "primarily to enable the freedom of the individual to flourish." I don't think either @Count Timothy von Icarus, who raised the question, or I meant to imply that such a government wanted to return its citizens to some nightmare of self-willed anarchy. The question, rather, was why a desire for individual freedom, in and of itself, should be suspect. I don't want to be free of traffic regulations; I very much want to be free to read what I like. I was asking why talking about "freedom" as the freedom for an individual to flourish seemed wrong-headed to Count T.

But saying that just because there were some unheeded liberal voices against colonial expansion across North America, into India, into almost all of Africa, into China (attempted but partly repelled), and the Middle East, or say, opening Japan to trade with artillery fire, etc., that this isn't "real liberalism" would be a bit like saying collectivization wasn't "real communism" because a handful of communists opposed it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Strong points. :up:
It looks like we would have to engage in "extreme cherry picking" to try to construe the effects as unrelated to liberalism. On that view "liberalism" tends to shrink into nothing at all, with no efficacy or effects or dynasty.

The question, rather, was why a desire for individual freedom, in and of itself, should be suspect. ..... I was asking why talking about "freedom" as the freedom for an individual to flourish seemed wrong-headed to Count T. — J

I don't know about wrong-headed. But I do think there are difficulties about understanding it, especially as the liberal view seems to suggest that social intervention in the actions of individual is, in principle, a Bad Thing.

The problem with this is that it seems to believe that we individuals spring into life fully formed, ready to make choices. But that is not the case. We are born, we grow up and learn what we need to know about our environment, including our society; only then are we capable of exercising the freedoms that our situation affords us.

Roughly, my view starts from understanding an individual as a member of society, which not only defines the freedoms and restrictions that individuals live with, but educates and trains them to do so. What counts as flourishing depends on the options enabled by the environment and the society in which one lives.

Liberalism has got one thing right - the point (telos?) of society is the welfare (flourishing) of the individuals who are its members. But the idea that the social context in which we live is some sort or imposition on us is a misunderstanding.

I realize that's grossly over-simplified, but starting from the premiss that society and government are impositions on us is a mistake. The society in which we live is the condition of the possibility of flourishing (or not) and of our being free (or not).

I realize that's grossly over-simplified, but starting from the premiss that society and government are impositions on us is a mistake. — Ludwig V

Not grossly, though we both know there are important nuances left out. And funnily enough, I associate the position that "government imposes on individual freedoms" with certain strands of conservatism, not liberalism. The current hatred, in the US, of the federal government by right-wingers may be an offshoot of this, though of course no intelligent conservative would create DOGE.

I daresay there are strands of liberal thought that downplay the role of societal formation, and imagine a citizen as being in a position to make some ideal free choices. All I can say is, Rawls and Habermas (if you count him as a liberal theorist) are painstakingly aware of the trade-offs here.

The problem with this is that it seems to believe that we individuals spring into life fully formed, ready to make choices. But that is not the case. We are born, we grow up and learn what we need to know about our environment, including our society; only then are we capable of exercising the freedoms that our situation affords us.

Roughly, my view starts from understanding an individual as a member of society, which not only defines the freedoms and restrictions that individuals live with, but educates and trains them to do so. What counts as flourishing depends on the options enabled by the environment and the society in which one lives

:up:

In particular, the influence of a sort of Humean anthropology, which is extremely dominant in economics (and thus has huge influence on liberal governance) leads to a view where passions and appetites "just are." Reason exists to help us satisfy them. It's just a tool.

Such an anthropology cuts the legs out from under any coherent second-order volitions, the desire to have or not have different desires. But classically, virtue involved desiring the right things. We are virtuous when we enjoy doing what is right. We flourish more when we have desires conducive to human flourishing rather than self-destructive desires. Harmony and proper ordering must be cultivated, they aren't a given (or irrelevant).

Freud only increased this tendency, since his pseudoscience suggested that the root cause of all mental illness was the repression of desire, and tended to suggest that we not try to shape our desires (they are anarchic primitives) but instead simply channel them.

