Liberal individualism

Although the notion of liberal individualism and, especially, the notion of the individuated self has attracted vast amounts of criticism,⁴ there is no denying that, at the very heart of liberal political theory lies some commitment to the individual and the moral primacy of the individual. According to liberalism, what matters, in the end, is the individual: how her life goes, her well-being. There may, of course, be substantive disagreements on how to judge, or whether it is even possible to judge, individual well-being or what this well-well-being entails, but these disagreements do not take away the central idea, incorporated within any liberal political theory, that it is the individual that ultimately counts. For liberal political theory, it is the individual that is of utmost importance, and this should also be reflected in the political organisation of society.

It should be emphasized, however, that the ethical individualism of liberal political theory is, precisely, ethical individualism, and does not need to entail any particular metaphysical or ontological commitments about the nature of society or about the nature of the self. Liberal political theory does not need to (although it surely

back to thinkers such as Locke, Kant and Mill. For historical overview, see e.g. Gray 1986.

4 See esp. communitarian critiques of liberal individualism in: MacIntyre 1981; Sandel 1982; Taylor 1989, Walzer 1983; for debate and overview, Gutmann 1986; Buchanan 1989; Mulhall and Swift 1992, Kymlicka 2002, ch. 6.

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can) be committed to an atomistic view of society.⁵ It does not need to view society simply as an aggregation of its parts (individual members), but is compatible with the view according to which societies, and smaller groups within societies, are viewed as incorporating something more than their individual members (for example, shared values, social bonds, common interests, that cannot be accounted for with reference to individuals alone).

Consequently, liberal political theory is compatible with the view according to which the interests of society, and of the smaller groups within society, may not be reducible to the interests of their individual members, but can, at times, even conflict with the interests of their individual members. All that the ethical individualism of liberal political theory is necessarily committed to is that in assessing the organisation of society, or the needs, interests or value of society (or smaller groups within society), the moral primacy of the individual should prevail. The interests of cultural or religious groups, for example, should be assessed in the light of how these interests affect individuals, and the value of religious or cultural groups (liberalism can, indeed, attach value to these groups) must be derived from the value that these groups have for individuals. Whereas liberal political theory does, in the ethical or normative sense, put the individual first, it does not need to be committed to the view according to which other things – groups, cultures, religions – could not also matter. Quite clearly, they do – but only because they matter to the individuals and to their well-being.

The ethical individualism of liberal political theory does not, also, need to entail the view of an individual as an unencumbered

5 The atomistic views of society are often connected to classical thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Mill, although certain types of social atomism can also be found in the work of more recent liberal and/or libertarian thinkers, such as Hayek, Rand and Nozick. For Taylor’s classical attack on liberal atomism, see: Taylor 1985, ch. 7; for debate, see e.g. Kymlicka 1989, ch. 5; 2002, ch. 6; Smith 2002, ch. 6; Den Uyl and Rasmussen 2006.

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and unembedded self.⁶ Liberal political theory needs not, and – as I argue during the course of this work – should not ignore the social embeddedness of individuals and the often tremendous influence that an individual’s belonging to a particular group may have for their identity and well-being. It needs not ignore the social ties of individuals, nor does it need to insist that the very core of the individual – the true individual self – could somehow be abstracted from its social ties or surroundings. What it does, however, need to be committed to is that the value of these ties and social surroundings needs to be assessed from the standpoint of an individual: from how they make individual lives go. As will become clear during the course of this work, there may be several interpretations to the idea of the individual standpoint, but these differences do not take away the basic liberal commitment to the moral primacy of the individual. For liberal political theory, including liberal multiculturalism, it is, first and foremost, the individual that matters, and the social, political and/or economic organisation of society should also take this into account.

