No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Revisionist Challenge: Can the liberal do without “liberty”?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2015
Extract
It seems a truism that,
(1) the liberal believes in liberty.
But, even ignoring the vagueness of “believes in”, this tells us even less about liberalism than,
(2) the Catholic believes in God,
tells us about Catholicism. Neither statement distinguishes one creed from its rivals. Socialists, conservatives, anarchists and Buddhists can all believe in liberty (sometimes, but not always, different concepts of liberty); just as Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Hindus all believe in God (sometimes, but not always, different gods). (2), though, has at least the virtue of conveying one definite, fundamental and necessary belief of the Catholic: that there exists a supreme being. It is agreed, even by sympathizers, that (1) gives the liberal no such thing. “By definition, a liberal is a man who believes in liberty,” says Professor Cranston, “but because different men at different times have meant different things by liberty, ‘liberalism’ is correspondingly ambiguous.” If Liberty be its god, it should come as no surprise that liberalism is a schismatic church.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1990
References
Earlier versions of this paper were read at the London School of Economics, Trent University and the University of Toronto, and I have benefitted from these discussions. I would like especially to thank Brian Barry, Joseph Raz, Vinit Haksav, David-Hillel Ruben, Will Kymlicka, Arthur Ripstein, Danny Goldstick and Hilliard Aronovitch, whose criticisms have forced me to rethink and rework several key arguments and interpretations.
1. Cranston, M. “Liberalism”, Edwards, P., ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1967), 458.Google Scholar
2. SeeWaldron, J. “Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism” (1987), 37 The Philosophical Quarterly 127, at 130f;Google Scholar Raz, J. The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 16ff;Google Scholar Connolly, W.E. The Terms of Political Discourse, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983), ch. 1 and 4;Google Scholar Miller, D., “Constraints on Freedom” (1983), 94 Ethics 66;Google Scholar Miller, D. “Linguistic Philosophy and Political Theory, Miller, D. and Siedentop, L., eds., The Nature of Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).Google Scholar Cp. Oppenheim, F. Political Concepts: A Reconstruction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), ch. 4;Google Scholar Parent, W.A. “Some Recent Works on the Concept of Liberty” (1974), 11 American Philosophical Quarterly 149. Google Scholar For what I think is a novel explanation of the mistake of the first strategy see the final paragraph ofNorman, W.J. “Taking ‘Freedom’Too Seriously” (1990), forthcoming.Google Scholar
3. Raz, supra note 2. Unmarked page references in this and the following section will be to this book. The present paper involves in part an examination of Raz’s critique of his rivals. I have dealt separately with his own positive theory in Norman, W.J. “The Autonomy-based Liberalism of Joseph Raz” (1989), 2 The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Raz, 2.
5. Raz’s own grounds or rejecting the first strategy are discussed briefly toward the end of section 3, below. There has been a revival of this third strategy in recent years. Other works include: Young, R. Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty (London: Croom Helm, 1986);Google Scholar Haworth, L. Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (New Haven: Yale, 1986);Google Scholar Lindley, R. Autonomy (London: Macmillan, 1986);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Benn, S.I. A Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Raz, 7.
7. Ibid., 6.
8. Ibid.
9. In Dworkin, R. Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977).Google Scholar
10. In Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).Google Scholar
11. Raz 6.
12. See Dworkin, supra note 9 at 266-74 and “Liberalism”, Hampshire, S. ed., Public and Private Morality (Cambridge: University Press, 1978), 124f.Google Scholar Note that Raz himself also denies (i) and accepts Dworkin’s argument for it. (Cf. Raz, supra note 2 at 247). As an autonomy or freedom-based Ideologist, however, he wholeheartedly endorses a version of (ii).
