1 Liberalism: core ideas and principles Flashcards
Core ideas and principles of liberalism and how they relate to human nature, the state, society and the economy:
Key terminology of liberalism
Foundational equality
Formal equality
Equality of opportunity
Social contract
Meritocracy
Mechanistic theory
Tolerance
Limited government
Core ideas and principles of liberalism
- Individualism
- Freedom/liberty
- State
- Rationalism
- Equality/social justice
- Liberal democracy
Etymology of Liberalism
Derives from the Latin word “liber” meaning free men
Glorious Revolution
- Enshrined parliamentary sovereignty and the right of revolution, and led to the establishment of what many consider the first modern, liberal state
- Significant legislative milestones in this period included the Habeus Corpus Act 1679, The Bill of Rights 1689, Act of Toleration. In 1695, the Commons refused to renew the Licensing of the Press Act 1662, leading to a continuous period of unprecedented freedom of the press.
- Resulted in the abdication and exile of James II and the establishment of a complex form of balanced government in which power was divided between the monarch, ministers, and Parliament
- Rejects many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion.
Age of Enlightenment
- Intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries
- period of profound intellectual vitality that questioned old traditions
- preceded by the Scientific Revolution
- rejected traditional social, political, and religious ideas
- Promoted rationalism and empiricism, & political ideals such as natural law, liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.
- Stressed liberty and equality as natural human rights
- Its beginning is traditionally dated with the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 and its end with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789
prehistory of liberalism
- In the Middle Ages the rights and responsibilities of individuals were determined by their place in a hierarchical social system
- Under the impact of the slow commercialization and urbanization of Europe in the later Middle Ages, the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance, and the spread of Protestantism in the 16th century, the old feudal stratification of society gradually began to dissolve
- ## By the end of the 16th century, the authority of the papacy had been broken in most of northern Europe
Declaration of Independence facts
- adopted unanimously by the 56 delegates on July 4, 1776, at Philadelphia
- European philosophers, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, heavily influenced it
- American Revolution began in April 1775
- The Continental Congress appointed The Committee of Five to write the formal declaration; Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.
- approximately 1,320 words long
- displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
- 56 signatures. As President of the Second Continental Congress, John Hancock signed first. Two of the Signers were 26. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest Signer at 70 years old.
Preamble of the Declaration of Independence
derived from the Enlightenment ideals that Jefferson favored
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.–That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Grievances of the Declaration of Independence
- lists 27 unfair actions of the British king and Parliament
- “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
One of the grievances: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
Formal Resolution of Independence
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence’s deleted passage
168 words
- 1st part aimed directly at the King: “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither…”
- 2nd part alluded to the Dunmore proclamation 1775; “…he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
Individualism
- a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control
- high degree of trust and responsibility upon the shoulders of individuals
- liberals seek to empower the individual with as much freedom as is practically possible
- Liberalism therefore believes in the ‘primacy of the individual’
Critiques of Liberalism by Authoritarian Ideologies
- Marxist Critique: Marxists view liberalism as flawed due to its bourgeois assumptions.
- Fascist Critique: Fascists associate the liberal celebration of the individual with decadence and immorality.
Liberal Party leader William Gladstone on liberalism
“liberalism is trust in the people.”
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804)
- German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers
- father of modern ethics
- believed that reason is the source of morality,
- all moral obligation is grounded in the categorical imperative
- Rational beings occupy a special place in creation
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) on The law
The law obliges one to treat humanity—understood as rational agency, and represented through oneself as well as others—as an end in itself rather than merely as means to other ends the individual might hold
The categorical imperative
- the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
- Introduced in Kant’s 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Define Reason
Reason is the capacity of applying logic consciously by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth.
Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.
Reasoning involves using more-or-less rational processes of thinking and cognition to extrapolate from one’s existing knowledge to generate new knowledge, and involves the use of one’s intellect.
Kant criticism of utilitarianism (wants to maximise happiness)
- Hypothetical moral systems cannot determine moral action or be regarded as bases for legitimate moral judgements against others, because the imperatives on which they are based rely too heavily on subjective considerations;
- e.g. a utilitarian says that murder is wrong because it does not maximise good for those involved, but this is irrelevant to people who are concerned only with maximising the positive outcome for themselves.
Natural rights
- not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable
- the concept of natural laws was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government – and thus legal rights – in the form of classical republicanism.
- Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.
- Human rights derives from the theories of natural rights
- Locke: Identified the Natural rights as being life, liberty, and property and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract.
According to Locke, there are three natural rights:
- Life: everyone is entitled to live.
- Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it does not conflict with the first right.
- Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it does not conflict with the first two rights.
Liberals and power
- They mistrust power because they believe that human beings are essentially self seeking, so they may use any position of power to pursue their own interests
- They oppose the concentration of political power because they fear it gives people a greater incentive to benefit themselves
- Believe that human nature is corruptible by power and therefore those in power need strict limits or they will seek to increase and abuse their powers.
Lord Acton (1834 - 1902) quote
The remark he wrote in a letter to an Anglican bishop in 1887
Victorian liberal historian. English Catholic historian, politician, and writer
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”
