The Value of Liberalism – SANDRA PRALONG

In this paper I shall argue that the ’value’ of liberalism is precisely that it lacks any claim to substantive values, both for the individual and collectively. Thus liberalism’s greatest value is … the absence of values! This leaves the individual free to choose his or her values and to express them in individual and/or collective projects, thus asserting an identity based on them. But how can any order emerge out of the chaos of such conflicting values and projects? Can society be entirely permissive and tolerant of a diversity of value judgments without falling into anarchy?

The liberal paradox, then, is as follows: since individuals differ so much in their conceptions of ’good’ and ’bad’, of. ’dos’ and ’don’ts’, is there any single, binding, ’liberal’ value that all can agree about, an ’ethical code’ common to all liberals that does not preclude individual freedom and value pluralism?

In their introduction to the 1996 Prague Colloquium on Liberalism, Ji?í Musil and Zdenek Suda asked if, in the wake of the totalitarian collapse, ”liberalism is merely a reluctant heir” to a once powerful ideology, or does it still have the potential to assert itself strongly as a political choice, and, if so, how? I will not discuss here liberalism’s status as an ideology, but wish merely to highlight its value, and to translate that value – if one can – into a possible ethical stance, applicable by individuals in their private as well as their public, political lives. This may seem overly pretentious, but my ambition is quite modest: I merely wish to show that, opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, an ’ethics of liberalism’ is possible.

’Freedom for What?’¹

To all the specific definitions of liberalism one can find, I would like to add a more generic thought: liberalism is about relationships. It is about how to handle them, and about which institutions can mediate them (and how). Our relationship to the world around us runs the gamut from metaphysics to politics to interpersonal exchanges. And so does the spirit of liberalism, which can be found in theology and politics, as well as in individual relations. I will leave aside metaphysics and theology – although much can be said about the correspondence between the Reformation and the subsequent development of political liberalism – and I will focus only on the political dimension and the corresponding collective and individual relationships it involves.

In politics, liberalism deals with the relationship between the individual and society, and establishes ways in which this relationship is mediated by the state and its institutions, Since liberalism is keen on preserving the sanctity of the private sphere it addresses individuals only in their public roles – there is no ’liberal ethics’ to speak of, other than the necessity for toleration.

Before I delve into discussing liberalism’s conception of ’relationships’, I would first like to make a more general point about liberty. As it has often been remarked, liberty is the core concept of liberalism, although it is a loaded, elusive one. Let me say bluntly that I do not subscribe to the restrictive reading of Isaiah Berlin’s dichotomy of „negative” and „positive” liberty. The two forms of freedom are not just compatible, but they share an indispensable complementarity. I agree with Berlin that „negative liberty” – that is, libertyfrom something – is indeed the key and the most critical concept (as it is the one most in need of defending when freedom is threatened). But negative liberty in itself is not sufficient, although it is indeed necessary. One does not assert one’s ’space’ for freedom in order to create a vacuum. Thus, negative freedom alone is, well, vacuous!

The space created by negative liberty is essential indeed, but it is important primarily because it makes room for us to assert a will. (The idea of asserting a will, of having a project, applies to individuals as well as to communities, to groups – in short, to ’society’ at large). So, in my opinion, freedom in and by itself (that is, in Berlin’s conception, ’negative freedom’) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for human endeavor. If we merely stop at the boundaries of negative liberty, freedom becomes useless or empty.

To go back to Berlin’s typology of two (different) types of liberty: only when they are considered from separate perspectives are these two forms of freedom indeed dichotomous. Negative liberty is incompatible with positive freedom only when we look at them from two different angles. Your assertion of positive freedom may, under certain circumstances, infringe upon my negative liberty. The two

perspectives, yours and mine, may indeed be potentially incompatible. However, the two are very much related and continuous if we look at them from the consistent perspective of only one vantage point (that is, of one actor): my negative liberty is a precondition for my asserting my positive freedom, my will.