1.2. Individual liberty, autonomy and equality Liberty

Liberalism, unsurprisingly, is an ideology that attaches value to liberty, and to individual liberty more specifically. According to liberalism, people should, as a default, be allowed to live their lives in whatever manner they wish to, and any interventions into this liberty need justification. What liberals do not necessarily agree upon, however, is what this liberty means, when it can be infringed upon, or how, in any interpretation of the term, it is to be secured.⁷

6 The terms being coined by Michael Sandel (1982). For liberal responses, see e.g. Rawls 1986; 1996; Kymlicka 1989, ch. 4.

7The classical distinction, given by Isaiah Berlin (1969), between negative liberty (incorporating freedom from interference) and positive liberty (incorporating also the ability to act) is, in recent political philosophy, often supplemented with a third, republican, conception of freedom (incorporating freedom from domination, or susceptibility to interference) Pettit 1997; 2001; Skinner 2002. Whereas the distinctions between these

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The contemporary liberal political theorists do, nevertheless, tend to agree that people may have very different views on what they find valuable and what they consider to be good life and that, to a large extent,⁸ people should be free to pursue their different conceptions of the good. In order to guarantee this freedom to everyone (liberalism is, in this sense, universalist), the liberal political theorists often come to promote some set of basic rights (such as freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression etc.)⁹ as well as a specific role for the state in guaranteeing these basic rights to everyone.¹⁰ Although liberal political theorists may disagree on the conception of liberty, on the institutional mechanisms needed for securing this liberty, as well as on the justifiable interferences in individual liberty, what they do agree upon is that, as a default, people should be free to live their lives in accordance with their own conceptions of the good, and that any (state) interference on this liberty needs justification.

three conceptions of liberty do play a part in discussions on liberal multiculturalism (most notably, in debates on the right of exit – discussed in Ch. 2 and 5), most of the controversies within liberal multiculturalism do not need to hang on these differences. Whereas the three main theorists discussed in this work, Kymlicka, Kukathas and Barry (Ch. 1, 2 and 3) would, most likely, subscribe to slightly different conceptions of individual liberty, their main differences do not (at least directly) stem from their different conceptions of freedom, but rather from their emphases and treatment of other liberal values, such as autonomy and equality.

8 One of the classical formulations of the limits to individual freedom can be found in Mill’s famous harm principle. According to Mill, “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, whether physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” Mill 1986 [1859], ch. 1, para 9.

9 There is, no doubt, substantive disagreement on what exactly these basic rights are, and liberal theorists have also been notoriously reluctant to formulate any conclusive lists of such rights.

10 I will discuss the role of the liberal state in more detail in section 1.3.

12 Autonomy

In the footsteps of Humboldt and Mill, many liberal theorists have included individual autonomy as one of the basic values of liberalism, and the protection of individual autonomy as one of the tasks of the liberal state. Individual autonomy, broadly construed, involves the idea of a person living her life from within, of being (in part) the author of her own life.¹¹ For many, this entails the idea of the individual deciding for herself what is valuable in life, and for living her life in accordance with that decision.¹²

This idea of individual autonomy, and the role of the liberal state in protecting autonomy, has, however, become contested, not least among liberal theorists of multiculturalism.¹³ Not everyone, after all, would seem to attach such value to individual autonomy, and the freedom to live one’s life in accordance with one’s own conception of the good would seem to include also the freedom to reject the value of individual autonomy and one’s ability to decide for oneself what is valuable in life. The liberal state, aiming to protect or even promote individual autonomy, would thus seem to be infringing on the freedom of those wanting to reject the value of

11 As Joseph Raz puts it: “The ruling idea behind the ideal of personal autonomy is that people should make their own lives. The autonomous person is a (part) author of his own life. The ideal of personal autonomy is the vision of people controlling, to some degree, their own destiny, fashioning it through successive decisions throughout their lives.” (Raz 1986, 369.) On a more recent formulation: “Autonomy is an ideal of people deciding for themselves what is a valuable life, and living their lives in accordance with that decision.” (Colburn 2010, 19.) For alternative conceptions, including hierarchy of motives –theories, see Frankfurt 1971;

Dworkin, G. 1988; for relational conceptions of autonomy, see:

MacKenzie and Stoljar 2000.