13. Rawls, J. “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical” (1985), 14 Philosophy and Public Affairs 223.Google Scholar
14. Rawls, J. “JKantian Constructivism in Moral Theory”, Dewey Lectures (1980), 77 Journal of Philosophy 515, at 548.Google Scholar
15. SeeDworkin, “Liberalism”, in Hampshire, supra note 12. Rawls demurs at this interpretation of liberal theory in “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good” (1988), 17 Philosophy and Public Affairs 251, at 262.Google Scholar For Dworkin, Ackerman and Larmore it is so central to liberalism that they might be inclined to replace statement (1) with “The liberal believes in neutrality”. This is surely part of the provocation of Raz’s charge of revisionism. Such a charge is justified insofar as classicalliberals such as J.S. Mill, Green or Hobhouse never were nor claimed to be neutral with respect to the good.
16. Raz 6.
17. Ibid.
18. Popper, K. “The Open Society and its Enemies Revisited” (April 23, 1988), 307 The Economist 19 at 25. Note that Popper seems to be opting for the second strategy outlined in section 1 while rejecting outright the validity of the first.Google Scholar
19. Sidgwick, H. The Methods of Ethics, 5th edn. (London: Macmillan, 1983), Book III. ch. V, sect. 5. sect. 4 for the arguments.Google Scholar
20. Raz 19.
21. Ibid. 395.
22. Ibid., 6, quoted above.
23. Rawls, supra note 10 at 60.
24. Ibid. 250.
25. Rawls, J. “The Basic Liberties and their Priority”, McMurrin, S. ed., The Tanner Lectures in Human Values III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 5.Google Scholar
26. This term is especially appropriate for Raz’s theory since the concept of liberty at its heart is, as puts it, defined by the concept of autonomy. See The Morality of Freedom, 17,246,265,390. Others who have recently attempted to explicate the liberal’s love of liberty with a concept of autonomy include Crocker, Benn, Lindley, Young, Haworth, and Christman. In this paper I follow them in classifying some concepts of autonomy as a subclass of concepts of freedom. In effect, there are some concepts and ideals which can be marked by either ‘freedom’ or ‘autonomy’. Autonomarians may adopt either the first or third strategies, outlined in section 1.
27. In sections 6 and 7 of Norman, supra note 3 at 151,1 argue that complex concepts of the free or autonomous person, such as Raz’s, do not seem to have a justificatory role, although their simpler constituents might. In section 3 of Norman, supra note 2,1 argue against such a role for concepts of free action. Both papers elaborate on the truth conditions for such claims.
28. This simple fact has not generally been appreciated by moral and political philosophers. Our field exhibits very little of the technical advancement found in discussions of the nature of explanation in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Indeed, let me boldly assert here that it should be considered inexcusable for a moral philosopher to write on justification without examining the literature on explanation and struggling with its complex range of disputes and distinctions. (A most efficient way to begin such an investigation is with Ruben, D.H. Explaining Explanation (London: Routledge, 1990).)CrossRefGoogle Scholar This will not be necessary here, however, since we shall remain neutral between autonomarian and revisionist justifications.
29. There is a central dispute in the theory of explanation about whether or not all explanations are arguments. For the sake of exposition alone I shall assume here, following the Hempelian orthodoxy, that they are. If they are not, everything I shall say here can be adjusted to the contrary position.
30. See Norman, supra note 3, sect. 6.2 for an illustration of a moral example.
31. Dworkin, supra note 9 at 266-78).
32. Ibid., 272f, quoted below.
33. Ibid., 273f, my emphasis.
34. Cf. Dworkin, R. “What is Equality?” (Parts I and II) (1981), 10 Philosophy and Public Affairs 185, 283.Google Scholar
35. For a helpful survey of the recent literature on autonomy see Christman, J. “Constructing the Inner Citadel: Recent Work on the Concept of Autonomy” (1988), 99 Ethics 109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a summary of Raz’s theory of freedom and autonomy see section 2 of W. J. Norman, supra note 3. According to Raz being free or autonomous is a complex property composed of simpler capacity or relational properties, including: (a) certain mental capacities, for example, an ability to choose rationally (Raz, 372f); (b) certain ‘moral’ capacities, such as the ability to evaluate goals, to develop relationships and commitment - in short, to form a conception of the good (Raz, 154); (c) certain physical abilities necessary to be able to act on one’s decisions (Raz, 408). For another, perhaps richer, covert conception of autonomy in Dworkin’s writings see what he describes as a “plausible theory of philosophical psychology” in Dworkin, supra note 34 at 204f.
