Liberalism defended

Christopher J. Insole, a lecturer in the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge, has written a very interesting book called The Politics of Human Frailty: A Theological Defense of Political Liberalism. He sets out to provide a Christian defense of political liberalism against its neo-traditionalist and “Radically Orthodox” detractors.

The now-standard critique of liberalism is that it is ethically nihilistic, resting on the unbridled will-to-power and that it presupposes an “ontology of violence” in which individuals are locked in a never-ending struggle for survival and self-assertion. This allegedly results in a society of atomized individuals with no shared notion of the good.

As Insole puts it:

Liberalism, according to this conception, is based upon an illusory human subject who constructs order and denies transcendence. The ‘liberal’ focuses on the will at the cost of attending to reason or order. This focus on the will engenders a fetish for freedom of choice and the removal of all impediments to human liberty; consequently, the notion of ‘freedom/liberty’ is emptied of any substantial historical, traditional, or philosophical content. Flowing from this entirely stripped down notion of freedom, liberalism has a voluntaristic account of values and meaning, with ‘ethics’ being a construction by the subject. This voluntarist meta-ethics fosters a destructive individualism and social atomism. In an attempt to distract from the poverty of the liberal conception of freedom, liberals tend to support a psuedo-Messianic/Pelagian progressivism about history, often finding expression in a fixation with technology and economic growth. (p. 1)

While Insole concedes that this may be an accurate criticism of some forms of liberalism, he argues that there are other strains which are not vulnerable to this critique. He focuses on the thought of Whigs like Burke and Lord Acton and, as background, the thought of Anglican divine Richard Hooker to sketch a theologically-informed liberal tradition that is not susceptible to these charges.

Insole defines political liberalism this way:

[T]he conviction that politics is ordered towards peaceful co-existence (the absence of conflict), and the preservation of the liberties of the individual within a pluralistic and tolerant framework, rather than by a search for truth (religious or otherwise), perfection and unity. The crucial ambition of this sort of political liberalism is a refusal to allow public power to enforce on society a substantial and comprehensive conception of the good; driven as it is by its central passion for the liberties of individuals over and above the enthusiasms of other individuals or collectivities. Political authority is wielded on behalf of the people it protects, and is derived ultimately from their consent. (p. 5)

The form of liberalism Insole finds in Burke and Acton isn’t based on an self-constructing subject or ethical nihilism, but on a very Christian insistence on transcendent order, our solidarity in sin, the vulnerability and fragility of the individual, and our incomplete knowledge of ultimate truths. These thinkers insist that there is an ultimate order to the universe, but that we can, at best, discern it only partially. For that reason we should be wary of making any one comprehensive view of the good publicly authoritative. The point is reinforced by our proneness to sin, and the vulnerability of individuals whose identities are, partly or even largely, constituted by surrounding social forces.

Insole finds the traces of such an outlook in Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker was responding to the radical Protestants of his day who thought they knew the truth and could identify the saved and the reprobate, thereby creating a purified church. Hooker, by contrast, adhered to the Augustinian notion that, until the Second Coming, the church would always be a “mixed body” containing citizens of the City of God and the City of Man. Our inability to know who’s who should caution us about collapsing the distinction between the visible and invisible church. Indeed, we may well hope that God’s grace will extend to many outside the confines of the visible church.

The conclusion is that humility and mutual regard should restrain us from seeking to impose our particular conceptions of the good on our fellow citizens. We don’t possess the truth in any straightforward way, and our proneness to sin is liable to turn any attempt to institutionalize it into a form of tyranny.

Insole quotes Michael Freeman:

Men who hate vice too much, says Burke, love men too little. Men of excessive virtue may take excessive measures to bring ordinary men into the path of virtue. In the womb of moral puritanism lies the seed of political authoritarianism. Fanaticism, even if altruistic, perhaps especially when altruistic, poses a greater threat to freedom and humanity than ordinary selfishness. Paradoxically, extreme virtue turns into extreme vice. (p. 35)

Which reminds me of this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. (from the essay “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” in God in the Dock)

The liberal has a tolerance of human frailty which is rooted in a sense that it is difficult for us to know in detail the truth about the good, much less to institutionalize it and make sure people live by it. He is content with a kind of political modus vivendi, allowing people of different beliefs to live together in relative peace, even if they aren’t united in a shared hierarchy of values.

The Augustinianism of liberals like Burke and Acton also protects against a naively progressive reading of history, as though we were moving toward some kind of consummation of peace and prosperity. For them social order is always fragile and in need of reform, but there is no utopia to aim for. And there is no way to publicly distinguish between the saved and the damned, or identify them with any particular group. Their eschatology is radically amillenialist. Insole contrasts this with what he calls crusading liberalism, the view that comes out of Puritan versions of Calvinism which attributes a kind of eschatological significance to the spread of political liberty and democracy (a view which, he notes, is prevalent among “certain American presidents”). Crusading liberalism is messianic and Manichean, while Burkean liberalism is modest and meliorist.

I would suggest that there is a strand of political liberalism which withdraws from using public power in instigating perfectionist and salvationist programmes, precisely because of a sense of our complicity in sin, the conviction that judgement belongs to God, and a desire to show the charity, toleration and generosity towards our neighbour which we ourselves so painfully need, and at times, so little deserve. (p. 70)

Next I’ll talk about Insole’s reply to the criticisms of liberalism that come from the Radical Orthodoxy school.