Liberalism has got one thing right - the point (telos?) of society is the welfare (flourishing) of the individuals who are its members. But the idea that the social context in which we live is some sort or imposition on us is a misunderstanding.

I actually think this is an area where liberalism is wrong, although it is almost right. The liberal state’s final cause would be the good of its citizens, yes. Yet this is where controversy arises. Is the good in question here the common good of all citizens (the lower ordered to the higher), or is it the individual good of each citizen (the higher ordered to the lower, as in reductionism)? Classical political theory suggests the former, but modern liberal theory suggests the latter, i.e. that the state exists primarily for the good of individuals qua individuals.

A second issue crops up in defining the “good of man,” whether as an individual or as a corporate body. Liberalism tends to declare that such talk of natural or ultimate ends is beyond the scope of liberalism, and thus beyond the scope of the state. Rather, individuals each have a right to decide such things “for themselves.” However, this open-endedness essentially forecloses on any conception of the human good that cannot be privatized and individualized. There is a tension here where “trying to avoid giving an answer” still very much results in the state weighing in on the human good, and in a quite totalizing manner because it demands excluding all sorts of things from education and public life (e.g. notions of virtue and telos).

I would say this tension exists in both conservative and progressive liberalism. Conservatives tend to want
a small state, but this tends to exclude (and thus perhaps undermine) the cultural and religious institutions they want to conserve. Progressives have the difficulty of trying to justify very large scale corporate projects (e.g. the welfare state) solely in terms of a collocation of atomized individuals' very loosely (and often privately) defined good, while also doing so without being able to rely on any notion of "just desert" (because such a notion requires a standard of excellence, which requires a human telos).

To sum up, the issue for the liberal state is that it has difficulty understanding its own final cause. It “promotes the good of individuals,” but then leaves the nature of this “individual good” as a privatized open question that it will not weigh in on. This creates a sort of ongoing tension in political life, as good governance often requires a more expansive notion of the common good.

A counter-example would help.

Plenty of Marxist theory and traditionalists allow that they do not promote the liberal version of individual liberty to the same degree as liberalism. There is a reflective awareness that they are open to both internal and external critiques on this front. Traditionalism will generally allow that its preferred structures will not perform as highly vis-á-vis fostering consumption, it just tends to deny that greater consumption is all that important.

Perhaps this is because they are minority positions instead of the hegemon. By contrast, as I said, liberal critiques of liberalism tend to only focus on whether current forms of liberalism are living up to liberalism's own standards. There is a sort of blindness to the possibility of external critique. This leads to the phenomenon that Deneen observes, that the "solution to the problems of liberalism is always more liberalism."

I think this thread is great evidence of this. To criticism, the response has often been: "so you want theocracy or Stalinism then?" This is a response Fisher documents as well. It's a blindness to other conceptualizations of freedom, such that rejecting liberalism's version of freedom is equivalent with simply embracing tyranny. The vision is absolutized.

This is where I think you misunderstand liberalism, or the Rawlsian version, at any rate. You apparently have the idea of a government that can "give answers" on matters such as human telos, or avoid doing so. But what would this mean in practice? How does a state "give an answer"? The liberal replies: by imposing authority, by precluding or impeding the realization of answers that disagree with the state position.

Misunderstand, or just don't agree with?

And this it must not do, if a reasonable degree of individual freedom is to be preserved.

What sort of individual freedom is being preserved though? Only if freedom is defined in terms of potency/absence of restraint is the state's imposition of a certain understanding of human telos always a check on freedom. Put another away, the state is only always in error when it strays from liberalism if liberalism is always in accord with prudence and justice. Liberalism is only necessarily prudent if man has no telos or if his telos is unknowable, otherwise it represents unwarranted skepticism.

By contrast, if freedom is not "the ability to choose anything," but rather "the self-determining capacity to actualize the good" then it is not clear that the state always infringes on liberty when it answers such questions.

Anyhow, consider two justifications for gun control and making recreational drugs illegal. The liberal might say:

"We must control access to firearms because irresponsible or violent use of firearms by some individuals constrains the liberty of other individuals. Kids should be free to go to school without getting shot. Likewise, the abuse of recreational drugs by some individuals unduly constrains the liberty of other people through traffic accidents, poor parenting, etc."

By contrast, it's clear that either of these legal constraints could also be justified (perhaps better) in terms of a more definitive vision of the human good. The constraint might be the same in either case though, but in the aggregate liberal states will often have difficulty fostering certain goods because of their ideology.

Take education. Education is increasingly justified in terms of workforce preparation (and future individual consumption), and this justification has been used to drastically reduce any focus in civics, the liberal arts, philosophy, ethics, or any physical training. Education was, across the globe, not just in the West, originally conceived as training/habituation in virtue, excellence. This isn't open to the liberal society because, lacking any conception of man's telos, it lacks any standard of excellence for man. What is left as a standard of excellence comes from culture, religious institutions, etc., which provide this standard for as long as they exist, but liberalism and capitalism erode these institutions and standards by excluding them from public life. What is left is a sort of "democratization of excellence," which in capitalist economies tends towards a fetishization of wealth and "market value" (hence why the problems of eldercare and childcare get framed in the market terms of "uncompensated labor").

Education becomes primarily a means of "making more money" and "getting to do what you want," not of "cultivating excellence." This is problematic for any anthropology where self-determination and self-governance (both individual and collective) require positive cultivation, and where there is some definitive human purpose outside of the satisfaction of irrational sentiments and appetites (the latter being a popular conceit of the Anglo-empiricist tradition due to its impoverished psychology).

Or, if by "give an answer," you simply mean that a state can name founding principles while ensuring that active, legitimate opposition is respected ... well, that is liberal democracy!

There were many pluralistic societies that existed as pluralistic societies for centuries prior to liberalism. While it is true that a more positive notion of the human good might be used to constrain opposition, it need not. "Being respected and protected for being wrong" might itself be conducive to human flourishing.

Liberalism allows pluralism by making different competing positions equally meaningless and irrelevant to public life (bourgeois metaphysics).

Also, as I've noted before, to say "what is important is . . ." implies that it's the only important thing. But Rawls considers many factors to be important, not least of which is finding a just balance between "enabling private exploration" and gumming up the works for everybody.

But this is a consideration in terms of individual liberty. One person's individual liberty can be justly constrained only because it "gums up the works for everyone else," i.e. because it infringes on other's individual liberty. That's a hallmark of liberal theory and the way it justifies rights and law.

Misunderstand, or just don't agree with? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure which is the case for you, that's true.

You apparently have the idea of a government that can "give answers" on matters such as human telos, or avoid doing so. But what would this mean in practice? - J

This was a genuine question for you. There is a classical liberal response to the question of how a government would "give answers" on such weighty questions -- that it involves unacceptable uses of state power -- this was the answer I sketched. I'm still wondering how you think of it, though; I'm not really sure which part of the position seems wrong to you. How ought the state, as you conceive it, give answers about the human telos, and why would that be acceptable?

. . . when [the state] answers such questions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again . . . what do you mean? Who is answering, and with what means? Do you mean through laws, or proclamations, or economic policies? I know you have something in mind but I can't see it yet.

One person's individual liberty can be justly constrained only because it "gums up the works for everyone else," i.e. because it infringes on other's individual liberty. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm still at a basic loss about what you conceive the alternative to be. What would be the other, presumably more attractive, reason for constraining individual liberty?

Not grossly, though we both know there are important nuances left out. And funnily enough, I associate the position that "government imposes on individual freedoms" with certain strands of conservatism, not liberalism. — J

I may be confusing liberalism proper with the neo-liberalism of the seventies, which, in my book, is a very peculiar variant of liberalism.