To borrow from Rawls’s preference ordering: the two – negative and positive – freedoms are thus lexicographically ordered. In the binary world we have created for ourselves, a world of ’us’ versus ’them’ (and especially in the world of political science), this point is often lost. We rarely account for events from a ’clinical’ perspective: tracing their continuous evolution; we most often focus on discreet and occasional conflicts among actors.²

But, regardless of our view of the world, the fact remains that ’others’, alterity – or, more generally, the environment in which we exist – is primarily a catalyst to our own evolution, and not merely a hindrance or an opportunity to create conflict. I have no intention of descending into solipsism, or of creating an ’autistic’ argument, so I shall leave it at that. But my point here is to plead for us to abandon, albeit for a moment, the binary paradigm when we consider liberty, and to focus instead on how positive freedom can be an extension of negative liberty when we look at both in a single, continuous perspective.³ Thus the absolute, indispensable corollary to freedom is not, as is widely asserted, ’responsibility’

(although responsibility is essential, of course). In my opinion, the indispensable partner to liberty, the other side of the coin, the necessary twin to freedom, is will

Values and the Self: Deriving

Identity from ‘’Belonging ’, ’Being ’,

‘Becoming’

In politics, as in the rest of life, nature abhors a vacuum: collectively, we either struggle to defend our(negative) freedom from its enemies, or once that is secure, we consume our energies to assert our (positive) will.

`Historically, the West, during the Second World War and the Cold War, was busy with the former (defending freedom), while communism, like Nazism before it, focused on the latter (creating a new man, a new race, or a new society). History has shown that, while the defense of negative liberty could – indeed had to – be a collective endeavor, the assertion of positive freedom (that is, the assertion of will), when undertaken collectively, was the surest way to tyranny and dictatorship. In its mildest form, it is, if nothing else, the „tyranny of the majority” discussed by Tocqueville. It follows that the only way to pursue positive liberty is not collective but individual. Bar those unique and often utopian instances where group cohesion is such that the will of one is the will of all (and where the commonality of values is so perfect that the common good is consensual and irrefutable), more often than not value pluralism precludes collective pursuits because they encroach on individual freedom. In other words, a ’thick’ conception of the common good leaves little room for value pluralism, while a ’thin’ conception (with no, or only a few, common projects), makes possible the individual assertion of positive freedom. As liberalism offers a thin conception of the good and encourages value pluralism, by the same token it also creates the necessary ’space’ (negative liberty) for the individual to assert his or her values and will (positive freedom).

One of the most original insights of liberalism is the idea that individuals are not only autonomous agents but also self-originating sources of value. In other words, individuals have the ability – indeed the right – to make up their own mind about what matters to them. This idea has potency, especially if we consider negative and positive liberty in a continuous rather than a dichotomous perspective. Indeed, it is only if I can (and want) to fill the vacuum protected by my negative liberty – and only if I have a will to assert.– that I can actualize my potential for being a self-originating source of value. This idea, too, has two immediate implications: one is its impact on the way in which we define our identity; the other is the issue of choice and the relationship between individual and collective values.

Let me start with the issue of identity. Ackeel Bilgrami defines identity as that which remains of our values after we have changed our mind. (His actual formulation may have been closer to; „Identity is defined by those values we are still willing to defend even though we may not believe in them any more”.)⁴ Therefore, if identity is given by one’s values, two ideas follow:

1.     Since human beings are self-originating sources of value, the locus of identity – that is, that which generates the values one espouses – is the individual (by definition). This may seem obvious, but in light of so much current debate about group identity and communitarianism, it is not.

2.      Even though there is a sense of the permanence of values in Bilgrami’s definition of identity, it nevertheless also implicitly acknowledges that, over time, values may change. Thus our identity, as defined by the values we strongly believe in, may also evolve with time (albeit slowly in some cases).