36. Dworkin, supra note 10 at 270.
37. Dworkin, “Liberalism”, in Hampshire, supra note 12 at 124.
38. Even in the late 1970’s Dworkin might have considered the analyses of concepts of the free or autonomous person in Berlin, I. Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: WOxford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar and Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969);Google Scholar Benn, S.I. and Weinstein, W.L. “Being Free to Act and Being a Free Man” (1971), inGoogle Scholar Flathman, R.E. ed., Concepts in Social and Political Thought (London: Collier Macmillan, 1973);Google Scholar Benn, S.I. “Freedom, Autonomy and the Concept of a Person” (1976), 76 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 109;Google Scholar Feinberg, J. “The Idea of a Free Man” (1973), in his Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980);Google Scholar or the first edition of Connolly, W.E. The Terms of Political Discourse, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983).Google Scholar More recently, as I have mentioned, there has been an explosion of autonomarian works based on concepts of the free or autonomous person. Admittedly, much of the literature facing Dworkin then concerned concepts of free action. I too have argued (in Norman, supra note 2) that these are virtually useless for normative political philosophy.
39. Dworkin, supra note 9 at 270.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.; see also Dworkin, “Liberalism”, in Hamphsire, supra note 12 at 124.
42. Berlin, I. Four Essays on Liberty, supra note 38 at 130n;Google Scholar Crocker, L. Positive Liberty (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), ch. IV;CrossRefGoogle Scholar J. Raz, supra note 2 at 204,372ff; Taylor, C. “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty?”, Ryan, A. ed., The Idea of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 182ff;Google Scholar Benn, S.I. and Weinstein, W.L. supra note 38; “How Free: Computing Personal Liberty”, Griffiths, A. ed., Of Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982);Google Scholar W. E. Connolly, supra note 38 at ch. 4; J. Feinberg, supra note 38 at 9ff; Gray, J. “On Negative and Positive Liberty” (1980), 28 Political Studies 507;Google ScholarR. Young, supra note 5.
43. See, e.g., Sumner, L.W. The Moral Foundations of Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).Google Scholar
44. Raz, 6.
45. Dworkin, “Liberalism”, in Hampshire, supra note 12 at 124.
46. This is certainly confirmed in a very recent article where Dworkin begins by clarifying that “I mean by liberty what is sometimes called negative liberty — freedom from legal constraint — not freedom or power more generally.” (From What is Equality? Part 3: The Place of Liberty” (1987),73 Iowa Law Review 1.)
47. I discuss at some length the distinction and relations between ‘free action’ and ‘free person’ in section 4 of Norman, supra note 2. See also Benn and Weinstein,s«pra note 38; Crocker, L. Positive Liberty (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), ch. II-IV; and Feinberg, supra note 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, supra note 38 at 130n.
49. Dworkin, supra note 9 at 267.
50. In his essay “Liberalism” Dworkin explicitly directs the argument against American conservatives — a movement which certainly has contained libertarian apologists vulnerable to Dworkin’s attack. Nevertheless, his use of the same argument in “What Rights Do We Have?” does suggest rather strongly that he thinks it to be sufficient for scuttling any liberty-based justification (since clearing away liberty-and utility-based rivals is part of an argument strategy in support of his egalitarian grounding of liberalism).
51. Raz, 9-16.
52. Ibid., 17.
53. See Norman, supra note 3, sect. 3-6.
54. See R. Dworkin, supra note 9 at 178-83, where Dworkin interprets Rawls’s “deep theory” as based not on consideration of liberty but on “the assumption of a natural right of all men and women to equality of concern and respect…”. Rawls himself explicitly rejects aspects of this interpretation in “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical” supra note 13 at 236.