Mill was against the institution of slavery as practiced, on liberal grounds. However, in "Considerations on Representative Government," he calls for compulsion over “uncivilized” peoples in order that they might lead productive economic lives, even if they must be “for a while compelled to it,” including through the institution of “personal slavery.” This is very similar to Locke's justification of slavery as "freedom from indolence," many of the American Founder's justification of slavery as "temporary but necessary," and liberal justifications of colonialism up through the 20th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I realize that you made this point a while ago, but in this context, I need to comment. I do not seriously doubt that the attitude of Mill and Locke here includes an element of racism. But I think that the issue is a real one. We do not plunge infants into all the choices and responsibilities of adult life, but keep them in a special status until we think they have learnt enough for their choices to be meaningul - and we do not give them a choice in the matter.

Now, I wouldn't want to be caught suggesting that aboriginal people who have not had contact or experience of Western society are in any way like children. But, it seems to me, that the fact remains that they need to understand the society they are grappling with before their choices in that context can be regarded as meaningful. It seems to me that Mill (and Locke) at least recognized that problem and the responsibility of the new arrivals in managing their relationship, even though their solution was far from sufficiently respectful.

I daresay there are strands of liberal thought that downplay the role of societal formation, and imagine a citizen as being in a position to make some ideal free choices. All I can say is, Rawls and Habermas (if you count him as a liberal theorist) are painstakingly aware of the trade-offs here. — J

I have read some of both, but not enough, nor recently enough to venture a comment. But I'm happy to accept that some liberals, at least have also taken this seriously. I remember a good deal in Rawls about his veil of ignorance. I can accept that, to some extent at least, people can empathize with the situation of someone living in very different circumstances. That's not nothing. Whether it can balance the years of training for life in the circumstances I was "thrown" into is another question.
Actually, I'm inclined to think that liberalism may be the best way of coping with the fact that we have to work out how to proceed from where we are, with all our different perspectives, as opposed to drawing up something from scratch. Even the Founding Fathers of the USA didn't try to do that; they tried to build on what was already known and thought, but build better.

In particular, the influence of a sort of Humean anthropology, which is extremely dominant in economics (and thus has huge influence on liberal governance) leads to a view where passions and appetites "just are." Reason exists to help us satisfy them. It's just a tool. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's a dilemma here, isn't there? On the one hand, reason as truth-directed can't help us when trying to reason about values - except perhaps in keeping us self-consistent. On the other hand, we can't pretend for long that value statements are all completely arbitrary - questions of taste, about which there can be no disputing. I take courage from the fact that we do argue about values and sometimes, at least, arrive at some sort of agreement or compromise. BTW, Hume's "Of the standard of taste" presents a more qualified, and more sensible, version of his views.

Such an anthropology cuts the legs out from under any coherent second-order volitions, the desire to have or not have different desires. But classically, virtue involved desiring the right things. We are virtuous when we enjoy doing what is right. We flourish more when we have desires conducive to human flourishing rather than self-destructive desires. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, I agree that we can evaluate our desires in various ways. Whether that process is best described through the machinery of second order volitions is another question.

Liberalism is only necessarily prudent if man has no telos or if his telos is unknowable, otherwise it represents unwarranted skepticism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wouldn't venture to positively claim that humans have no telos or that any telos they do have is knowable. But there is much disagreement about what the telos of human beings is. So perhaps liberalism is prudent, after all.
Perhaps, though, we should have a couple of cautions based on what has happened in the last 30 years or so. First, acknowledge that tolerance has limits and it is foolish to tolerate enemies who will not return the favour. Second, recognize that liberalism, however tolerant, will appear intolerant to certain ideologies which do not seem to understand the practical wisdom of compromise. Third, there is nothing that guarantees that liberal values will be adopted by anyone who has not yet done so, and nothing to prevent people who have adopted them deciding to abandon them. Fourth, never forget that, even though negotiations and compromise are much to be preferred, they require co-operation from the other side, which may not be forthcoming; a plan B is often helpful. Neglecting those precautions seems to me to sum up the myopia of liberalism in recent decades.

