Intro:

·        Individualism is a fundamental value to liberalism.

·        Individualism and the government

·        Hobbes and Locke

·        Individualisms view on society

·        Individualism – rational and selfish

·        Exception - Mills

Body:

·        Liberalism takes individual freedom as a fundamental value.

·        Although individual’s freedom can be limited, what defines liberalism is the presumption that freedom is a good thing. Limitations on freedom must therefore be justified.

INDIVIDUALISM AND THE GOVERNMENT

·        Government should be based on the consent of the people, which legitimizes it.

·        The liberal formula aims to protect the rights of each individual, which constitute a limitation on the government’s power to promote the good of the majority.

·        Liberal theory is, then, a political doctrine which exalts the individual at the expense of the state and the social whole, and sees freedom as a condition for human happiness.

HOBBES AND LOCKE

·        HOBBES – Hobbe’s Leviathan (1651), is arguably the first significant work of modern political thought. He implicitly entails a rejection of natural authority – the authority of the sovereign derives from a contract and not from inheritance or divine right. His focus is on the fact that there has to be a contract between the individual and the state – protecting individuals’ rights.

·        Both Hobbes and Locke start by describing individuals in the state of nature, and that both consider the individual and his needs the basic explanatory unit of a systematic analysis of political society. – Thus putting individualism as a fundamental value.

·        Locke considered man’s natural state to be that of freedom; the duty of government was to provide the conditions for him to enjoy the maximum possible freedom within a framework of law. This meant liberals condemned slavery and indentured labour.

·        From Locke onwards, liberals emphasized the role of law in ensuring individual liberty.

·        The hallmark of the liberal is a concern with the limits of authority, and opposition to state interference with individual activities.

INDIVIDUALISMS VIEW ON SOCIETY

·        The preservation of the individual and the attainment of individual happiness are the supreme goals of a liberal political system, at least in theory.

·        Liberals have the atomistic view of the social whole being viewed as no more than the sum of its parts, and so cannot have a public interest of its own, or any rights against the individual.

·        It is from the moral idealization of the individual that stems the political necessity of liberty and also various cultural values which embody the notions of individuality, originality and self-distinction.

INDIVIDUALISM – RATIONAL AND SELFISH

·        Liberalism assumes the individual to be essentially rational. The assumption of rationality also determines the form of political organization chosen, justifying participatory rather than authoritarian government.

·        The liberal focus on individualism made a virtue of selfishness. The pursuit of self-interest was accepted as man’s proper motivation.

·        Because individualism is so core to liberalism, liberal theorists are unwilling to invoke concepts such as the common good or the public interest.

·        Freedom is an instrumental value which helps people to get what they want. Political, economic and social freedom is seen as a human necessity. Liberal conception of freedom has been widely identified with material choice.

MILLS

·        Although Mill advocated freedom of speech, thought and religion as the right of every rational adult (male or female), to be curtailed only where their exercise threatens direct material harm to others, he believed that tolerance directs us to the truth.

·        From the ideal of tolerance derives the conviction that a pluralist society which accommodates a multiplicity of beliefs is necessary to search for the human good.

·        I.e. although individualism is fundamental to liberalism, Mills believes that a pluralist society should be focused on in order to find the ‘human good’.