55. J. Rawls, supra note 13 at 224n.
56. J. Rawls, supra note 25 at 525, my emphasis.
57. To his credit Haksar, (Equality, Liberty and Perfectionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 166) highlighted Rawls’s reliance on this implicit concept of autonomy in its much less prominent role in A Theory of Justice. 1 need hardly remark on the striking resemblance between Rawls’s second moral power and the implicit concept of autonomy attributed to Dworkin last section.Google Scholar
58. SeeBarry, B.M. Theories of Justice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989),Google Scholarch. 9, where it is claimed that Rawls’s conclusions now amount to a virtual recapitulation of his premises. Rawls is an autonomarian to the extent that this is true; for the concept of autonomy is prominent in the premises, and the principles of justice are the conclusions.
59. Rawls, supra note 14 at 516.
60. Rawls, supra note 25 at 21.
61. Ibid., 7.
62. The parallel with Dworkin’s normative use of a descriptive statement of autonomy is plain to see.
63. Such an argument would play on the fact that: (i) the Rawlsian state favours and promotes autonomous people and autonomous forms of life or conceptions of good; and (ii) some valuable forms of life do not require or are even vitiated by autonomous capacities. Thus (iii) these valuable non-autonomous forms of life are biased against. The bias seems perfectionist insofar as it relies on a commitment, albeit implicit, to the value of autonomy. Rawls has addressed these concerns, somewhat clumsily, in “Fairness to Goodness” (1975), 84 Philosophical Review 536, and more carefully, with an apology for his earlier attempts, in “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good” supra note 15.1 am indebted to Haksar’s book for first suggesting to me the autonomarian reading of Rawls. See V. Haksar, supra note 57 at 178, 183, 199f, for a helpful discussion of the point in (ii), above.
64. See Dworkin’s discussion of the abstract egalitarian plateau in “In Defence of Equality” (1983), Social Philosophy and Policy 1 124.Google Scholar
65. To superimpose some of the familiar faces of this ideal: the value of not being coerced or restricted, of facing an adequate range of worthwhile opportunities, and of having the capacities for rational deliberation, choosing, valuing and foregoing commitments. See, e.g., Raz’s complex concept of freedom summarized in Norman, supra note 3 at 152.
66. This is the corner-stone of Raz’s “morality of freedom”. See also Young, supra note 5, and Dworkin, G. “Is More Choice Better than Less?” (1982), 7 Midwest Studies in Philosophy.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
67. Kymlicka, W. “Liberalism and Communitarianism” (1988), 18 Canadian Journal of Philosophy 181,at 182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
68. Ibid., 183f.
69. J. Waldron,supra note 2 at 131. Waldron is talking here about the illegitimacy of two autonomarian or libertarian moves from the “abstract autonomarian plateau” to the summit. He goes on to endorse something like the existence of the plateau. Note that Waldron is here undermining both the first and third strategies outlined in section 1, above.
70. In Rawls’s recent work we find as many as four or five concepts peculiar to his sort of theory which are marked by names like ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’. See especially his Dewey Lectures of 1980.
71. This argument for downgrading the importance of the autonomarian-revisionist dispute is intended for anyone who feels the problem with Rawls and company to be their disregard for the justificatory role of ‘freedom’. It is only half critical of Raz since, to use an expression he has employed against opponents, he is “better than his word”. His word says, as we saw, that the attempt to defeat the revisionist challenge is the focus of attention in his book. And he believes he accomplishes this goal by justifying his own autonomarian theory. He is better than his word, however, in that he does devote several chapters to the critique of the deontological challenge. See his critique of anti-perfectionism and neutrality, in The Morality of Freedom, chapters 5 and 6 (some of which is explicitly endorsed by Rawls in “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good”, p. 262), and his attempted refutations of right-based and egalitarian moralities in chapters 8 and 9.
72. Raz, 9. See the brief discussion of the “teleologist’s fallacy”, in Norman, supra note 3 at 157.