Actually, I'm inclined to think that liberalism may be the best way of coping with the fact that we have to work out how to proceed from where we are, with all our different perspectives . . . — Ludwig V

Yes, this is key. I get the sense that hardcore opponents of liberal theory would object, right at the start, to the claim that we do have to do this -- that it may not be an ideal place to start but there's no way to create a different starting place without either tyranny or miracles. We find ourselves -- we in Western democracies, that is -- in a lively and diverse, if often acrimonious, conversation about what sorts of values and practices ought best to guide us. We can either encourage that conversation, hoping perhaps for a Peircean ideal convergence of inquiry, or attempt to abort it by the imposition of one set of values. (I'm still not clear how this would actually be done.)

The other point of strong objection, I think, is that Rawls (and to an extent Habermas) believes this pluralistic situation is inevitable and irreconcilable at this moment on some moral issues. "What are the grounds of toleration," Rawls asks, "given the fact of reasonable pluralism as the inevitable outcome of free institutions?" Opponents of this view would say three things:

1. You ought to be able to specify the grounds of toleration -- and we believe they're inconsistent and objectionable.

2. "Reasonable pluralism" is in the eye of the beholder.

3. What is it about "free institutions" that you think makes this outcome inevitable?

All three are perfectly good points to raise. But what is distressing to me is that, so often, opponents of liberalism seem to believe that merely to raise them is to defeat liberal theory -- as if these were stunning new insights that had never occurred to Rawls or Habermas! I think this attitude probably springs from never having actually read the philosophers in question, and using a straw-man cartoon of "liberalism," largely derived from contemporary politics, as the target. (I appreciate, BTW, your candor about your own knowledge of R and H.). But of course these issues have been intensely and carefully examined, repeatedly, in the literature.

I know of no secular intentional communities outside the history of rapidly collapsing communes or ethnic colonies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How about something like Twin Oaks? Not a cult!

Blog post evaluating the successes and failures of Twin Oaks.

The other point of strong objection, I think, is that Rawls (and to an extent Habermas) believes this pluralistic situation is inevitable and irreconcilable at this moment on some moral issues. — J

Does tolerating different views necessarily mean reconciling them? Surely, if they could be reconciled, tolerating them would not be necessary. (One only tolerates views and actions that one disapproves of. It would be odd to say that one was tolerating a view or action that one approved of.)

1. You ought to be able to specify the grounds of toleration -- and we believe they're inconsistent and objectionable.
2. "Reasonable pluralism" is in the eye of the beholder.
3. What is it about "free institutions" that you think makes this outcome inevitable? — J

I'm afraid I must be missing something here. These don't look like objections to liberalism to me.
1. Surely, a liberal approach to toleration would be to tolerate unless there are grounds to do otherwise. If the grounds for tolerating something have to be spelled out, the default position will be not to tolerate. It's the different between whatever is not forbidden is permitted (liberal) and whatever is not permitted is forbidden (restrictive).
2. "Reasonable" does not mean the same as "subjective". To be sure, "reasonable" suggests a certain amount of flexibility and room for different opinions. But if the members of our society are the ones to determine how much pluralism is reasonable, what rational grounds for complaint might there be?
3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have.

Does tolerating different views necessarily mean reconciling them? — Ludwig V

I shouldn't think so. As you say, the tolerance presupposes that they won't be reconciled any time soon.

These don't look like objections to liberalism to me. — Ludwig V

Nor to me, frankly, but I'm trying to present what I've seen as typical objections. I should probably let those who hold them make the case.

3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have. — Ludwig V

This point deserves a more thoughtful reply, as it speaks to both the strengths and weaknesses of Rawlsian theory. Pushed for time now but I'll come back to this . . .

For the UK and the USA, the alternative to religious freedom was having communities tear themselves apart in sectarian violence, so it was a matter of cultural survival. Not all communities have that problem. Is religious freedom really a core principle? Or just attached to the economic/political agenda?

Interesting. No doubt the European religious wars and persecutions of the 16th-17th centuries made tolerance look more attractive. So a country that was, let's say, 99% Hindu, with no prospect of this changing, might not need to value religious freedom. Maybe so, and it helps highlight whether and why a core principle could develop on strictly ethical grounds.