Contrary to Bilgrami’s assertion, the idea of values possibly being altered over time – even marginally – makes us want to de6ne identity not according to the strength of the belief, or its duration, but according to the locus of change, which, again, is the individual. To use a tautology, the important element in determining our identity is that it is ours, and given by us! How much control we have over our changing values (which define us), is that which will determine the identity we choose for ourselves. We generally seem to choose those values we have most control over and define ourselves by them.⁵

Thus, regardless of how long we have held our values and beliefs, or whether anyone else shares them or not, we define ourselves by those values we choose as our own. This may seem like what the French call „enfoncer des portes ouvertes” (to break through open doors). But the debate about minority and ethnic rights, ⁶ or about life-style options, makes it seem that the current trend is towards group assertion of identity – towards an identity derived from ’belonging’ – and towards legitimation of values by virtue of their being shared among group members, rather than by virtue of their being what each individual has identified as valuable for him- or herself.

I am neither an anti-communitarian nor an anarchist in disguise. But the problem with an identity derived from allegiance to a group – identity derived from ’belonging’ – is that it requires the individual to delegate part of his or her power of decision over values to other people.⁷ Yet we have accepted that identity, by being an assertion of one’s values, ought, by definition, to be (as much as possible) under one’s control. Thus the idea of ’belonging’, no matter how important in other areas, cannot alone determine one’s identity, just as individual values are not legitimated by their being shared. Moreover, an identity based on anything other than the self and self-generated values, negates the very liberal creed of the individual as an autonomous agent.

If the locus of identity is the self and not the group, it follows that no relationship we enter into will define us in the absence of a self-generated definition of ourselves. It also follows that, since we are going to be changing over time (and our relationships will change too), we need to redefine and re-evaluate those relationships as we redefine and re-evaluate our own identity. Thus, all relationships we enter into are negotiable – some tacitly, others explicitly – and none is static; all are changing, evolving, constantly deepening, or pulling apart. This means that relationships based on a ’thick’ conception of the good (on a substantive set of strong common values and projects) are less likely to facilitate the assertion of individual identity than are those based on thinner conceptions.

So while we have concluded that our identity cannot be derived from our group allegiance, it also appears that it cannot be derived from the current state of our relationships either, for two reasons:

1. In order to allow our identities to blossom, relation- ships have to be based on very thin conceptions of the good (that is, on very little of substance), and this is contrary to the very idea of a relationship, which, when it is not procedural and merely formal, is usually based on shared values.
2. Relationships, like everything else, are also subject to change. More importantly, such change is not entirely under our control as autonomous agents, since it results from the interaction of all parties in relationships with us. Such lack of control negates our agent-status and is therefore not fully compatible with a liberal definition of the self.

Thus, in essence, our identity cannot be derived from ’being’ in a current relationship any more than it can be derived from ’belonging’ (to a group). Both being and belonging are subject to change dictated by factors not entirely in our control. They are not fully the result of a change of our will, but rather they are dictated by changes in circumstances (and we, as agents, have little say over them.) Consequently, we cannot be autonomous agents and self-generating sources of value (according to the liberal definition), if our identities are derived from circumstances outside the realm of our will.

Two ideas then follow:

1. Since our values change, our relationships change with them and so do our identities. What this really means is that as our identities change, our needs change as well and, therefore, so do our life-projects.

2. As our needs change, the life-projects we design in order to fulfill these needs represent our innermost aspirations, Thus life-projects are a shorthand for our ‘becoming’. Since we are self-originating sources of value, it is our aspirations which most accurately translate our values. And even though these aspirations may be influenced by our environment,’ they are not subject to change other than that decided on by us as autonomous agents. Thus life-projects – that is, our ’becoming’ – represent the measure of identity most compatible with the view of the individual as an autonomous self-originating source of value. Given our definition of identity based on values, and given that only those values one has mastery over qualify as ’legitimate’ criteria for determining the identity of an autonomous agent, one can sum-up one’s identity as being defined by one’s life-projects (embodied by one’s aspirations) rather than being reflected by one’s group allegiance or current status. In short, our identity is not deter- mined by our ’belonging’ and not even by our ’being’, but is most visible in our ’becoming’.

Thus others – other people, families, groups, institutions, and so on: that is, our environment at large – are the catalysts, the facilitators, and the ’midwives’ of our becoming, just as we are of theirs. This is not an ’instrumental’ view of the world, in that I do not mean to say that we merely ’use’ others for our own purposes. Quite the contrary: following Kant, by treating other human beings as ends rather than means, we increase the chances that they too will treat us as such, and thus will help contribute to our transformation just as we do to theirs. It is not a utilitarian view in the political- philosophical sense either, in that I do not think that – as creatures – we necessarily always pursue pleasure rather than pain, although pleasure is probably an important by-product of our ’becoming’, of our projects being fu1fil1ed.

To continue with this train of thought for a moment, I do not think that as humans we can be defined by our sentience any more than we can be defined by our rationality. We are never fully rational, as we are never seeking pleasure alone in the face of duty or obligation. I believe, however, that what makes us human is precisely our ability to conceive of projects and pursue them in a variety of ways.⁹ Thus, if I can be allowed a rather elusive formula, I believe that human beings can be defined as ’beings in becoming’. Our becoming can be conscious and explicit, or it can be subconscious and implicit, but the important thing is that we are defined by our projects, our plans. In plain speech, these projects are what ’keep us going’. Without projects, large or small, we are lost, prey to depression, drug abuse, crime, violence – in short, to inhumanity.

In this context, the value of liberalism is precisely the freedom it affords us to become whatever we choose to be – for liberalism leaves individuals free to give meaning to their lives. So, ’beings in becoming’ that we are, we are defined by our projects, which dictate our identity. But how can we be- come whatever we choose without hindering others? What rule of thumb can we follow to make sure that the assertion of our will (our positive freedom) does not encroach on any- one’s private space (their negative liberty), or hinder others’ ability to pursue their own life-projects?

’Liberal Values’:

Substantive or Procedural?

Ji?í Musil, in his introduction to the 1996 Prague Colloquium, discussed the idea of liberalism as a precondition of modern society. But once society has become modern, what then? In Musil’s example, Eastern Europe offers an enlightening illustration: „Under communism, we were all liberals”, says Musil. „But now, we don’t know anymore”, he laments. To go back to the original discussion about liberty, it seems that there are two kinds of freedom, although this dichotomy is different from that of Berlin:

1. One is freedom as an end in itself – the freedom for which, for instance, those who fought communism yearned.
2. (ii) The other is freedom as a means to an end – the freedom most of the world enjoys now (and does not quite know what to do with). Freedom-as-an-end-in-itself is self-contained. But freedom-as-a-means requires (by logical extension) the assertion of will: ’freedom for what’? Thus freedom as ’a means to something’ requires a plan, a project. Back to the perspective of Berlin’s negative and positive liberties: freedom-as-an-end is a close parallel to Berlin’s ’negative liberty’ (freedom from something, freedom for its own sake), while freedom-as-a-means runs hand-in-hand with Berlin’s ’positive freedom’ (freedom to/for something). We noted at the beginning that this idea of the two freedoms as complementary rather than dichotomous should be understood conceptually, as it applies both to individuals and to groups and communities. Let me discuss here the ’value’ of liberalism, going from the individual to the collective conception of freedom, As determined earlier, the value of liberalism derives precisely from its lack of attachment to specific substantive values – liberalism is notorious for its lack of ideological pretensions. Yet Zden?k Suda accurately observed that while liberalism as a collective project lacked the makings of an ideology (Suda and Musil, 1996),¹⁰ as a descriptive tool it could be matched only by religion in its conception and its breadth of explanation of the way things are. So, then, how exactly are things when groups share liberal values?

From empirical observation (or in historical perspective) we determined that, while the pursuit of negative liberty can be a collective endeavor and still be compatible with value pluralism, the assertion of will (that is, positive freedom), if collective, is likely to be tyrannical.¹¹ Thus liberalism shines in the absence of a collective goal; there is no ’liberal project’ to speak of, other than the commitment to an order which shuns any substantive, collective project. However, we customarily grant liberalism a few substantive values, which eventually play a normative role. These are:

1. liberty;
2. the right to property;
3. what is called in the USA the right to „the pursuit of happiness”, or the right to choose one’s own path in life. (This is a poetical stance for the liberal view of the individual as the ultimate decision-maker about what is of value to him or her, which grants him or her the status of a ‘self- originating source of value’.)

All these elements, although in and by themselves substantive, considered collectively amount to very little of substance. Yet, in order to make them applicable at the individual level, they need to be collectively considered in a procedural (rather than a substantive) perspective. In other words, while the recognition of value pluralism precludes that any of the values mentioned above should acquire substantive status as ’common conceptions of the good’ (that is, taken collectively they are merely procedural norms), they nevertheless remain substantive at the individual level, where they accommodate varying values and individual conceptions of the good.

In short, collectively, ’liberal values’ merely set the stage for the procedural architecture that enables individuals to pursue these and other substantive projects of their own. We therefore deal at the collective level with a formal process, while at the individual level we engage in a substantive search (for meaning, values, and projects).

Considered at the political level, for instance, democracy is a collective (political) process, while liberalism itself engages primarily in an individual search. The collective process we call ’democracy’ is merely one procedure (among many) for allocating claims in society – the worst possible one, bar all the others, said Churchill. As mentioned above, just like any other relationship, the political arrangement it represents is negotiable, either via elections or through changes in legislation. But can democracy be defined by procedures and institutional arrangements alone, in the absence of any collectively shared, substantive values? Liberal democracy focuses on the defense of negative freedom as a common conception of the good. It is a thin conception but it is nonetheless a substantive value.

However, pushed to its logical conclusion, the defense of negative freedom eventually results in an institutional vacuum and social anarchy. Following the lexicographic ordering discussed above, the defense of negative freedom alone is necessary but not sufficient. Protecting freedom alone is not a viable social project, because once freedom-as-an-end has been reached society runs the risk of institutional collapse. (Parenthetically, this is what seems to be happening in most Western democracies now that the Cold War is over.)¹²

Thus, the conquest of negative liberty has to be supplemented by an assertion of will, by positive freedom, which then becomes a means to an end (a means to a project), This means that once freedom is achieved, negative liberty per se cannot determine the collective agenda anymore. In politics, this translates into the need for a new common project. But the catch is this: short of a perfect consensus, how can a collective project respect individual freedom and value pluralism? We have seen that the project cannot be substantive. It cannot offer a ’thick conception’ of the good (that is, it cannot set common values for the group as a whole) since that would exclude those group members whose values are different (and imposing common values would amount to despotism and tyranny).

Thus if the collective project cannot be substantive it ought to be procedural. The social contract is one such procedural collective project. A social contract defines and establishes the relationship between the parties to the social arrangement. It spells out which substantive goods (or values) are to be exchanged, and establishes the procedure to be followed by the parties during the transaction. For instance, the procedural means to allocate scarce goods in society will depend on the choice of regime, which helps establish and enforce the criteria for allocation.

I see the social contract – like all social relationships – as constantly being renewed, either formally (via elections), or informally, via enactment of legislation, changes in public attitudes, and so on. For me, this contract is not a one-off metaphorical construction, but an overall commitment society agrees upon with every generation, even though the agreement may only be implicit. Thus the contract can be partially modified (by institutional adjustment) or completely transformed (in revolutions). Like all human relationships, it lives, therefore it changes.

