Human beings have various ideals that they value, that constitute what would be for them a good life, whose fulfilment they work towards. The idea of the good for each individual is informed by their circumstances, their unique talents and capacities, their nature and their nurture. Very often ideas of the good are mutually incompatible. A vegetarian might regard consumption of meat as immoral and vile, a bodybuilder pursuing athletic excellence might value it instrumentally as a source of protein, while someone with a hedonistic bent may feel that such simple pleasures make life worth living in the first place. The appeal of liberalism, under such pluralism, lies in its apparent fairness to all ways of life. I say apparent because a liberal society does seem to encourage certain values over others: the virtues of tolerance, the ideals of democracy, the spirit of secularism, individualism over collectivism, international cooperation, and so forth. This leads one to ask: Might liberalism be just another doctrine of the good life, masquerading as a neutral framework? This is an important question, for if liberalism is merely one idea of the good life in competition with other such ideas, then it would lose much of its appeal and privileged status.
In this essay, I argue that liberalism, conceived of as a political philosophy, is flexible enough to allow many diverse conceptions of the good life to flourish within its ambit. People can accept liberalism as a basic principle of political and social organization, yet lead very different non-political lives informed by different, or even conflicting, moral and religious philosophies, or ideas of the good.
A liberal society’s core commitment is to liberty and equality. These terms lend themselves to varying interpretations. For example, in one sense liberty refers to freedom of citizens from external interference in pursuing their goals. This is the liberty which is increased when the private sphere is enlarged, or the state intervention is minimised. This is how western classical liberals, believers in the natural harmony of our individual interests, used the term. However, liberty can also be associated with effective power or capability to pursue one’s ends. If one does not have access to food, education or adequate healthcare; if one doesn’t have the resources to avail the opportunities available to them, then one is, to that extent, not free. This is why it is quite characteristic of modern liberals to endorse interventionist policies, like redistributive taxation and compulsory public education, which empower individuals to pursue their own ends. Similarly, political equality too can be conceived of in different ways. Equality could mean that the government is to treat, or work to ensure, an equal distribution of some resource or opportunity (e.g. monetary wealth) for all its citizens. Or it could mean that citizens are to be treated as equals by the state, i.e., with equal dignity, respect and concern, no matter what their individual virtues, or circumstances, or indeed, conceptions of the good life. Thus, whatever the particular policies, or the extent of government intervention, a central strand of all liberal societies is its treatment of citizens as free and politically equal, that is, as persons possessing the same basic rights, liberties and fundamental worth. (Equality is political) (Affirmative Action and Historical Injustices) (In another sense, liberty can be associated associated with self-mastery and autonomy, the freedom to make decisions as a rational being without internal pressures, i.e. freedom from cravings, or impluses that are not in one’s control. )
With this basic restriction, liberalism does exclude certain ways of life. For example, repression or degradation of certain groups, based on race, or ethnicity, or occupation, or gender, is not permissible under liberal principles. Ancient Athens, antebellum South, and present-day Saudi Arabia would not qualify as liberal societies. Liberalism doesn’t allow conceptions of the good which require an infringement of basic rights and liberties of others. Attitudes of racism, sexism and homophobia would not be permissible in the social and political institutions of a liberal society. Thus, a county clerk might feel that issuing marriage license to same-sex couples violates her religious freedom, or a fascist speaker might feel that his freedom of speech is violated every time he’s not allowed to preach, but if they are to be part of a liberal set-up, they must give up these attitudes. It is a fundamental paradox that liberal political life cannot escape: certain liberties must be curtailed not just to protect equality, but to protect the idea of liberty itself.
Thus, as long as citizens are treated as equal and free, granted basic rights and liberties, and respect its constraints, a liberal society allows its citizens to follow any vision of the good life that they wish. It requires in this sense, only a ‘thin conception’ (Rawls) of the good life. However, it can be rightly asked, that even if liberalism doesn’t promote a particular version of a good life, is it arbitrarily biased against certain ways of life, while favouring others? And this question can be posed at different levels:
Liberal policies, by definition, are not aimed at encouraging, favouring, or promoting any conception of the good. They are thus procedurally neutral. A well functioning liberal state would also be neutral in the sense of 2a, by ensuring an opportunity to pursue any conception of the good life which isn’t against liberalism itself. However, no liberal society can be said to guarantee that the effect of its institutions or policies is neutral. It is an inevitable aspect of any cultural and social structure that some ways of life will find it easier to flourish, while others diminish. A ban on face covering in public spaces for the sake of public security, while liberal and neutral in its aims, makes it much harder for a woman to choose Islamic values over others. On the other hand, in practice, liberal societies sometimes deviate from procedural neutrality to achieve neutrality in outcome. India, for example, has special personal laws, distinguished from the common public law, for each religious communities - allowing Sikhs to carry a Kirpan and Muslims to follow a version of Sharia law.
It is worth mentioning here that liberalism can be extended from a purely political philosophy to a comprehensive moral or philosophical doctrine - a distinct conception of a good, so to speak. J.S. Mill, for example, endorsed liberalism for the goodness of developing individualities or cultivating capacities:
“ Individuality is the same thing with development, and…it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings…what more can be said of any condition of human affairs, than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than that it prevents this?”
Mill believed that liberalism allowed for the development of a certain type of character - critical, original, imaginative, independent - of which he approved. However, this commitment to a perfectionist theory of good, that a good life consists in the pursuit of individuality or excellence, is not required for liberalism.
Similarly, following Hobbes, one might be inclined to think that liberalism endorses a subjectivist theory of the good - that goodness is a matter of taste, and thus the ideal thing to do is to allow everyone their own values and preferences, for that is good for them. Again, this leap, from a limited political conception to a distinction view of what constitutes goodness, is not required by liberalism.
Indeed many western societies, perhaps following Mill, or indeed Aristotle, seem to believe that liberalism, with its pronounced division between private and public spheres, entails individualism, or prioritises the self over the community. However, a society can be liberal yet very community-oriented. This is perhaps best exemplified by the successful liberal societies of Asia - with their emphasis on community and social cohesion over individualism. While France - considered a paragon of a western liberal society - prohibits displays of religious symbols is schools, Indian classrooms abound with turbans, crosses and other religious tchotchkes. Secularism can mean restricting religion to the private sphere, or it can mean a public profusion of religion. Pluralism can manifest as a cultural mosaic, as in European societies, but it can thrive just as well as in the form of a melting pot, as in the case of the ancient syncretic culture of the Indian subcontinent.
The only thing common among all liberal societies, is that there they come with fundamental constraints, or basic rights and liberties. All other values that liberalism promotes, or encourages: tolerance, secularism, and democracy, arise naturally from these, for without them liberalism would be self-defeating. The values that a liberal society emphasises are political values, and the virtue it promotes are political virtues, required for its own sustenance.
Liberalism is nihilistic with regards to the good, unless the good is understood in narrow political terms. Rather, its privileged status lies precisely in its refusal to affirm any single conception of the good life. Liberalism is not a distinct conception of the good in competition with other conceptions of the good, neither is it a compromise between different political positions; rather, it is in a fundamentally different category which stands in opposition to all the other political philosophies.
17 February 2016