Concept of classic liberalism is a libertarian propaganda created after WW2. Most english liberals in 19th century thought ideas of Locke are incoherent and laughable.
The practical way to see the difference is compare Kipling's (fictionalized) descriptions of his experience helping to manage the Empire, with Orwell's written a generation later.
Why did the British loose faith, or a belief, in their superiority? There must have been something defective in classical liberalism, I would think. I would also think the Normans vs. post-Age of Reason English would be a far better example of a practical before and after. Or even the Puritans in the New World.
To me the argument (the one in the bullets) seems to equivocate or misunderstand the meaning of the word "rational."
What makes a man a rational creature, what makes him rational, is his power to know and love truth, not the activity or fulfillment of that power.
Basically, a criminal does not give up his free will or his ability to know immaterial truth by committing a crime. Even drug addicts who almost entirely lose the ability (to do good or know truth) don't thereby change their essence and become some other kind of thing. "Rational" means "capable of knowing truth and doing good," not "already in possession of truth and doing good."
It's this transcendent power that puts human beings over the states they compose and makes it so that the latter really ought to be means to the end of the former.
To understand the compelling nature of the argument you must take the perspective of someone who is being asked to do something, i.e., you are being asked to respect the rights of someone--namely and especially the rights to life, liberty and property. Now do you respect someone's rights because they are a human being or because they are a good human being. If you respect someone's rights solely because they are a human being, then on what grounds do you disrespect someone's rights when they become manifestly criminal? The liberal, because he respects people's rights "on the grounds that they are humans, not on the grounds that they are good humans," is compelled to say that the criminal drops below the level of a human. Do you follow?
I mean, when the state steps in to prevent people from acting, it's because their actions would interfere with the rights of others. At least that's the general form of various liberal accounts that I've heard.
Have you read the liberal account in Locke's Second Treatise?
If a man violates the rights of other men, what does that man, the violator, become? If he becomes a "bad man," but remains a "man," then the government "violates the rights of a human being" when it punishes him. i.e., the government doesn't respect the rights of "human beings" -- it respects the rights of "good human beings." In which case it acts as if our rights are not the possession of men as men, but of good men.
If, on the other hand, the government punishes the criminal on the grounds that he is a "beast" or a "noxious thing" it can still claim that men as men, not merely good men, have the natural rights.
That does seem to be what Locke is arguing, that those who are not, in practice, liberal, are not even human, have given it up.
Basically: "A person who doesn't believe that all men have rights is not a person!" is indeed a contradictory argument.
Nonetheless I think that one can say that it is the potential rather than the exercise of reason that gives people rights, and it is by treating others (namely the victims) in accordance with those rights that we can punish criminals without thereby de-humanizing them.
It's not that that view doesn't have problems of its own. That eerie supreme court ruling regarding gay marriage or abortion (I forget which) that defines man as defining his own truth seems to throw the issue into sharp relief: liberalism taken too far neglects truth, being, reality, etc.
It's an either-or. Either the government dehumanizes or it doesn't.
If it doesn't, then it thinks that it can justly imprison and even sometimes kill "human beings." If it thinks it can justly imprison and kill "human beings," it does not think "human beings" have a right to not be imprisoned and killed. Only law-abiding, or good, human beings have that right.
If, on the other hand, it does dehumanize, then it can maintain that it is unjust to imprison or kill human beings, but that it only does this to "beasts."
There is no actual wiggle room out of this either-or.
Have you seen Planet of the Apes? There is a scene where the bad guy is about to be killed by the good guy, and pleads "ape no kill ape." That was the good guy's mantra. In reply the good guy says "you are not an ape" and kills him.
Well, I inferred from your post that the book on Liberalism is closed. I am an old and older Liberal (one who believes in freedom) who is new to this post-liberal philosophy and is trying to understand. Maybe you can direct me to some definitions of some of your terms because mine probably differ from yours. Such as freedom, liberal, rights, morality, free will, happiness for starters.
I can't get a handle on who decides what the common good is and how much coercion is acceptable to achieve it. The individual is the one endowed with life. The articulation of liberalism has evolved since Locke and there are discoveries that have been made that contribute to the concept of freedom.
So, you don't have to respond if my comment was confusing. The responsibility is on me to be clear. But this liberal still clings to his principle.
Thank you for your response. A good route to mutual understanding would be through this question: do you believe the common good can be left undecided?
All of the postliberal thinking begins with answering this question negatively, i.e., all postliberal--left and right--have come to the conclusion that there is no "society" without having this question determined.
My suspicion, from your two hesitations, is that you believe no one has the right to decide the common good, and that coercion on behalf of a common good is unjust.
In what way? They were obviously way more representative of Continental Liberalism than someone like Locke whose athropology, social contract theory, natural rights, etc. are really laughable. Before the war almost noone took him seriously.
Well, the British did manage to conquer the largest empire the world had ever seen using more-or-less these principles.
But then they felt awful about it and lost it all it grand style.
That happened after they abandoned classic liberalism in favor of socialism.
I would say that socialism is the exaggeration of bad qualities within genuine liberalism, this being one of them.
Socialism is what happens when one attempts to "over-correct" the difference between (classic) liberalism and feudalism.
Concept of classic liberalism is a libertarian propaganda created after WW2. Most english liberals in 19th century thought ideas of Locke are incoherent and laughable.