With the end of the Cold War, the social contract, both East and West, seems to have come up for a (formal) renewal. The old terms have expired – the parties in the West have acquired the necessary guarantees that principles of liberty and human rights will not be challenged, while the East has abandoned its will to create a new world order according to communist values. A new social contract is therefore needed to reflect the changed realities, the transformed identities, and the new expectations and values both East and West. But a new social contract requires commitments of both principle and substance, and cannot be limited to

considerations about procedure alone. So how can a liberal society respond to the challenge of establishing collective commitments about substantive values when it shies away from proclaiming any ’common goods’?

The answer is: it probably cannot, and certainly should not, since declaring any substantive values to be collectively desirable would contradict liberalism’s commitment to protect value pluralism. Yet a common denominator in the value sphere among individuals is needed in order to establish a new social contract – or are we to accept that the idea of ’common liberal values’ is an oxymoron, and move on?

Is There an ’Ethics’ of Liberty?

In a liberal perspective it seems that the idea of ’common substantive values’ is indeed a contradiction in terms. How- ever, establishing universally valid procedural methods can lead to a consensus without hindering the freedom of autonomous agents to choose their own substantive ends (that is, without hindering value pluralism). Therefore, to design a new social contract, we need to find those procedural values that are acceptable to all parties, and can apply both individually and on the collective level. As already discussed, in a liberal democracy, while the defense of negative liberty can – indeed should – be an object of collective endeavor, the assertion of positive freedom, if collective, may turn despotic.¹³

That means that the collective ’Minima Moralia’ cannot be substantive, it can only be procedural. Leaving aside a complex discussion about procedural is- sues, such as the rule of law and obedience to the law, how can ethics (that is, ideas about ’good’ and ’bad’) be ’procedural’ without falling into utter moral relativism? And if we cannot design a substantive, explicit morality, with clear ’dos and don’ts’, what are ethics to be made of? Even the mild – and seemingly reasonable – varieties of moral precept, such as, for instance, the ’ethics of responsibility’ everyone now wants to embrace, are ruled out since they are substantive and thus can, in practice, become despotic too.

So where does this leave us? What can we do ? We want, indeed we need, a common denominator to bind society together, and the libertarian ethos is not enough.

We need to build into the architecture of our social contract not just procedural means to protect our liberty (so that we can choose our own values), we also need to designate a shared value, a common ethical standard, which, as we have seen, cannot be substantive. Can this shared value – an ethical stance – be merely procedural, and if so, how? In ethics, the narrowest common ground requires toleration of diversity and respect for others as equals, as ends in themselves, rather than as means. The lowest common denominator in this realm is Kant’s categorical imperative, which, one could argue, elaborates on Jesus of Nazareth’s Golden Rule: ’Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you’. But one can easily see why, in a liberal perspective, this can be a ’road to hell paved with good intentions’. The expectation of reciprocity can lead to imposition: if I want to be treated in a certain way, I may treat others in ways they disapprove of, or dislike. Examples abound.

Criticism of the Kantian categorical imperative has focused mostly on its lack of substantive content. The injunction to act only in such a way that you can also will that your maxim should become a universal law has been considered too ’procedural’, for it does not spell out exactly how one should act, but merely what effect our actions ought to have (that is, create ’universal law’, and to treat others as ends, not as means). I disagree with this criticism.¹⁴ First, charges brought against the categorical imperative as being merely ’procedural’ are wrong since the categorical imperative does have an overriding, ultimate substantive value – that of ’achieving a kingdom of ends’. But my second disagreement is even more basic. It applies both to Kant and to the Golden Rule, and it is this: as we set about choosing ways to treat others (or as we design the ’laws’ we want to see become universal), we are engaged not in procedural matters but in making substantive choices. We are putting forth some very particular values – ours – for others to follow.

