Liberalism is typically praised or dammed for its ethical
neutrality toward different notions of the good life, but if, as David Solomon argues,
liberals can be convicted of having some view of the human good, it may be
possible to convict them for having the wrong view. [1] There may be grounds for a verdict if we understand the liberal notion of the good as operating at two levels - the social and
philosophical. At the social level liberals should believe that the freedom of
individuals to lawfully pursue their private notions of the good is a common good of all members
of a liberal society. From this shared good other goods can be derived. For
example, prosperity contributes part of the common
good of liberal societies, since prosperity provides the most favourable
conditions for everyone to pursue their personally chosen way of life.[2]
This in turn justifies the promotion of other goods needed to attain prosperity,
such as having a decent work ethic or the courage and creativity needed for entrepreneurial
risk-taking. Liberalism then is not neutral to the good, but rather minimally
committed to those goods and virtues at the intersection of individuals’ common
interests.[3]
Critics argue that this liberal good exists in tension with the very conditions needed for its own survival. They point to how liberalism’s emphasis on individualism can undermine family and community life, which nurture the goods of fidelity, self-restraint and co-operation that underpin the personal independence and tolerance needed for a viable liberal order.[4] Liberals may respond that such morally destructive individualism is not inevitable since we owe duties to other individuals who share the same right to lawfully pursue the good life, but it is doubtful on the liberal view whether such human rights and civic duties have a metaphysical basis outside of the specific historical, cultural and political norms within which they are claimed and upheld.[5] If rights and their corresponding duties are inherently contingent, then they are likely to be too malleable to guide liberalism out of its internal contradictions.
However, while at the social level the liberal good might appear self-defeating, the tension outlined above may in fact be necessary for attaining the liberal good at the philosophical level. Patrick Deneen outlines how historically there have been two philosophical conceptions of the liberal good since the Renaissance. [6] The first conception, in contrast to the pre-modern view, believed in humanity's essential separateness from the natural world and valued our mastery over it, seeking to channel the self-interested passions of human nature into the building of a rational liberal order using the natural sciences and economics. The second more recent conception rejected the idea of a fixed human nature and instead saw in human plasticity the potential for personal transformation. This envisaged the liberation of the self not from base desires as the pre-moderns had conceived of liberty, but from the limitations of human nature, indeed from the very idea that there is such a thing as a human nature. These two iterations of liberalism demarcate the dividing line in contemporary political philosophy between liberal “conservatives” who value humanity’s power over nature and liberal “progressives” who extend that mastery to human nature itself. What is of note here is that if personal transformation is taken as the ultimate good of liberalism, then promoting the self-defeating tension of liberal order at the social level makes sense, since such transformations can only really take place in conditions of disorder and change. So what appears to be failure at one level is the necessary means to success at another.
How then are we to answer David Solomon’s
challenge and judge the merits of liberalism? One approach is to think about the desirability of a future society that fully manifests the liberal values outlined above. One
prospect stands out: the interests of liberal conservatism and liberal progressivism, that of mastery
of nature and of personal transformation, merge together in 'transhumanism', the project to use 'enhancement' technologies to evolve humanity beyond its biological limits. Trends in the fourth industrial revolution hint at
this as a real possibility. It is not hard to see how secular liberalism might take us
there: commercial and national security interests develop enhancement technologies to increase their profits and power; mass media promote ideas that condition people into accepting these technologies; early adopters assert their legal rights to enhance themselves and procreate using genetic technologies; concerns over fairness motivate equality of opportunity legislation that widens access to these technologies; global economic and military competition between states incentivizes their use in societal transformation.
Whatever the likelihood of this scenario, a transhuman future in which human nature is changed beyond recognition is not precluded by liberalism’s philosophical goals, moral principles or patterns of development. But if it were achieved it would be a paradoxical future, since using technology to liberate the self and humanity from the constraints of biology would in effect make us captives to rapid technological change, like passengers on a train the pace and direction of which are beyond our control. There appears, then, to be a choice looming on the horizon between philosophical perspectives which seek to better humanity within the constraints of a given human nature and a liberalism that calls on us to reach for the divine by becoming slaves to technology – like gods in cages. If you have the stomach for the latter path then the liberal good is the one for you.
Critics argue that this liberal good exists in tension with the very conditions needed for its own survival. They point to how liberalism’s emphasis on individualism can undermine family and community life, which nurture the goods of fidelity, self-restraint and co-operation that underpin the personal independence and tolerance needed for a viable liberal order.[4] Liberals may respond that such morally destructive individualism is not inevitable since we owe duties to other individuals who share the same right to lawfully pursue the good life, but it is doubtful on the liberal view whether such human rights and civic duties have a metaphysical basis outside of the specific historical, cultural and political norms within which they are claimed and upheld.[5] If rights and their corresponding duties are inherently contingent, then they are likely to be too malleable to guide liberalism out of its internal contradictions.
However, while at the social level the liberal good might appear self-defeating, the tension outlined above may in fact be necessary for attaining the liberal good at the philosophical level. Patrick Deneen outlines how historically there have been two philosophical conceptions of the liberal good since the Renaissance. [6] The first conception, in contrast to the pre-modern view, believed in humanity's essential separateness from the natural world and valued our mastery over it, seeking to channel the self-interested passions of human nature into the building of a rational liberal order using the natural sciences and economics. The second more recent conception rejected the idea of a fixed human nature and instead saw in human plasticity the potential for personal transformation. This envisaged the liberation of the self not from base desires as the pre-moderns had conceived of liberty, but from the limitations of human nature, indeed from the very idea that there is such a thing as a human nature. These two iterations of liberalism demarcate the dividing line in contemporary political philosophy between liberal “conservatives” who value humanity’s power over nature and liberal “progressives” who extend that mastery to human nature itself. What is of note here is that if personal transformation is taken as the ultimate good of liberalism, then promoting the self-defeating tension of liberal order at the social level makes sense, since such transformations can only really take place in conditions of disorder and change. So what appears to be failure at one level is the necessary means to success at another.
Whatever the likelihood of this scenario, a transhuman future in which human nature is changed beyond recognition is not precluded by liberalism’s philosophical goals, moral principles or patterns of development. But if it were achieved it would be a paradoxical future, since using technology to liberate the self and humanity from the constraints of biology would in effect make us captives to rapid technological change, like passengers on a train the pace and direction of which are beyond our control. There appears, then, to be a choice looming on the horizon between philosophical perspectives which seek to better humanity within the constraints of a given human nature and a liberalism that calls on us to reach for the divine by becoming slaves to technology – like gods in cages. If you have the stomach for the latter path then the liberal good is the one for you.
[1]
Alasdair MacIntyre, Donald P. Kommers, David
Solomon, ‘The Privatization of Good: An Inaugural Lecture’, p.374
[2] Lyle A. Downing and Robert B. Thigpen, ‘Virtue and the Common Good in
Liberal Theory’, The Journal of Politics,
55, (1993), 1046-1059, p.1052
[3] Emily R. Gill, ‘MacIntyre, Rationality, & the
Liberal Tradition’, Polity, 24
(1992), 433-457, p.435
[6] Patrick J.
Deneen, ‘Unsustainable Liberalism’, First
Things, (2012), 25-31, pp.27-28
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