What is Liberalism?
(And a plan for my blog)
The Postliberal Conservative is dedicated to charting a path out of the reigning liberal regime and towards a “postliberal” regime that nonetheless retains the best features of our liberal past. But there is confusion regarding the definition of liberalism and how it differs from postliberalism. It is necessary to attempt to define liberalism before offering what I consider to be the key debates separating liberalism from postliberalism.
Origin of Liberalism
Liberalism derives from the Latin word libertas, which means “liberty.” Historically, as Helena Rosenblatt observes, the word “liberal” meant “generous with money,” since it was characteristic of free and virtuous gentlemen to give and receive gifts.[1] During the Enlightenment “liberality” came to mean freedom from prejudice or bigotry. Around the time of the American Revolution, “liberal” had shed most of its aristocratic heritage and came to mean freedom or liberty as well as open-mindedness. The term “liberalism” originated in the early 19th century in France to describe people committed to a republican and secular state.
Today, “liberalism” refers to a political philosophy that somehow prioritizes “liberty.” But its meaning is contested. One author admits that it is defined in “manifold and contradictory ways.”[2] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will not even offer a single definition, although it does assert that liberal political philosophies emphasize “liberty.”[3]
Functional Definition of Liberalism
One way to define liberalism is simply to list the various things that liberals tend to endorse. For instance, Wikipedia’s page on “Liberalism” defines it this way: “Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals … generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy.”
The problem with this “functional” definition is that many, if not all, of these “liberal” values originated prior to what most people refer to as the tradition of “liberalism.” A growing body of work had identified Christian origins to religious toleration.[4] Democracy goes back to the ancient Greeks. Francis Fukuyama argues persuasively that the rule of law developed wherever religions, such as Christianity and Islam, imposed a religious moral system on society that was seen to exist “above” the will of the ruler.[5] And so on. More broadly, “liberty” was highly prized in ancient Greece and Rome, among other places.
The functional definition of liberalism leads to the mistake of viewing various historical thinkers as liberals when they in fact were not. Just because a historical thinker endorses one or more components of modern “liberalism” does not make him a liberal. Daniel Klein and Daniel J. Mahoney make this mistake in their essay “The Baby and the Bathwater,” where they associate conservative thinkers such as Edmund Burke with liberalism.[6] Burke accepts some elements of liberalism, but rejects others, such as individualism and political equality.
What is Liberalism?
As I see it, several outstanding features of liberalism render it distinct from pre-liberal or postliberal philosophies. The following list gives three basic philosophical commitments that nearly all liberals share, followed by two or three specific political positions arising from each basic commitment.
(Individualism) Individuals are born free, with no natural associations or specific duties.
a. State of Nature
b. Natural Equality
c. Social Contract Theory
(Libertinism) Liberty, understood as the freedom to do what one wants, is the highest political good.
a. Individual Rights
b. Anti-Democracy
(Limited Government) The sole purpose of government is to protect our liberty.
a. State Neutrality between conceptions of the good. (Law shouldn’t produce virtue)
b. Separation of church/state
There are other beliefs that liberals consider to be a part of their philosophy, but they are almost always reducible to one of the items listed above. Liberalism fundamentally conceives of human beings as individuals who contract with one another to secure their liberty. This is true of Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Kant, and Rawls. We may have general moral duties (or not, as in the case of Hobbes), but we are not bound to any particular people or societies. Government arises from consent, and its purpose is shaped by what the consenters desire. For this reason, the purpose of government is limited to helping people pursue happiness.
Most liberals assume that if the state’s role is to help us pursue our liberty, then it must remain neutral between competing conceptions of what the good life means. Different people will have different conceptions and pursue them in different ways. Liberalism is thus usually pluralistic. (I think that this assumption is wrong, and that even a limited government is not necessarily committed to remaining neutral—and may not even be able to remain neutral. But that’s an argument for another day.) A central component of state neutrality is the separation of church and state: everyone may worship as they wish. In late modern liberalism, this has led to the further belief that the “public sphere” should remain free of religious arguments.
My version of postliberalism rejects or modifies all three of these points. I will argue that humans are not born radically free but rather are born with a web of needs and obligations that tie us to other people. Government is not formed by contract—although consent plays a role—and is not limited to helping people pursue liberty. For its part, liberty is conceived as self-control over our disordered desires. Getting whatever we want is usually not good for us and does not make us happy. Since true happiness involves living a life of virtue, and virtue requires some communal aid, lawmakers must have some concern for virtue.
However, this does not mean that governments must try to force a particular religion or set of moral beliefs on the people. There is a wide middle space in which the law is oriented toward a particular conception of the good life, but people remain free to ignore or even resist this conception.
This is merely a sketch. I hope to flesh out these distinctions in future posts, with the help of the “postliberal primer.”
The Postliberal Primer
This blog is devoted to critiquing liberalism and devising a “postliberal” alternative to it. One part of this task involves educating my readers on both the liberal and pre-liberal traditions of political philosophy. To this end, in addition to formal essays, I plan to produce a series of posts called the “Postliberal Primer.” In this series, each post expounds a particular philosopher’s arguments related to liberalism or postliberalism. These posts will usually be shorter than my other essays, depending on their subject. They will allow me to post content more frequently.
Each post will:
Summarize a key text—or a theme from several texts—that makes a specific argument related to postliberalism.
Explain how the text(s) either underpins or attacks liberalism.
Survey objections to the argument.
Link the argument to other arguments in the history of political philosophy.
The Primer will be organized into several categories, each dealing with a separate topic. Each series will have a short “tag” or series of letters, which will be placed in the title or subtitle. Tagging posts allows the reader to identify a post as belonging to the Primer and makes it easier to find different posts on the same topic. The following is an incomplete list of topics and “tags”: the definition of liberalism (POSTLIB), liberty (LIBERTY), individualism versus community (INDIV), equality (EQ), education (ED), religion and religious liberty (REL), and constitutional structures (CON). I will try to provide links in every post to other posts on the same topic.
Note on Random Posts
Finally, I should note that, since this is my only blog, I will occasionally produce posts that have nothing to do with political philosophy or liberalism. I have other interests, such as history and theology, and plan to post book reviews as well as random reflections on these topics. Feel free to ignore these posts.
[1] Helen Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).
[2] Duncan Bell, “What Is Liberalism?,” Political Philosophy vol. 42, no. 6 (2014): 683.
[3] “Liberalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/.
[4] See, for instance, Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Dissenting Protestants and the Separation of Church and State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
[5] Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
[6] Daniel Klein and Daniel J. Mahoney, “The Baby and the Bathwater,” Law & Liberty, August 23, 2022, https://lawliberty.org/the-baby-and-the-bathwater/.
I won't ignore them. Write on!