Defining Liberalism: Published Arguments for Liberalism

Charles K. Rowley: In 1993, in his book, Post-Liberalism, [John] Gray poked around among the rubble of classical liberal philosophy to determine what, if anything was left. He concluded that none of the four constitutive elements of doctrinal liberalism — universalism, individualism, egalitarianism and meliorism (or human flourishing) — could survive the ordeal by value pluralism and that liberalism, as a political philosophy, therefore was dead. www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_1_rowley.pdf

Former President Clinton at the Democratic National Convention:

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. Why? Because poverty, discrimination and ignorance restrict growth. When you stifle human potential, when you don’t invest in new ideas, it doesn’t just cut off the people who are affected; it hurts us all.

The former president echoes what Fritz Stern, a historian driven from Germany by the rising antisemitism of the Third Reich, wrote:

In the past and at its best, liberalism has sought the institutional defense of decency. Everywhere it has fought for the freedom of individuals to attain their fullest development.

Contrast this with the implied social Darwinism of conservatives' so-called "tragic" view of reality:

5. [Conservatives] feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. - Russell Kirk,  “Ten Conservative Principles” [Emphasis added]

 
Clinton also said:

You see, we believe that "we're all in this together" is a far better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Or as an anonymous post in a newsgroup said, "Liberalism wagers that civility, cooperation and altruism have greater survival value than aggression and the will to power." "What works in the real world," Clinton said, "is cooperation."

The epigraph to this post lists four principles of liberalism: Universalism; the importance of the single person; egalitarianism; and the passionate desire for optimum outcomes. It omits the cognitive emphasis of liberalism, the devotion to what the Roman Cicero called "right reason."* As Martin Luther King put it:

"How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, ... An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. ... Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality ..." - Martin Luther King Jr.

To sum up, liberalism's characteristic "politics of kindness" is not just morally right and pleasing to the conscience, it makes human lives better. It is also the best public policy, because it maximizes human resources. Liberalism is not only the politics of political freedom, it is the politics of prosperity.
 
(*)Cicero wrote:

"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. ... Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment . . ."