Liberalism's basic ideas

Author: Gu Su
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This is a thought map of liberalism, with clear expression and well-structured layers. For those who want to label themselves or their opponents as liberal without theoretical exploration, I recommend reading this book first. It presents a comprehensive, fresh, and sympathetic portrayal of liberalism: not only can you learn the basic ideas of liberalism through new materials, but you can also trace the new developments in liberal thought along its historical trajectory, and in good conditions, participate in debates on important issues of liberalism with contemporary scholars and thinkers. This is a substantial academic work. The author, around the theme of the basic ideas of liberalism, elaborates on the basic claims, historical evolution, internal issues, and responses to external challenges of Western liberalism from two perspectives: the basic ideas themselves and their historical trends. On the basis of a clear definition of the key concepts of "liberalism," the author reveals the internal composition and relationships of the basic ideas of liberalism in terms of freedom and equality, freedom rights and socialism, democracy and the rule of law, and explains the theoretical system of liberalism from three basic levels: moral and ethical, social and political, and legal institutions. Among the basic concepts of modern political philosophy, perhaps nothing is more ambiguous and controversial than liberalism. Different eras and schools have varying understandings of liberalism, and their attitudes towards it are also greatly different. However, liberalism is still the mainstream thought and tendency of modern Western society. Regardless of the differences and controversies, whether people praise or reject it, liberalism remains a banner of thought in Western society. Therefore, understanding, researching, and grasping the basic ideas, principles, and conclusions of liberalism is a fundamental task of contemporary political philosophy. Liberalism is a fundamental political belief, a philosophical and social movement, a social system, and a policy orientation. It is also a tolerant and inclusive lifestyle. It regards freedom as the basic method and policy of the government, the organizing principle of society, and the way of life for individuals and communities. Its content is rich and diverse, and its value claims are pluralistic. From a etymological perspective, liberalism originated from the name of a political party in Spain in the early 19th century, but it gained widespread use and recognition in the English-speaking world and can be traced back to the thoughts and beliefs of ancient Greece, Judaism, and Christianity. However, the concept of liberalism has evolved in a way that has caused much confusion. Over several centuries, its meaning has changed, its usage has been quite broad, and it has lacked clear definition. In the latter half of the 20th century, parties in the UK, Italy, Germany, and even Japan and many countries in the Third World adopted names like "Liberal Party" or similar ones. However, these parties primarily emphasized economic programs and policies, aiming to minimize government intervention and control and to promote the philosophy of economic freedom under the difficult conditions of modern industrial organizations. It is evident that the content of liberalism itself is not limited to what these parties sought. Among the three major political trends in the Western world—liberalism, radicalism, and conservatism—the ambiguity of liberalism itself, as well as the disagreements and debates among its internal factions, are no less than those of the other two. Moreover, the misunderstandings liberalism has encountered in Eastern and Western societies, and the critiques and criticisms it has faced in different countries and periods, are even richer and more diverse than its own connotations. Probably no other political idea has been subjected to as many "hats" or inappropriate labels as liberalism. In mainland China, liberalism was once the term used to denounce disciplinelessness, unrestrainedness, selfishness, and petty greed within the revolutionary ranks, though it is far removed from liberalism as a political philosophy. Despite this, liberalism still retains its fundamental theoretical connotations and general principles in the West and even in the world today, and it has important distinctions from other political ideas and trends. These distinctions are not trivial, as they directly relate to fundamental political values, system construction, and orientation, and even involve the life styles and prospects of every citizen in today's society. The economic policies of free orientation are only one specific conclusion of the basic ideas of liberalism, while its method, core beliefs, and fundamental ideas are its most vital components. This is the basic stance it takes toward the individual and collective life in the modern world. Modern liberalism is a product of Western European society, with its golden age roughly spanning from 1750 to 1914, or from the Enlightenment thinkers of France to the second World War. But this is only a rough estimate; in fact, liberal thought had already taken root in the great philosopher Locke of England before this period. And in the half-century after the second World War, liberalism not only did not decline but also spread into almost every society in the world in a generalized way. Liberalism is not only associated with the revolutionary movements in the UK, France, Germany, and Italy but was also a vital force in Russia before the October Revolution and has taken root in Japan, Israel, Turkey, Greece, many Latin American countries, and emerging industrialized regions in East Asia after the second World War. Liberalism is also the fundamental political demand of the Social Democratic Parties in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and the Nordic countries, and even the fundamental political demand of the "welfare state" in the United States (though this is controversial). Some conservatives' ideological tendencies and the theoretical forces of reform in former Soviet Eastern European socialist countries also contain elements of liberalism. So, can we briefly summarize the basic ideas of liberalism here? Perhaps we can summarize dozens of principles of liberalism, and it may not be possible to give a unified interpretation of these principles, as liberalists of different schools will naturally have disagreements in these aspects. But broadly speaking, we can summarize several basic principles of liberalism from the arguments of the contemporary famous political philosopher Rawls.
1. The principle of self-determination: an individual's life is valuable only in the sense that they are self-determined, i.e., making free choices;
2. Maximum equal liberty: the state should guarantee the greatest personal liberty compatible with the equal liberty of others;
3. Pluralism: since individuals do indeed choose their own lifestyles, they may make different choices, in short, there is diversity in the concepts of the good;
4. Neutrality: from the first three principles, it follows that the state should remain neutral and oppose perfectionism;
5. The principle of the good: resources should be fairly distributed so that everyone has a fair opportunity to pursue their own concept of the good;
6. The priority of justice over the good: the principle of justice (fairness) constrains individuals in their pursuit of their own concept of the good. {1} Another liberal, David Spitz, in his "creed" written for liberal-minded people before his death, perhaps more intuitively reflects the basic principles of liberalism. He said: A liberal must:
(1) Value freedom more than other values, even if it means valuing it more than equality and justice.
(2) Respect "people" rather than "property," but not to overlook the positive role of property in promoting human well-being.
(3) Not trust power, even if it comes from the majority.
(4) Not believe in authority.
(5) Be tolerant.
(6) Believe firmly in democracy.
(7) Respect truth and reason.
(8) Accept the inevitability of change.
(9) Not be ashamed of compromise.
(10) Most importantly, maintain a critical spirit. {2} In short, liberalism places the value of freedom above other values, emphasizes respect for people, does not easily trust power and authority, insists on tolerance and democratic politics, accepts truth, reason, and social change, but also learns to compromise and maintain a critical spirit. These are the essence of liberalism. The starting point of liberal theory is individualism, where individualism is neutral and does not contain value judgments. It refers to taking the individual as the basis of its arguments and arguments, and all other political philosophies and ethical principles are derived from it. Therefore, theorists sometimes refer to this mode of argumentation as methodological individualism. Since this theory takes the individual as the smallest and basic unit of social analysis, all other organizations, groups, communities, and even states can be reduced to or applied to individuals. This is similar to the atomism that appeared in the history of science and philosophy, and some theorists call this individualism atomistic. In fact, liberalists do not exclude the value of collectives, society, or even the state. Individualism is not selfishness, and it does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of all collective orientations and choices. It only means that the final standard for judging a social policy and value must be the individual. Personal freedom is the basic starting point of a society and the foundation of all social policies and legislation. From individuals to groups and society, in the sense of both genealogy and ontology, individuals have priority. Liberalists firmly believe that there must be a final point of reference for judging social policies. As early as ancient Greece, philosophers proposed the idea that "man is the measure of all things," emphasizing that man is the final criterion for judging all things. And this man is first the individual, who measures others and external things by himself; each person has a complete nervous and sensory system, and pleasure and pain are first and finally personal. Empiricists firmly believe that without this sense of pleasure and pain and the instinct of pursuing benefits and avoiding harm, even the most sublime values would lose their final support. Therefore, from the perspective of epistemology and axiology, the individual is also the basic unit. Similarly, when liberalists talk about freedom, their primary point of reference, starting point, and destination is also the individual. Collective and social freedom must be reflected in individual freedom; otherwise, it is illusory. It is hard to imagine a society where most individuals are not free but the society itself is free, which is self-contradictory in legal terms. Of course, a society enslaved by foreign powers (such as an occupied country) is not free as a whole, but this does not exclude some individuals (such as collaborators of the invaders) from being free on the surface (though they are still slaves). Even in such extreme cases, the overall lack of freedom is still manifested by the enslavement of each individual. This individualism, while emphasizing the priority and foundation of personal freedom, does not exclude the influence of sociality and interpersonal interaction on individuals, nor does it exclude the impact of collective or social choices on individual choices. However, any collective choice finally remains the result of the choices of individuals in authority and their groups, and finally reflects and originates from individual choices. On the other hand, in the same environment, the differences in personality and individuality often play a decisive role, demonstrating the significance and importance of individual subjectivity and uniqueness. The freedom that liberalists refer to is primarily political and legal in nature, which includes the right of individuals to choose in life, speech, association, and engagement in economic and social activities. The system of freedom is reflected in open choices, while the system of unfreedom tries to limit the choices of individual citizens as much as possible. Freedom is also philosophical and aesthetic in nature, but its interpretation is by no means limited to Hegel's speculative thinking, which reduces freedom to merely understanding and grasping necessity. Because the philosophical freedom that liberalists emphasize is still related to its original meaning. From an empiricist perspective, even if an individual completely grasps the entire necessity of things (which is impossible in fact), they still have the right to choose. Necessity is not a single straight line but multiple forks in the road. A clear-headed and optimistic person would not choose to jump off a cliff to commit suicide, but their path up the mountain has multiple choices, and it is not always the only way out. In aesthetics, the freedom to choose is even broader. The saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" illustrates the subjectivity of aesthetics. Although people's aesthetic preferences have statistical commonalities, there is no single objective aesthetic conclusion. The more diverse life is, the more diverse aesthetics become, creating broad room for the development of aesthetic freedom. The priority of personal freedom does not necessarily exclude or negate human sociality. By treating the individual as a lone Robinson (and Robinson had a Friday, anyway), liberalists never deny that humans are social beings or that individuals are influenced by collectives. They only emphasize that the relationship between human sociality and individuality is not a completely symmetrical interaction. Because sociality is fundamentally expressed through individual actions, and the comprehensive development of the individual is the prerequisite for the free development of society, and conversely, it cannot be said that the free development of society is the condition for the comprehensive development of the individual. Liberalists insist that personal freedom must be guaranteed economically, as without economic freedom, other freedoms are hollow. Therefore, protecting individual property is a key condition for ensuring personal freedom. As Locke repeatedly emphasized, life, freedom, and property rights are inseparable. Liberalists stress that the greatest threat to personal freedom often comes from the government, and thus it is necessary to remain vigilant against government power at all times. Government is a necessary evil, though necessary, it is still an evil, and thus it must always be restrained by society rather than becoming the master of society. Society and the people (finally) are the masters, and the government should be the servants. Therefore, liberalists generally remain vigilant against all-powerful governments and thus propose theories such as the minimal state power. Additionally, checks and balances among power institutions are also necessary. Montesquieu regarded the limitation of government power and the realization of checks and balances among power institutions as the prerequisite for ensuring freedom. Although liberalists have varying degrees of emphasis on interpersonal equality at different times, some liberalists (such as Mill) even believed that a one-person-one-vote electoral system could promote widespread mediocrity, making them a typical example of liberalists opposing equality. However, liberalists generally believe that people are equal in terms of personality, and differences in ability, contribution, and political judgment do not exclude equality in personality, including equality of starting points in market competition. The choice of personal beliefs and lifestyles is also part of the realization of personal personality, and thus should not be imposed by society or collectives in the name of society. Therefore, from Locke onwards, liberalists have repeatedly emphasized the importance of religious and even cultural tolerance, advocating multiculturalism, and believing that personal choices of religious belief and moral conscience must be respected. This view finally found expression in the human rights clauses of constitutionalism, becoming a universally recognized standard in international affairs. Therefore, egalitarianism, tolerance, and cultural pluralism not only do not contradict liberal principles but are also the content emphasized by liberalism in different periods with different focuses. The only difference is in the way of argumentation, which is different from other political philosophies. For example, liberalists do not, like some left-wing critical theorists, advocate equality of results or economic egalitarianism; nor do they deny the universality of rights such as survival, property, and political rights by means of tolerance and cultural pluralism. Logically speaking, the universality of human rights and cultural pluralism are theories at different levels. The former refers to the basic rights that humans possess as humans, while the latter refers to the autonomy of subgroups of humanity in dealing with their own cultural characteristics. The latter can never become a reason to deny the universal rights of individuals as humans. This is similar to how logicians must clarify the scope of reference of the subject when speaking to solve paradoxes such as the "liar paradox." The universality of human rights and the characteristics of culture each have their own scope of reference and