Mirror of Justice

A brief comment on Rick's post--in particular, on the question of political labels.  In my judgment, the heart of the problem--and it is a serious problem--with the labels "liberal" and "liberalism" is that they mean such different things to different people.  And they mean such different things in different contexts; moreover, to be a "liberal" in one context--that is, with respect to one issue or set of issues (e.g., the proper role of government vis a vis the economy)--does not entail that one is a "liberal" in a different context (e.g., the proper role of government vis a vis the regulation of abortion).  The pope's encyclical illustrates the last point quite powerfully, yes?

And yet, there *is* an important sense in which we MOJ-bloggers are all liberals--and proudly so:  It is not "democracy" full-stop that we affirm, but "liberal democracy":  a democracy committed, first, to the proposition that each and every human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable and, second, to certain human rights against government--that is, against law-makers and other government officials--such as the right to right freedom of religion.  (A democracy is committed to the proposition that every human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable if in the political culture of the democracy, the proposition is axiomatic.  And a democracy is committed to a human right against government if in the legal system of the democracy, the right is recognized and protected as a fundamental legal right.)  Philosopher Thomas Nagel has written that "[t]he term 'liberalism' applies to a wide range of political positions . . .  But all liberal theories have this in common:  they hold that the sovereign power of the state over the individual is bounded by a requirement that individuals remain inviolable in certain respects . . .  The state . . . is subject to moral constraints that limit the subordination of the individual to the collective will and the collective interest."  Thomas Nagel, "Progressive but Not Liberal," New York Rev. of Books, May 25, 2006.  Similarly, philosopher Charles Larmore has argued that "our commitment to [liberal] democracy . . . cannot be understood except by appeal to a higher moral authority, which is the obligation to respect one another as persons."  Charles Larmore, "The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism," 96 J. Philosophy 599, 624-25 (1999).   Cf. Samuel Brittan, "Making Common Cause:  How Liberals Differ, and What They Ought To Agree On," Times Lit. Supp., Sept. 20, 1996: "[P]erhaps the litmus test of whether the reader is in any sense a liberal or not is Gladstone's foreign-policy speeches.  In [one such speech,] taken from the late 1870s, around the time of the Midlothian campaign, [Gladstone] reminded his listeners that 'the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of almighty God as can be your own . . . that the law of mutual love is not limited by the shores of this island, is not limited by the boundaries of Christian civilization; that it passes over the whole surface of the earth, and embraces the meanest along with the greatest in its unmeasured scope.'  By all means smile at the oratory.  But anyone who sneers at the underlying message is not a liberal in any sense of that word worth preserving."

I don't want to concede the term "liberal"--as in "liberal democracy"--to the citizens of the cacophonous City of Babel!  But, of course, where and when it is useful to employ the term, we should employ it in a way that clarifies rather than obscures discussion.  This I try to do in my new book, due out later this year:  The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press).