12 For different views on what this “decision” may involve, ranging from well-informed, critical self-reflection to hypothetical affirmation, see e.g.

Meyers 1989; Friedman 1986; 2003, ch.1; Dworkin, G. 1988; Christman 1987; 1991.

13 One such rejection, that of Chandran Kukathas’s, will be discussed in more detail in Ch. 2.

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individual autonomy and wanting to conform to other ideals than the ideal of autonomous life.

In the face of this controversy, a few remarks on the role of individual autonomy in liberal political theory may already be in order.

Firstly, with respect to the critique mentioned above, there is no reason to presume that a person who rejects the value of individual autonomy could not still be considered as living an autonomous life. The leading of an autonomous life does not require the person to value individual autonomy, although it does require the person to decide (in some relevant sense of the term) what is valuable, and to be able to live her life accordingly. Secondly, there is no reason to think why a life of, say, total submission could not still be a life lead from within, as long as the decision (again, in some relevant sense of the term) to value submission and to adhere to a life of submission, is the person’s own.¹⁴ These two considerations do not, of course, say anything yet about those cases in which people have not decided (in some relevant sense of the term) to adhere to a life of submission as a decision of their own, but they do point towards the idea that the above mentioned critique may only work against some, more substantive conceptions of autonomy.

Moreover – and most importantly – the disagreements on individual autonomy within liberal political theory may not be so much disagreements on the status of individual autonomy as a liberal value, but disagreements on the role that the liberal state should take with respect to individual autonomy. Although it certainly remains contested whether the liberal state should be in the business of promoting individual autonomy, in this work (esp.

Ch. 2), I show that even those suspicious of the role of the liberal state in promoting individual autonomy may need to subscribe to a view that certain minimal conditions for individual autonomy must

14 The proponents of some more substantive conceptions of autonomy may reject this, arguing that, in order to be autonomous, the agent’s decisions need also be of the right kind. On substantive theories and debate on content neutrality, see Benson 1994.

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be protected, although they do not necessarily need to subscribe to a view where the aim of the state policies should be the promotion of individual autonomy and autonomous life.

Equality

Apart from the questions of individual freedom and autonomy, within recent decades, much of liberal political theory has concentrated on the issues of social justice, and the just organisation of liberal institutions.¹⁵ For many contemporary liberals, social justice – and the incorporated notion of equality¹⁶ – operates at the very centre of liberal political theory. In its most minimal interpretation, liberal equality entails equal moral standing of, and concern for, each individual, although, to an increasing extent, it has also come to be seen as incorporating the ideal of equal distribution of resources or basic goods in society.¹⁷ It also incorporates the ideal of the liberal state treating all of its members with equal concern and respect, although there is, no doubt, substantive disagreement on what this equal concern and respect amounts to, and to whom it should be extended.¹⁸

15 John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) may be described as one of the turning points of political philosophy, and it is also a work in relation to which much of contemporary analytical work on issues of social justice is conducted.

16 For debate on the relation between justice and equality, see e.g. Cohen 2008; Arneson 2008.

17 It should be noted that, for example, Rawls’s theory may not be viewed as strictly egalitarian, as his famous difference principle aims rather at justifying inequalities than providing for an equal distribution of social and economic goods. Nevertheless, taking Rawls’s first principle as well as the second part of his second principle (fair equality of opportunity), and taking the strong presumption in favour of equality present in the difference principle, it is clear that, for Rawls, equality operates as one of the fundamental liberal values and is also incorporated in his two principles of justice.

18 Most notably, approaches, broadly labelled under the term “politics of recognition”, question the traditional liberal approaches of granting individuals certain basic rights as being sufficient for treating them with

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Liberal egalitarians do, of course, differ on a variety of issues, including the currency (equality of what?), scope (equality among whom?) and the justificatory basis for equality (equality, why?).