applicability. To deny each other beyond these boundaries is a manifestation of intellectual confusion. Of course, liberalism is not a highly unified and consistent ideological concept, and there are differences in tendencies within it. Although general liberalism generally occupies a middle position in Western political philosophy, its different factions naturally have different biases. Traditional Western political philosophy usually arranges the overall political ideas on a one-dimensional spectrum from left to right in terms of political attitudes. The left end emphasizes equality, thus approving some form of socialism, while the right wing emphasizes traditional capitalist free markets. Most liberalists between these two extremes emphasize both equality and freedom, but their focus varies, making them either slightly left-leaning or slightly right-leaning liberalists. Right-wing liberalists are usually called libertarians (Liber－tarianism), and a contemporary representative is Robert Nozick of Harvard University. Left-wing liberalists can be exemplified by communitarians, who share some theoretical commonalities with radical social critics and Western Marxists, but there are still important differences in their basic temperament, theoretical starting points, and methodology. Because communitarianism is still part of mainstream Western thought, it has to some extent corrected the biases of traditional liberalism but has not unconditionally advocated nationalism. In the post-Cold War era, people have also debated the division of this traditional political spectrum. In addition to the view that this one-dimensional spectrum is based on traditional male-dominated concepts and thus cannot explain issues such as gender equality, it is also argued that this spectrum overlooks the historical context, that is, no social system can avoid the process of historical formation. For example, communitarians emphasize that any political judgment cannot be separated from its specific historical and cultural environment. Despite this, people cannot completely erase the existence and significance of this division. Because the basic ideas of liberalism such as individualism, freedom, and equality still exist, and today people increasingly accept the foundation of mainstream thought in their basic institutional choices, making it difficult to explain this universality of convergence with relativism, although the specific manifestations and forms of various cultures remain diverse. Therefore, it is generally believed that liberalism is not only still the dominant thought in today's Western world but is also increasingly expanding to non-Western countries that are moving towards marketization and democratization, including over 100 countries and regions that have been incorporated into the framework of the World Trade Organization. Strictly speaking, this liberalism in the world today should be called liberal democracy, because when appealing to traditional liberal ideas, it emphasizes its democratic nature even more, making it the vast tide of the civilized world today. When speaking of the status of liberal political ideas in the West and many developing countries at the end of the century, the French thinker Levi pointed out: "Until about 1980, if you voted in Europe, you had to make a conscious choice between two societies: capitalism or socialism. Ten years later, socialism was no longer an option. There was only one choice: democratic capitalism. The difference lay only in the best way to manage it. There were still differences between the left and the right, but these were all within the scope of liberalism. This was a decisive change. Now, the differences between the left and the right involve how efficiency suits social integration, rather than the best way to suit efficiency with freedom." {3} Levi's views, though debatable, also indicate from one side that liberalism has become more dominant in the Western world after the Cold War, with differences only in specific focuses rather than fundamental ones. Contemporary liberalists such as Rawls and Dworkin have also made some remarks on this. Although they emphasize equality more, they never believe that their ideas do not belong to the mainstream tradition of liberalism. Dworkin emphasizes the universality of the concept of equal rights, believing that every self-consistent political theory has its own ultimate values, that is, equality. They are all "egalitarian" theories {4}. Of course, the egalitarianism here does not refer to economic egalitarianism in the distribution of results, but to the equality of people in terms of rights and personality, that is, treating people equally in politics. This is an egalitarianism that transcends specific cultural and ethical differences and is a universal standard for measuring the political systems of the world today. Although the specific forms and expressions of equality differ, few people in the world today are willing to admit theoretically that they oppose this kind of equal rights, which illustrates the universality of basic political ideas. And like Dworkin, a slightly left-leaning liberalist, his arguments represent the core concepts that contemporary liberalists are concerned with. What we have elaborated on here is the basic ideas of liberalism, tracing its essence through various specific manifestations and cognitive differences, so that people today can understand the fundamental content and significance of this mainstream Western thought.