The modern contemporary world of the West is characterized by liberalism.1 Perhaps the most unique aspect of liberal modernity is that it is structured in such a way that it neither provides nor advocates any overriding conception of the human good.2 This has been discussed by many writers, including Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor and Michael Sandel.3 What is good is left to the individual to decide, and this is done through the expression or pursuit of preferences. Within the liberal framework the concepts of goods and preferences are interchangeable, their criterion and validity being tied almost exclusively to the person(s) or subject(s) in question, i.e., the relationship between goods and the individual is internal and not external.4 Thus, there is no agreed-upon conception of “the good”. Indeed, on the modern view there is no such thing, there is only your good and my good, the good of this group and the good of that group–each of which may be understood as incommensurable with certain others.
The rise of liberalism can be connected to at least two historical circumstances in the West. The first is the rise of pluralism, not only the increased rate of movement and interaction between peoples of different cultures and races–which is still increasing to this day–but also and more importantly a pluralism brought about by changes in the worldview and perspectives of individuals and groups living within existing cultures and societies. By the late Middle Ages advances in technology, particularly that of the printing press had exponentially increased the rate of the exchange of information,5 which in turn led to a widening of opinions and perspectives within not only the educated but also lay classes of society.6 This corresponded to increasing rates of literacy, as well as the printings of books in vernacular languages. Both the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, for example, were fueled and lubricated by access to information which was becoming widely available as a result of the revolutions in printing. Such massive changes would have been practically impossible in previous epochs. Over time, this state of affairs inevitably led to a heterogeneity of viewpoints and perspectives, ushering in an unforeseen and unpredictable social pluralism.7 Societal responses to these changes were often violent, as seen, for example, in the European wars of religion.8 Hence, the more homogeneous societies of the past slowly yet increasingly have become more heterogeneous.9
The second historical circumstance, perhaps arising partly from the first, is the desire to replace past traditions–hereditary title, absolute monarchy, state religion, et al.–with a political and economic framework in which assent to rationally justifiable principles enable “those who espouse widely different and incompatible conceptions of the good life for human beings to live together peaceably within the same society, enjoying the same political status and engaging in the same economic relationships. Every individual is to be equally free to propose and live by whatever conception of the good he or she pleases, derived from whatever theory or tradition he or she may adhere to, unless that conception of the good involves reshaping the life of the rest of the community in accordance with it.”10 This was largely accomplished through an emphasis on freedom, the rule of law, and individual rights, and though such ideas predate the Enlightenment, they have become a keystone in the philosophy of liberalism.
Though any serious attempt to publicly embody a theory of the good is ultimately to be proscribed, what is permitted is the expression of preferences, popularly vocalized as the exercise of rights. Indeed, the concept of a right has in many ways superseded the concept of the good. In his book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues that the right is prior to the good.11 Michael Sandel, in criticizing what he calls deontological liberalism, characterizes a right as “a moral category given prior to the good and independent of it.”12 The proposition contained in the statement, “Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others”13 is one commonly advanced by American political pundits, and echoed by politicians across the country. Nevertheless, the concept of exercising a right and that of expressing, or seeking to satisfy, a preference is propositionally one and the same.
Perhaps the clearest example of the expression of preferences can be seen in the workings of the market economy. It is through “the expression of individual preferences that a heterogeneous variety of needs, desires, and goods conceived in one way or another are given a voice. The weight given to an individual preference in the market is a matter of the cost which the individual is able and willing to pay; only so far as the individual has the means to bargain with those who can supply what he or she needs does the individual have an effective voice.”14 The buying and selling of goods and services is thus understood as an exchange in which the preferences of both parties are satisfied. “The preferences of some are accorded weight by others only insofar as the satisfaction of those preferences will lead to the satisfaction of their own preferences.”15
The range of goods embodied and expressed by the preferences of individuals is accompanied by a range of compartmentalized spheres,16 within which the goods embodied by individual preferences are situated. Here we find the compartmentalized spheres of the personal, familial, political, economic, artistic, athletic, scientific, among others–each existing independently of the others, each with its own goods (per individual preferences) internal to it. “The liberal norm is characteristically, therefore, one according to which different kinds of evaluation, each independent of the other, are exercised in these different types of social environment [or spheres]. The heterogeneity is such that no overall ordering of goods is possible. And to be educated into the culture of a liberal social order is, therefore, characteristically to become the kind of person to whom it appears normal that a variety of goods should be pursued, each appropriate to its own sphere, with no overall good supplying any overall unity to life. […] The liberal self then is one that moves from sphere to sphere, compartmentalizing its attitudes.”17 This situation creates an internal tension of the self, since the compartmentalization of preferences is often underlied by incoherence and therefore conflict. For a single individual, a conflict between spheres–between familial and economic (say), or the political and scientific–is resolved by the individual attempting to rank order his or her preferences in some way. This is often done through invoking some overriding good, and attempting to structure his or her preferences on the basis of some external standard. Though this standard is also understood by others (publicly) as a further instance of the preferences of the individual.
