Key Ideas - Liberalism

Question 1

What are the key Liberal works and their key thinkers, and if you can, their dates.

Answer 1

Locke - ‘Two treatises of government” - 1690

Mill - ‘On liberty’ - 1859

Green - ‘Prolegemena to ethics’ - 1883

Wollstonecraft - ‘A Vindictation for the rights of women’ - 1792

Friedan - ‘The feminine mystique’ - 1963

Question 2

‘Enabling state’ is who’s idea?

Answer 2

John Rawls

Question 3

Foundational equality is who’s idea?

Answer 3

John Rawls

Question 4

Higher and lower pleasures is whos idea?

Answer 4

Mill

Question 5

What terms did Locke give to describe what he wanted of the state?
To be a n___________, a n______ _____

Answer 5

.Nightwatchman
.a neutral umpire

Question 6

The original position thought experiment is whos idea, and what does it mean?

Answer 6

Rawls.

The idea behind it is everyone has what he referred to as a veil of ignorance, we do not know what circumstances in life we’ll be born into.
The theory goes that people therefore when asked to construct the hypothetical best society, people will conceive of one where even the most vulnerable are looked after.

Question 7

What did Betty Friedan find from interviewing subourban housewives?
What did this go on to inform?

Answer 7

They were generally not content with their lives.
This informed her Liberal view similar to Rawls on foundational equality, that women must also be encouraged to pursue personal fulfilment, to contribute to society as men do.
Friedan argued that society’s institutions and cultural influences should be the pillars of this cultural change, promote this for women.

To self develop is a ‘basic need’.

Question 8

Green notes that negative freedom and positive freedom…
. This informed Green’s views on….
Which were….

Answer 8

…Most both be acknowledged.

…The state to Green must assist in educating the most vulnerable and poor in order to lift them from poverty so they might also compete in a free society.

… also mitigating the unfair advantage of hereditary wealth.

• This is in service of the ‘common good’, helping people all ‘self realise’, a humanistic theme.

Question 9

The economist __________ is also an advocate of the ______ _____ as something to level the playing field.

Answer 9

. John Maynard Keynes
. Enabling state

• Eg the Keynesian economics of Third way socialism, eg: Anthony Crosland.

Question 10

To Green, individualism as a principle should be used …

Answer 10

Positively,
We should encourage everyone to use their positive freedom to flourish morally and intellectually, helping one another.

Question 11

‘Formal equality’ is a term from …

Answer 11

Wollstonecraft.

Question 12

Friedan called the individual’s need to flourish and fulfil a…

Answer 12

‘Basic need’

Question 13

Which thinker does the concept of the ‘common good’ belong to?

Answer 13

Thomas H Green

Question 14

The Prolegomena to ethics is who’s book?

Answer 14

Thomas H Green

Question 15

According to Green, ____ __________ is the goal of people, and we want to see other do this.
This is why we want to maintain the ‘________ _____’

Answer 15

. Self realisation

. The common good

Question 16

According to Green, what is it society should be doing?

Answer 16

Institutions should embody the ‘common good’ encouraging choices which lead to people being able to self realise.
We have a political obligation to maintain this, and society has a ‘moral right to rebel’.

Question 17

The economy to Green is something that should always serves the individual’s journey to…

Answer 17

Self realisation

Question 18

What is rule utilitarianism?

Who is it attributed to the thinking of?

Answer 18

It refers to a system whereby we try and keep people as happy and secure as possible through both giving giving freedom but also policing that freedom so that it does not infringe on others.
This is called the ‘harm principle’.

It is associated with John Stuart Mill.

Question 19

Humanism is associated with who?

Answer 19

Thomas H Green

Question 20

On liberty is who’s book?
When was it written?

Answer 20

John Stuart Mill

1859

Question 21

What are the key themes of Liberalism?

Answer 21

. Freedom
. Equality
. Minimal state
. Rationalism
. Positive human nature
. Laizze faire capitalism
. Property
. Individualism
. Tolerance
. Meritocracy

Question 22

‘Act of wil’ is who’s term?

Answer 22

Thomas H Green

Question 23

‘Moral right to rebel’ is who’s term?

Answer 23

Thomas H Green

Question 24

Women are compliant in their own subjugation is the sort of statement which thinker in particular would have said?

Answer 24

Mary Wollstonecraft

And it’s actually “complicit” not “compliant”

Question 25

“Limiting the stock of intelligence”
Who’s quote.

Answer 25

Wollstonecraft

Question 26

Michael Oakshott’s theory of the economy given his opinions on rationalism would be what?

Answer 26

That capitalism can be volatile, free markets in particular.
It may be pragmatic to regulate economies, make concessions to workers but also assist the rich when necessary.

Question 27

Which Liberal thinker is the founder of Utilitarianism?

Answer 27

Jeremy Bentham

Question 28

Jeremy Bentham said that humans were…

Answer 28

“rationally self interested creatures” that behaved as utility maximisers.

Question 29

Who is the key economist associated with Laisse faire capitalism?

Answer 29

Adam Smith.

Question 30

Hayek was known to be a collaborator with the…

Answer 30

Adam Smith institute, an early Think Tank.

Question 31

Green’s notion that positive and negative freedoms have to be synthesized is something often referred to as…..

Answer 31

‘Socialist liberalism’

Question 32

Green observed that society because of the damage inflicted by Lasse Faire capitalism…

Answer 32

was not altruistic enough.

Poverty was rampant.

Question 33

What are the two principles objectives that John Rawls proposed?

Answer 33

• Foundational equality
• The enabling state