A Philosophy of Loneliness by Lars Svendsen

Author:Lars Svendsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

What is a Liberal Individual?

The liberal individual did not just suddenly appear at a particular time and place, but instead emerged over centuries, and is still developing. One recent development, however, is that for the first time in history the liberal individual is becoming the basic unit in social reproduction.1 Not all people reside in liberal democracies, of course – just about half of the world’s population does. And not everyone who resides in a liberal democracy embodies ‘the liberal individual’. On the other hand, one can also find liberal individuals in countries that are not liberal democracies, such as China. The general tendency, however, is that the liberal individual is becoming the social and political norm, despite the fact that countless counter-examples and conflicting developmental trends do exist.

Ulrich Beck writes that ‘the basic figure of fully developed modernity is the single person.’2 Or the ‘individual’, if you will. The liberal individual is a historical reality. Yet why do I use the phrase liberal individual? Simply because that individual is concerned with or takes for granted liberal rights such as freedom of expression, right to property, privacy and so on. This basic thought is well-formulated in John Stuart Mill’s Romantic liberalism, in which he imagines an inviolable circle drawn around every individual.3

Key to our understanding of the liberal individual’s role in a society is what is often called negative liberty: the existence of a variety of possibilities, and not just those alternatives one actually prefers, but also those alternatives one would choose not to take advantage of.4 This individual believes his freedom to be violated if he is forced to do something he would have done of his own accord anyway. Negative liberty is a rather empty freedom concept, however, since it essentially does nothing more than say that as many alternatives as possible should remain open. It does not indicate that any one form of self-realization is better, but simply establishes the broadest possible framework for self-realization, limited only by the idea that one person’s negative liberty should not exist at the cost of another’s. The liberal individual, meanwhile, does not desire simply what Amartya Sen calls freedom’s possibility aspect, but also its process aspect.5 Not only will the individual attempt to reach various life goals, he also wishes to evaluate the alternatives, and choose which of those to realize. As such, the individual craves a sphere of non-interference, and his choice alternatives should only be limited by another’s right to the same amount of freedom. The liberal individual, furthermore, is not at all antisocial but wishes to choose with whom to socialize. The liberal individual regards him- or herself as unique, independent and self-determining, and the liberal democracy contains an immense variety of lifestyles and possibilities for autonomous choice. The liberal individual does not only desire negative liberty, but also positive liberty, which is synonymous with autonomy. Positive liberty consists in living in accordance with one’s own values. This extends beyond non-interference and involves taking control over and shaping one’s own life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.