Conflicts between individuals, or that of groups,18 cannot be resolved in the way individuals choose to rank order preferences (as in the case above). Within such conflict, individuals and groups must supply “a set of premises from which its proponents argue to conclusions about what ought or ought not to be done, conclusions which are often in conflict with those of other [individuals or] groups. The only rational way in which these disagreements could be resolved would be by means of a philosophical enquiry aimed at deciding which out of the conflicting sets of premises, if any, is true. But a liberal order, as we have already seen, is one in which each standpoint may make its claims but can do no more within the framework of the public order, since no overall theory of the human good is to be regarded as justified.”19 Thus, within the framework of the public order, debate between rival viewpoints is necessarily barren, and takes on a rhetorical form characterized by assertion and counter-assertion. In this way, “[n]onrational persuasion displaces rational argument”,20 and serious discussion between rival standpoints becomes harder and harder. What remains within the public framework of liberalism are the procedures for tallying and weighing the expressions of preferences–“counting votes, responding to consumer choice, surveying public opinion”21–and the resolution of conflicts provided by the formal legal system, both of which have gained a prominence hitherto unknown in society.
In this way, liberalism recasts the concept of good in terms of the preferences of individuals. We see this especially in the transactions of the market, but also in social and political life. The procedures for tallying and weighing are a case in point, as they have largely displaced substantive debate in public. The noble end of liberalism, that of structuring society in such a way so that peoples of different viewpoints may live together and prosper peacefully, has in many ways succeeded. In so doing liberalism must govern by principles of justice which do not presuppose any overarching conception of the human good, so as to not impose any one worldview or way of life on the populace. But liberalism does impose a way of life nonetheless–one where there is no overarching good–and thus has become characterized by endless pluralism and endless superficial debate. The closest liberalism can come to supplying a telos of human good is to invoke concepts like freedom or happiness, reminiscent of the United States Declaration of Independence. Both concepts, however, are insufficient due to their lack of content in modernity. Politically, freedom is a state of affairs, and the liberal order cannot espouse freedom in a spiritual sense, because the spiritual sense of the word implies a specific understanding of the human good. Happiness fairs no better, since happiness has become an empty container, stripped of content and structure, allowing each individual to add whatever their preferences dictate. Liberalism’s good appears to be nothing more and nothing less than the continued maintenance of the liberal order.22
Notes:
1. Liberalism in the sense of that emphasizing freedom and liberty, individual rights, private property, equality before law, and so forth. Liberalism historically dates back to the Enlightenment, and receives perhaps its most concise expression in On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.
2. In this essay I am taking for granted that premodern epochs were largely structured by an idea of the human good. Examples of this will need to be offered and defended in the future.
3. In this essay I will rely heavily upon the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. It is worth noting that Sandel offers a very different critique of Liberalism than MacIntyre or Taylor, and often finds himself at odds with them. Sandel is critical of Liberalism but does so from a modern viewpoint, whereas Taylor and especially MacIntyre largely draw upon premodern ideas and viewpoints. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity; Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self, and A Secular Age; Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.
4. Internal because what is deemed good is determined by the preferences of the individual and not by some external criterion or standard. Again, internal relationships of this kind are characterized by subjectivity.
5. In some ways, this has been taken a step further with the rise of the internet, which has enabled the exchange of information to be near instantaneous.
6. Prior to the invention of the printing press, books were transcribed by hand (usually by monks), thus requiring an enormous amount of work for a single volume. They were also almost exclusively written in Latin, a language unintelligible to almost everyone except the more educated members of society, whether clergy or nobility.
7. The pluralism at this time would be rather inchoate compared to the pluralism existing in Western countries today.
8. Another factor in the Enlightenment push toward liberalism.
9. When I speak of “homogeneous societies of the past” I do not mean that everyone living within such societies agreed about everything, but rather that they, characteristically and for the most part, shared a common worldview.
10. MacIntyre is quick to note that this qualification entails not only that liberal individualism does have its own concept of the good internal to itself, but also in so doing cannot tolerate for long any rival conceptions of the good. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 336.
11. By “right” Rawls is referring to the concept of a human right. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 560.
12. See Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 1.
13. See Ron Paul, Liberty Defined, p. XI.
14. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 336.
15. ibid. p. 336.
16. This notion is similar to that of what I have called spheres of influence. The difference here is that the compartmentalized spheres are those concerned with an individual, his or her life, preferences, etc., where the spheres of influence are concerned with more general, and far ranging social phenomena. This also corresponds to the idea of life being partitioned into stages, childhood, adulthood, old age.
17. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 337.
18. The preferences of groups are likewise understood as the preferences of the individuals comprising such groups–summed in some way or other. And such groups are often at the forefront of conflicts between spheres, as can be seen in identity politics.
19. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 342-343. Emphasis in original.
20. ibid. p. 343.
21. ibid. p. 343.
22. ibid. p. 345.