They do, also, differ on their views on the kinds of equality relevant for an egalitarian theory of justice, as well as on the institutional frameworks required for the pursuing of equality.¹⁹ Whereas the views of liberal political theorists do vary, to a substantive degree, on a variety of issues relating to equality, they do, nevertheless, share a commitment to at least some (minimal) notion of equality.

For any liberal political theory, including liberal multiculturalism, the fundamental commitment to the equal moral worth of individuals is untradeable, and the requirement for the liberal state to treat (at least) all its members with equal concern seems non-negotiable. What it means for the liberal state to treat all its members with equal concern, and what the role of the liberal state should be in a liberal society are, however, highly contested issues, of which I will say more in the following subsection (1.3.).

Conflicts of values

Whereas I believe that any liberal political theory, including liberal multiculturalism, must be committed to the basic liberal values of individual liberty, autonomy and equality, there may, nevertheless, be substantive disagreements on how these values are interpreted, and how these interpretations bear upon the wider normative questions about the organisation of liberal institutions or liberal society. The disagreements among liberal political theorists are not only restricted to disagreements about the specific interpretations or

equal respect and concern. (e.g. Taylor 1994; Young 1990; 2000; Fraser and Honneth 2003) Many theorists of global justice, on the other hand, have questioned the traditional presumptions of the scope of the liberal principles of justice, claiming that the egalitarian principles of justice (variously construed) should also apply across the globe and not merely within some predetermined societies (normally, nation states). (e.g. Pogge 1989; 2002; Beitz 1979; 2005; Moellendorf 2002; Tan 2004; Caney 2005)

19 For an excellent overview on contemporary debates on equality, see:

Holtug and Lippert-Rasmussen 2007.

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applications of any particular liberal value, but include disagreements about the ordering or negotiation of these values.

The basic liberal values of individual freedom, autonomy and equality may, at times, pull in different directions and liberals do, to a substantive degree, differ over their views on how to negotiate these conflicts.²⁰ For example, certain interpretations of individual liberty (say, in the economic sphere) clearly violate certain notions of equality, and the trade-offs between different values, within liberal political theory, are more of a norm than an exception. Nor are these basic values necessarily the only considerations that cause disagreement, but other considerations (for example, social stability or security) may also play an important part – often, as legitimating certain restrictions on individual freedom, autonomy or equality. As will be noted time and again in the course of this work, the world is a very complex place, and those considerations relevant in one set of circumstances may be very different from the considerations relevant in another. When applied to concrete political practice, the basic liberal values, or the resorting to some basic liberal principles, may simply not be enough, as the issues, encountered in the real world, are very different from the issues encountered at the level of political theory. This is not to say that the theoretical discussions – be they on liberalism, multiculturalism or liberal multiculturalism – would not be of any importance in debates on concrete political practices. It is merely to say that political theories (be they liberal or non-liberal) may leave considerable scope for variation in legitimate political practices and that the search for theoretical normative guidance may not produce the kinds of results wanted, as the issues of the real world may not fit neatly to the theoretical frameworks of political theorists.²¹

20 For an on-going debate on the (in)compatibility of equality and liberty, see e.g. Dworkin 2002; Narveson and Sterba 2010; articles in May, Sistare and Schonsheck 1997.

21 These remarks about the difficulties of applying political theories or theoretical principles into concrete political practice are, of course, not new, and it would be foolish to claim that the political theorists (including liberal political theorists) would not be aware of such difficulties

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To make things clear, I do not advocate a view according to which political (liberal or non-liberal) theory could not give any normative guidance to concrete political practice. I do believe that the concrete political responses (be they multicultural policies or other ways of responding to cultural diversity), should take the

To make things clear, I do not advocate a view according to which political (liberal or non-liberal) theory could not give any normative guidance to concrete political practice. I do believe that the concrete political responses (be they multicultural policies or other ways of responding to cultural diversity), should take the

In document Limits of Liberal Multiculturalism (sivua 24-33)