Given the way in which the two ethical stances are formulated (that is, in the af6rmative, by enjoining one to ’do unto others’, or to ’act as if …’), both the Golden Rule and the categorical imperative err, if anything, by being too substantive and not procedural enough, although the norm is given by the individual. Therefore, the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule are not the right common ethic, since, being substantive, they may become despotic. In its worst incarnation, a version of the Golden Rule (that is, wanting for others what we think best for ourselves) led, for instance, to the totalitarian experience under communism.

Yet because both ethical stances are not merely ego-centered and substantive, but also encompass a procedural aspect, both the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule should be ’salvaged’, as they seem the only ethical principles versatile enough to gain consensus. Kant’s injunction to us to treat others as if we were designing universal laws of behavior, like Jesus’ Golden Rule, easily transcends cultural and religious boundaries since it does not explicitly specify any particular behavior. On the other hand, as we have seen, both rules can also lead to an imposition of (one’s own values, over others’) values.

So, can anything be done to preserve the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule in some form, and ’save’ them from the charge that they hold the seeds of despotism? In other words, is there an ethical principle fully compatible with both negative liberty and positive freedom, that dutifully preserves value pluralism?

My answer is ’yes’, provided that we look at the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule in a different perspective – or rather, provided we enunciate them differently. For this, let us first go back to the lexicographic ordering of the two types of liberty, where negative liberty necessarily precedes positive freedom. If the categorical imperative is a substantive assertion of (positive) will – that is, if it reveals my preference for how I would like to be treated – then the necessary precondition is to secure a sufficient space of negative liberty for myself, so that I will not be treated as others may want to treat me (and I will be left alone to decide for myself what I want). In other words, I need to secure sufficient liberty in order to assert myself as a self-originating source of value(s).

However, in order to secure for ourselves that space of negative liberty, we need to reciprocate by also securing it for others. Thus, it follows that the only meaningful way in which I can treat others is to preserve their negative freedom and never do unto them that which I do not want them to do unto me. This negative formulation (a sort of ’negative Golden Rule’) respects our lexicographic ordering: I must first preserve for myself (and for others) that which enables us all to 611 our life with meaning (and value) – that is, our negative liberty – which then allows us to assert a positive will. The negative formulation liberates us from the potential tyranny which would prevail if we imposed substantive values on each other and leaves ethical precepts in the realm of procedure alone.

In short, the ’negative Golden Rule’ (’do not do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you’), as well as a possible negative formulation of Kant’s imperative (’never act in ways in which you would not want others to act’), best respect the individual’s freedom and guarantee value pluralism.

However, while the negative formulation strips the ethical rule of any potential substantive content (rendering it purely procedural), it nevertheless has important substantive implications. For instance, it precludes violence from the liberal repertory of means: as I would not want to be treated violently by others, I will abstain from violence myself. Or, regarding in- come distribution: as I want to avoid starvation while I pursue my meaningful life-project, I need to prevent others from starving while I have plenty to eat. Thus, since the ethical norm is to never do unto others that which I would not want others to do unto me, if I fear hunger for myself, I cannot accept a system that would allow others to go hungry.

To be secure, freedom does not need – indeed is incompatible with – a strong moral order (either based on religion or enforced by the state). True liberty accommodates only the thinnest conception of the good, and leaves only a very narrow basis for common ethics (that is, those that preserve negative freedom). In addition, as we have seen, these ethics work to preserve freedom only if they are procedural, not substantive. Inside the ’space’ thus kept free (negative liberty), we can then each develop our own individual conception of the good, apply our will, and try to shape our destinies (positive freedom). This procedural ethic, which collectively preserves individual freedom yet provides a shared value for all individuals, seems to me to represent a possible common ’value’ of liberalism.

The Burdens of Liberalism

I would like to conclude by going back to what I believe has changed since 1989, when the social contract came up for renewal. Since we can freely claim our identity from our ’becoming’ (and liberalism helps us set up social arrangements in which we may become whatever we wish to be), we face several interrelated burdens that we might call the ’burdens of freedom’. All of these will eventually force us to rethink our social and economic arrangements, and our (political) relationship to the state (that is, to renew our social contract).

More deeply, these burdens will completely alter our relationship to our general environment (and since they deal with our relationship to the world, they are within the realm of liberalism). Let me outline each separately, and link them to what I believe to be the common value of liberalism

. NOTES

1. Title of an essay by Robert Grant, ‘Freedom for What?’, in Morality and Religion in Liberal Democratic Societies(New York: Paragon House, 1991).
2. As we pursue our way, our relation in his contribution to the present volume, ‘Liberalism, Value, and Social Cohesion’, it can be based on love. Hence exchanges can be harmonious rather than conflictual.
3. If we do look at negative and positive liberty in a binary perspective, not only do we see them as antagonistic, but we also get a closer insight into how the two main ideologies of the last half-century have concurred to create monsters: the pursuit of ’negative liberty’ alone led to the current ‘blah’ in the West, where individuals and societies seem now adrift, devoid of hope or moral goals. On the other hand, under communism, the assertion of positive freedom with no regard for the preservation of ‘the negative’ individual liberty, turned a potentially valuable collective project into a despotic, tyrannical prison sentence for millions.
4. Professor Ackeel Bilgrami, class notes, Columbia University, 1995.
5. Ethnic strife seem to belie this thesis, but nevertheless, people choose to uphold their allegiance and become politically involved in nationalist arguments.
6. See the issue of ‘collective rigths’ in Europe.
7. This is the issue faced by hundreds of ‘dissidents’ the world over: one can get trapped into being identified with a group whose values one does not fully endorse anymore. How does one mark one’s identify? By belonging and sharing the group’s values or by rejecting those one does not agree with?

See Mark’s discussion of ‘false consciousness’.

I am indebted to Professor David Johnston, of Columbia University, for this insight

1. Z. Suda and J. Musil, ‘Reluctant Heir- Liberalism in Central Europe’, paper delivered at the 1996 Prague Colloquium.
2. See the ideological struggle during the Cold War, and the idea that the assertion of collective will is potentially tyrannical.

10.The purpose of the Cold War, in the West, was to ‘defend freedom’.

11.A substantive will can be exerted only at the individuals (actor’s) level. Collectively, only the pursuit of negative freedom can represent a common goal. ‘Actors’ can be individuals, groups, or- in the international arena- even states. The key way of avoiding getting confused about this idea is to maintain the consistency of the level of analysis. For instance, in a universe of individuals, he defense of(negative) liberty can be proclaimed by all as a collective goal without loss of freedom to any of them. A society – or a group of individuals – that chooses the defense of liberty as its common goal is still compatible with individual value pluralism. On the other hand, the same society that chooses to assert a ’positive freedom’, a particular substantive end, cannot do that without loss to the individual’s ability to make his or her own choice of values. The same holds true if the actors are groups in a universe of groups: no common goal for all groups is compatible with their freedom to choose their own scope, unless there is a predetermined consensus over ends. Likewise, in the international arena: a universe of states (collective actors) can be brought together to defend peace on Earth (in case of, say, alien attack) without hindering their respective abilities to pursue their own ends, yet this very same group cannot be brought to agree to peace on Earth as a substantive collective end (and make it enforceable), and still be compatible with the ends of individual states that may, for instance, wish to make territorial gains from their neighbors. Another example, showing the incompatibility of positive freedom (assertion of will) with value pluralism, is the WTO and the difficulty the organization has in maintaining its scope while accommodating the conflicting economic systems of its members.

12.Professor D. Johnston, class notes, Columbia University.

13.I borrow the term ’burden of conscience’ from an unpublished manuscript by George Soros. Although I have not read it – and therefore I ignore its premiss – nevertheless I find the title most appropriate to underscore the underlying mechanisms of the Open Society