On Rejecting/Saving Liberalism

In the previous post I acknowledged that I was indulging in caricature. I am averse to self-designation, especially in political terms, so I don’t really see myself as Taking A Stance Against Liberalism. ‘Liberalism’ can mean many things, and though it seems accurate enough to say that my views, and especially my Online Activity under this pseudonym, place me within a post-liberal political orbit, there is too much of the scrupulous analytic philosopher in me to make so bald an assertion as ‘Liberalism is bad’ (or, for that matter, ‘Liberalism is good’). So here are two positions I reject, which anti-liberals might want to identify as liberalism; and two positions I accept, which pro-liberals might want to identify as liberalism as instead.

Bad Liberalism: Two Principles

1. Voluntarism: the position that justice is not a matter of what is substantively good, but what is or would be willed. The details can be haggled over, but this is the basic idea of the social contract tradition in political theory. In moral philosophy, it has a direct equivalent in contractualism, and a close relative in utilitarianism (and most purely, Singer’s preference utilitarianism). And it’s bad. There is a common good for an entirely polity that is not reducible to a complex calculus of consent, as there is for diverse communities within that polity, as well as particular goods for each of the people comprising it. Apart from leaving ourselves open to the tyranny of deformed sinful wills, treating questions of justice in this light is inevitably trivialising and demeaning. Our wills are, however imperfectly, oriented towards the good, and it does not satisfy to seek instead for that which is willed by enough wills which respect enough the wills of others.
2. Anti-Umbilicism (or, discord). This may be viewed as an important case of voluntarism, and the name is an homage to this tweet:

When you think of how man is born tethered with a literal cord of dependency to their parent, you realize Rousseau was literally retarded.— Paul Hundred (@paul_hundred) October 23, 2018

I discuss both of these position in the previous post, but this one particularly in the concluding paragraph. By Umbilicism, I mean the view that the social order into which we are born imposes upon us particular social obligations. Every child is bound to their mother by a moral as much as a physical cord. So too every child born a citizen of the United Kingdom is bound to Her Majesty Elizabeth II. Every child enrolled at St James C of E Primary School is bound to that school, and plausibly also to the parish and even to St James himself. The anti-Umbilicist denies these things, on the basis that no child chose the social position in to which they were born, and particular moral obligation (if it exists at all) can only proceed from freely chosen commitments.

Good Liberalism: Two Principles

1. Constraint. For all my inveighing against containment recently, I do think of it as necessary. Humans are Fallen, sinful creatures, and tend to abuse power. Thus it is prudent to constrain power that tyranny may be prevented. Hence the separation of powers much beloved of Madison and Montesquieu: the more diffuse the power, the more difficult its abuse. So too for due process, rule of law, perhaps even inalienable rights (though these might better be transformed into intrinsic wrongs).
2. Concord. This is a subtler issue than constraint, that of avoiding voluntarism’s opposite extreme: the position that people’s wills are politically irrelevant. Humans, however, are volitional creatures, and it is at least part of a community’s good that the wills of its members are respected. Ceterus paribus, an alien imposition is a lesser good than a common project. Thinking through the implications of concord, some clearly are liberal in flavour: it favours representative institutions and gentle treatment of those who pursue the common good imperfectly. Some implications, however, are pre-liberal in flavour: it equally favours the moral formation of the people as a legitimate political goal.

Note that there is an important tension between Constraint and Concord (now we return to my complaints about containment). Consider Madison’s parallelism: if men were angels… if angels were to govern men. The argument, of course, is that since it is men, rather than angels, who govern men, Constraint is necessary. But the argument assumes that the non-governing portion of mankind need to be constrained, too. A system of rigid constraint upon the people, however, would be the opposite extreme from the Voluntarism considered above, and in relation to which Concord was partially defined. What, then, of a system of rigid constraint upon the prince?

Expecting pure Constraint to secure the right exercise of power is a violation of Concord unto itself. If just rule is an alien imposition upon those in power, then it is a lesser good than it would be if the powerful sincerely sought it for its own sake. Mere Constraint on power is not enough; the powerful should actually be good. Therefore a political system ought to be constructed in such a way that the good are given power and the powerful trained to be good.

Ultimately, Concord can be seen as a master-principle for a post-liberal order. Politics is the common search for the common good. As such, voluntarism has no place within it, and Umbilicism should be joyfully affirmed. Political power – ultimately, violence – is rightfully employed to serve the common good. Therefore Constraint is needed to prevent concentrated power undermining the common good, and government devolving to tyranny. But since the common good is also a common project, violence, against prince or people, ought only to be a last resort. Instead, we need both representative institutions and mechanisms for elevating the virtuous in to power; we need government to aim at instructing people in virtue, and none more so than the people who govern.

This is the second part of a loose series. Part 1 sounds out the idea of a Christian mean between liberal and pagan worldviews; Part 3 indulges in some wild fancies about how to apply these ideas in Britain.