Toward a Liberalism by Richard Flathman

Towarda Liberalism is a philosophy book and I can only guess it was free at some point, as otherwise I don’t know why I would have bought it?

The blurb says:

In Toward a Liberalism, Richard Flathman shows why and how political theory can contribute to the quality of moral and political practice without violating, as empiricist- and idealist-based theories tend to do, liberal commitments to individuality and plurality. Exploring the tense but inevitable relationship between liberalism and authority, he advances a theory of democratic citizenship tempered by appreciation of the ways in which citizenship is implicated with and augments authority. Flathman examines the relationship of individual rights to freedom on one hand and to authority and power on the other, rejecting the quest for a single homogenous and authoritative liberal theory.

It’s a collection of essays and I confess that much of it was beyond my understanding, having never studied philosophy before. After finishing the first essay, I decided to persevere and read the other essays too, but many of the technical (philosophical) definitions were unknown to me, so though I understood the individual words, some of the sentences seemed to talk around in circles.

After each essay, I wrote up a brief description, and that has become a bit of an essay in itself.

The first essay is all about Theory and Practice. It centres around Oakeshott’s and Wittgenstein’s view on how philosophical theory and philosophical practice are related – or not. Not knowing beforehand what their views are (tbh, I hadn’t heard of them before) I was at a disadvantage, so could only go by the author’s description of their views and therefore his (the author) critique of their validity. I think the final two sentences in this essay to be a good summary:

But if liberalism acknowledges and welcomes the variety and changeable character of moral and political practices, if it recognizes and delights in the restless diversity of moral and political practitioners, these conclusions concerning the limitations and possibilities of theory and theorizing are neither surprising nor disturbing, neither to be resisted nor regretted. More than this the theorist of theory and practice cannot and should not try to say.

The second essay is all about the difference between in authority, an authority and authoritative. I found this essay much more understandable. It was shorter than the first essay, and kept on point. It still requires concentration, but I found myself nodding along as I was reading. My quoted summary of this essay:

Liberals are correct that authority is dangerous. … Nevertheless, by comparison with our other practices, authority abbreviates and truncates the processes of reflection and judgment through which agreement develops among free human beings.

The third essay is about authority and citizenship, and whether you can have one without the other. Authority is always objectionable as it only has a role when we’re unsure about the actions we should take. Some philosophers talk about high and low citizenship, but that doesn’t change the character of authority, rather the attitudes of citizens to that authority.

The fourth essay is about freedom, what freedom means and whether it is good or not. Within this chapter, there’s a section on religious freedom and freedom of religion, which I found much more understandable than other sections – probably because, being a Christian, it is relevant and therefore more interesting to me. It also discusses the link between freedom and perfectionism; and whether freedom is a liberal conception that has a role in political philosophy or not.

The fifth essay is about moderating rights, perhaps because of extremism attached to the rights itself resulting in ultra vires behaviours of those looking to reinforce those rights. Again, I have found this chapter very relatable to me, due to having encountered many Local Authorities who do act ultra vires surrounding Home Education – claiming that home educators must accept visits, and that we must send them samples of our children’s work etc (when in fact, most Elective Home Education Officers who work for the Local Authority have zero qualifications in education, let alone have knowledge of home education or child pedagogy). The essay then goes on to defend civil encroachment and civil non-enforcement. The essay ends:

If I am correct in thinking that extremism in the exercise of at least some rights is prevalent, and increased incidence of announced and defended civil encroachment might benefit the practice of rights in much the manner that civil disobedience has benefited the practice of authority.

The sixth essay looks specifically at the Theory of Rights and the Practice of Abortion. As somebody who used to be very anti-abortion, but now thinks it is correct that abortion is safe and legal – I just wish it was a service that never had to be used (see my previous blog on the topic) – I was interested to see what conclusions the essay would draw. It is quite a long chapter, so though it was interesting, it took a long time to read through. Sometimes I felt Flathman jumped in his reasoning, or made assumptions that I couldn’t quite logically follow (that is not to say they were illogical, just that I an a non-philosophy student could not follow them).

He goes through various arguments against abortion if the foetus is animate, sentient and possessed of reflexive consciousness. Within this latter discussion, Flathman says:

...it follows from these facts about it that the fetus should not be thought of a bearer or possessor of rights. To have a right is to be in a position to choose to exercise that right or not…

He then goes on to say that since a foetus cannot exercise that right, the fetus does not have any rights, and therefore the argument against a right to abortion due to the rights of the fetus is null and void. This is one of the arguments that I didn’t understand, since surely children are not in a position to exercise a particular right or not, but that doesn’t mean we have a right to infanticide; or women in some areas of the world may not know or not be in a position to exercise any rights, but that doesn’t mean that they should be walked over and treated as property. But as I said, it may be that I simply don’t understand the words that he is using, but this seems like a poor argument to me.

Flathman also uses the argument that “Abortions do not destroy human persons. Abortions destroy fetuses.” but does not elaborate as to when exactly the fetus does become a human, implying it is at the moment of birth. In fact he equates a fetus with being simply a sperm or ovum, and if a foetus should not be wasted, then it should similarly be prohibited to use contraceptives, masturbation or any kind of act where they may be destroyed. Yet a sperm on its own, or an egg on its own, will never become a foetus.

In the section entitled “Can a Legal or Moral Right in the Strict Sense to Abortion on Demand Be Justified?” Flathman expands on how such a right for one person impacts on other people – specifically if the second person has a moral/religious/other reasoning why they won’t perform the abortion.

The answer to these questions is a qualified yes.

…

The yes is qualified for the same kinds of reasons that have convinced a number of societies to qualify the obligations imposed on pacifists and other conscientious objectors to do military service in what are believed to be justified wars. … And so far we can [establish both a legal and moral right] without nullifying the right, we should excuse from the correlative obligations those persons for whom abortion remains morally unacceptable.

I will end my analysis of this essay by quoting a few sentences from his conclusion:

The concept of a right is one of the most widely used, and most commonly abused, items in our moral and political lexicon. We have claims to an extraordinary variety of rights and we find rights attributed to an astonishing diversity of creatures and things.
… because that case is very strong, and because its strength derives in no small part from the support it receives from the principle (LP) which provides the optimum bases for defending individual rights, a right to abortion on demand is exactly what women ought to have.

The final essay is entitled “Egalitarian Blood and Skeptical Turnips”. I don’t know if all my brain cells were used up on the previous essay, but I didn’t really get this. It discusses reasonings by Ackerman, and whether they are reasonable or not, but seemed to go round in circles to me. I can tell you that the essay was discussing Morality, Neutrality₁ and Neutrality₂, but in all honesty, I didn’t get my head around what they meant, nor which Neutrality was which. I did highlight some parts of the chapter, that I will quote below, but I can’t really remember why or the relevance of them.

Accordingly, he takes the familiar tack of contending that in reason everyone should or ought to agree to those policies and that those who do agree are justified in imposing the policies on those who fail to see the light.

And also,

Justifying policies by arguing that they contribute to this (or any other) agreed-upon end is a far cry from claiming that they are required because we cannot agree upon ends.

And finally,

If all that Ackerman gave us in support of egalitarian policies of Neutrality₁ was the skeptical foundations of Neutrality₂, he would have given us precisely nothing in support of those policies.

Overall, I am glad I stretched myself and read this collection of essays, even though I freely admit I didn’t understand it all, and that some spoke to me clearer than others. I have a friend who is currently studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics and I do now understand some of what she talks about, even if I can’t necessarily reply using correct philosophical terms.