Belief in supreme importance of individual leads to commitment to freedom to exercise choice.
Negative freedom, described by Isaiah Berlin, stated that there should be no limit on
freedom of the individual and that gov intervention and higher taxes meant that liberty
was compromised, Hayek and Spencer argued that interventionalist take away the very
foundational nature of Freedom ...Classic liberals
Positive Freedom is freesom with some state intervention, It is summarised that no human has pure freedom without education and welfare due to the faact without it, poverty and starvation would cause lives to be lost around survival. In their view taxation is necessary, fair and beneficial for society, meaning overeall freedom is enhances Green argues this point.
Individualism
most fundamental feature of liberalisation.
Unique feature distinguishes it from other important ideolgies.
Liberalism born out of the age of reason, enlightenment.
Individualism lie at the root of birth of reason and enlightement
Because it disperses with superstition and collective identification and places supreme importance on the individual and his needs
Classic Liberalism did not like any form of collectivism
but later the Moderns thought that humans had dualiity of character and the indivdualism could be combined with the collective.
Methodical Ind = individ is central to any polical theory or social explanation.
Ethical Ind = society should be constructed so as to benefit individual, priority to needs.
Egotistical individ: emphasises self interestedness and self reliance. CLASSICAL VIEW
Developmental Individ: prioritises human flourishing over personal satisfaction of self interest. MODERN VIEW
Justice
Liberal justice based on belief in equality, individualism implies a commitment to foundational equality.
The idea of equal opportunity = game of life to be played on equal playing field, with equal opp to develop skills - supports individ.
Liberal Democracy
Rationalisatioin
Reason springs from enlightenments themes of releasing men from its bondage to superstition and ignorance.
THerefore it supports humans becoming more conscious of their own ideas and
needs
Therefore supporting individualism by encouraging humans to define and pursue their unique ideas and talents.
Reason goes against paternalism - therefore goes against humans being told what to do and to think for themselves.
Therefore capacity to take charge of own lives.
Reason emphasises principle and reason governed behaviour with no reliance on custom tradition of non rational drives and impulses of the feudal age.
Equality
Toleration
as an ethical ideal it represents goal of personal autonomy = individualism.
celebrates individualism in diversity
Pluralism is rooted in idea of individualism as humans are seen as unique and separate