Classical liberalism #1: What is classical liberalism?
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The moral and political philosophy known as classical liberalism is built around a number of core concepts, including, perhaps most importantly, human dignity and individual liberty.
Emily Chamlee-Wright, president of the Institute for Humane Studies, introduces these two principles as forces that shape the liberal notion of justice. This applies to both individuals' treatment of others, as well as the government's treatment of individuals.
This just conduct contributes to the liberal ideal: the good society. By emphasizing the individual, liberalism encourages collaboration and cooperation while also offering the freedom to make choices and learn from failure.
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Emily Chamlee-Wright
Dr. Emily Chamlee-Wright is the president and CEO of the Institute for Humane Studies, which supports and partners with scholars working within the classical liberal tradition. She was previously Provost and Dean at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Prior to joining Washington College, she was Elbert Neese Professor of Economics and Associate Dean at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin.
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TRANSCRIPT:
EMILY CHAMLEE-WRIGHT: Liberalism in the classical sense of the word is a moral and political philosophy. And it's built around a core set of ideas, probably the most important of which is the recognition that all human beings possess, inherently possess, dignity and should be respected. And respecting human beings means giving them some space, giving them freedom to pursue their individual plans and purposes and projects. And that then leads to the next important core concept, which is individual liberty. And when you bring those two ideas together - human dignity and individual liberty - that informs the liberal notion of justice, which is that each of us has a duty to respect the individual rights of other people. And that is included whether or not we are individuals ourselves or thinking about individuals as having that duty to respect our fellow human beings who are walking the planet, but also governments, that governments within the liberal tradition also have to respect every individual.
And you're starting to see how these ideas start to combine and intersect with one another and they inform in turn the liberal concept of equality. That in a liberal society, human beings, all human beings, have equal standing within society and also before the law. And so these ideas interlock with one another into a coherent system of ideas. Now these ideas have long taproots that reach back to ancient philosophical traditions. But ideas within the classical liberal tradition really start to begin to flower in the late seventeenth and then throughout the eighteenth century. So by the end of the eighteenth century you have scholars who are self-aware that they are writing within the liberal tradition. So Adam Smith, for example, writes about the liberal plan, which is kind of a recipe. If you have liberty, justice and equality you have the foundation of a functional society.
And we also see, of course, in the late eighteenth century the launch of the American experiment. And when you look at those founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, they are wrapped up within this liberal tradition. Now obviously the rights that were guaranteed within these documents were not consistently applied. We still had a lot of illiberalism yet to shed. But they lay the foundation for an emergent system of liberalism within the American context that could become more full fledged into a coherent system of ideas and political rules of the game and really a set of liberal values as well.
The liberal ideal is the good society, a tolerant and a pluralistic society. The liberal society is one in which economic and intellectual progress are the norm because of a kind of radical commitment to openness. And the liberal society, the good society, is also one in which individuals and communities flourish because of that openness but also because of a commitment to peaceful and voluntary engagement and mutual respect. And I'm emphasizing these social virtues because that's probably the biggest misperception about what liberalism is all about. That by emphasizing the individual, people often think that well, there's no room left to think about community or society seriously. I think that view is mistaken. That it's actually exactly the opposite. That because liberalism focuses on the individual it's actually...
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26 сен 2024
