Hi, I’m Geoff Pynn, and I teach philosophy at Elgin Community College.
In this video, I’m going to talk about the idea of Liberalism.
At least since the French Revolution, politics has been seen as a fight between
liberals on the left and conservatives on the right. But in most modern states,
all mainstream political parties agree that the protection and promotion of
liberty is one of the state’s fundamental jobs. This idea is known as liberalism.
The US Declaration of Independence lists liberty as one of the three “inalienable
rights” all of us share. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man asserts
that “human beings are and remain born free and equal in rights.”
And the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights echoes the French Declaration almost verbatim.
Liberals think that any legitimate state must respect its citizens' liberty.
Since most laws restrict people’s freedom in some way, in a liberal state, laws
have to meet a high standard to be justified. What gives the state the right
to infringe people’s liberty, when everybody has the moral right to be free?
The English liberal John Stuart Mill thought that the only thing that
can justify forcibly coercing someone was preventing harm to others.
Harming others violates their liberty, so a liberal state would have an
interest in preventing you from doing so, and generally speaking, your freedom
doesn’t include the freedom to harm others. So laws that prevent you from
harming others can advance the cause of liberty without violating your own.
But imagine what a state would be like if its laws really respected the Harm Principle.
Many existing laws would be very difficult to
justify this way. For example, in most places
it’s illegal to walk around naked in public.
But does this really prevent harm to others?
Or consider laws against gambling, sex work, or
drug possession.These activities do carry some risk of
harm to others,but so do many activities that liberal
states generally permit, such as making a risky
investment, driving to work, or drinking alcohol.
Far more people die every year from alcohol-related
causes than from all other drugs combined. But few
liberals would argue for a return to prohibition.
Or consider taxation. When the state imposes a tax, it takes
your money, by force if necessary, whether you like it or
not, in order to pay for other things. Some government spending
prevents harm. But a lot of it doesn’t seem to --
or, at least, it doesn’t seem like harm prevention is what
justifies it. Public schools, government research, national
parks, mail delivery… Few people would defend these expensive
government functions simply by saying that they prevent harm.
Rather, many laws are about decency, morality, and the common good, --
not about preventing harm. It’s indecent to walk around
naked in public -- that’s why it’s illegal. Gambling, paying for sex,
and using hard drugs are widely regarded as immoral -- and that’s
the main reason there is so much support for keeping them illegal.
Education, science, and art advance the common good -- and that’s
why states use tax dollars to fund them. Strict adherence to the
Harm Principle would undermine any law justified on these grounds.
Some liberal philosophers, known as libertarians, embrace
this radical idea. They argue that the state shouldn’t
be in the business of promoting decency, morality, or the common good.
They think public health, city parks,
and universal education are probably illegitimate uses for our tax dollars.
Some libertarians compare taxation itself
to forced labor, a profound violation of liberty.
And without tax revenue, government would grind to a halt.
Most liberals aren’t that radical. In fact, in contemporary politics, the word
“liberal” is often used to refer to someone who favors more government
intervention, for example to protect the environment, improve literacy, or
promote equality. Isn’t it conservatives who want less government intervention?
If liberals are really all about protecting and promoting liberty
it's hard to see how these initiatives are truly liberal.
But there are different ways of thinking about what liberty means.
Consider education. It may not be quite true to say
that knowledge is power. But it’s plausible that ignorance
limits your liberty. Someone who doesn’t know which mushrooms are
poisonous doesn’t have the freedom to enjoy mushrooms they’ve
gathered themselves. Someone who does know this has a freedom
her ignorant friend lacks. If you want to promote liberty,
making sure people are educated seems like a good way to do it.
So maybe the cause of promoting liberty is
about more than just protecting the freedoms you
already have. Maybe it’s also about expanding
the freedoms available to you. Could a law
that infringes your liberty but increases the
liberty of others be justified? Or does the
Harm Principle mark out the inviolable boundary
of the liberal state?
What do you think?