Now you have to define the difference between an abstraction called socialism and another abstraction called classic liberalism.
Classic liberalism: people have a right to their own property.
Socialism: people have a right to other people's property.
The practical way to see the difference is compare Kipling's (fictionalized) descriptions of his experience helping to manage the Empire, with Orwell's written a generation later.
Why did the British loose faith, or a belief, in their superiority? There must have been something defective in classical liberalism, I would think. I would also think the Normans vs. post-Age of Reason English would be a far better example of a practical before and after. Or even the Puritans in the New World.
To me the argument (the one in the bullets) seems to equivocate or misunderstand the meaning of the word "rational."
What makes a man a rational creature, what makes him rational, is his power to know and love truth, not the activity or fulfillment of that power.
Basically, a criminal does not give up his free will or his ability to know immaterial truth by committing a crime. Even drug addicts who almost entirely lose the ability (to do good or know truth) don't thereby change their essence and become some other kind of thing. "Rational" means "capable of knowing truth and doing good," not "already in possession of truth and doing good."
It's this transcendent power that puts human beings over the states they compose and makes it so that the latter really ought to be means to the end of the former.
To understand the compelling nature of the argument you must take the perspective of someone who is being asked to do something, i.e., you are being asked to respect the rights of someone--namely and especially the rights to life, liberty and property. Now do you respect someone's rights because they are a human being or because they are a good human being. If you respect someone's rights solely because they are a human being, then on what grounds do you disrespect someone's rights when they become manifestly criminal? The liberal, because he respects people's rights "on the grounds that they are humans, not on the grounds that they are good humans," is compelled to say that the criminal drops below the level of a human. Do you follow?
I mean, when the state steps in to prevent people from acting, it's because their actions would interfere with the rights of others. At least that's the general form of various liberal accounts that I've heard.
Have you read the liberal account in Locke's Second Treatise?
If a man violates the rights of other men, what does that man, the violator, become? If he becomes a "bad man," but remains a "man," then the government "violates the rights of a human being" when it punishes him. i.e., the government doesn't respect the rights of "human beings" -- it respects the rights of "good human beings." In which case it acts as if our rights are not the possession of men as men, but of good men.
If, on the other hand, the government punishes the criminal on the grounds that he is a "beast" or a "noxious thing" it can still claim that men as men, not merely good men, have the natural rights.
Yes?
That does seem to be what Locke is arguing, that those who are not, in practice, liberal, are not even human, have given it up.
Basically: "A person who doesn't believe that all men have rights is not a person!" is indeed a contradictory argument.
Nonetheless I think that one can say that it is the potential rather than the exercise of reason that gives people rights, and it is by treating others (namely the victims) in accordance with those rights that we can punish criminals without thereby de-humanizing them.
It's not that that view doesn't have problems of its own. That eerie supreme court ruling regarding gay marriage or abortion (I forget which) that defines man as defining his own truth seems to throw the issue into sharp relief: liberalism taken too far neglects truth, being, reality, etc.
It's an either-or. Either the government dehumanizes or it doesn't.
If it doesn't, then it thinks that it can justly imprison and even sometimes kill "human beings." If it thinks it can justly imprison and kill "human beings," it does not think "human beings" have a right to not be imprisoned and killed. Only law-abiding, or good, human beings have that right.
If, on the other hand, it does dehumanize, then it can maintain that it is unjust to imprison or kill human beings, but that it only does this to "beasts."
There is no actual wiggle room out of this either-or.
Have you seen Planet of the Apes? There is a scene where the bad guy is about to be killed by the good guy, and pleads "ape no kill ape." That was the good guy's mantra. In reply the good guy says "you are not an ape" and kills him.
Unconvincing. For starters, property is acquired morally. plunder is acquired immorally. Man has no right in other men.
What do you think my response to your comment should be?
Well, I inferred from your post that the book on Liberalism is closed. I am an old and older Liberal (one who believes in freedom) who is new to this post-liberal philosophy and is trying to understand. Maybe you can direct me to some definitions of some of your terms because mine probably differ from yours. Such as freedom, liberal, rights, morality, free will, happiness for starters.
I can't get a handle on who decides what the common good is and how much coercion is acceptable to achieve it. The individual is the one endowed with life. The articulation of liberalism has evolved since Locke and there are discoveries that have been made that contribute to the concept of freedom.
So, you don't have to respond if my comment was confusing. The responsibility is on me to be clear. But this liberal still clings to his principle.
Thank you for your response. A good route to mutual understanding would be through this question: do you believe the common good can be left undecided?
All of the postliberal thinking begins with answering this question negatively, i.e., all postliberal--left and right--have come to the conclusion that there is no "society" without having this question determined.
My suspicion, from your two hesitations, is that you believe no one has the right to decide the common good, and that coercion on behalf of a common good is unjust.
How would you critique liberalism of someone like Hegel or Durkheim? These people are far more representative of liberalism than Locke or Hobbes.
I would say "Hegel and Durkheim are laughable, no one a century later took them seriously." Does that satisfy?
In what way? They were obviously way more representative of Continental Liberalism than someone like Locke whose athropology, social contract theory, natural rights, etc. are really laughable. Before the war almost noone took him seriously.
haha