Ideologies (Liberalism)

A-Level AQA Politics - Liberalism

Who are the classical Liberals?

John Locke, John Stuart Mill

Who were the modern Liberals?

John Rawls, Thomas Hill Green

Who were the femenist Liberals?

Mary Wolstonecraft, Betty Friedan

What are other-regarding actions? (Mill)

Harms others freedoms, shouldn’t be tolerated

Criticism of Hedonism

Pleasure is the only thing that contributes to our wellbeing and some pleasure are more valuable than others

What are natural rights? (Locke)

Life, Liberty and Property

What is a social contract? (Locke)

State should protect our natural rights & in return people should follow laws in return

What is the Veil of Ignorance (Rawls)

Experiment that asked: ‘What society would you be happy to enter, if you had no idea what position you were going to have in it'?’

What is positive freedom?

State has to do more, make laws to help individuals to be free (e.g. compulsory education, health, housing)

What is negative freedom?

State has limited input in society, only protecting natural rights with no other affect on society

What is the promotion of tolerance?

Harm principle → Freedom up to the point that they may harm someone else

Voltaire → ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’

Locke → Religious tolerance

Friedan → Gov need more laws to make people free

What is the principle of equality of opportunity?

All start the same and same opportunity for everyone

→ BUT: not going to have equality of outcome

Locke provenance

→ Lived through the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution (1688) - prompted his belief that legitimate gove comes from the consent of the governed - limited gov that protects natural rights

→ Cause by a general disapproval of the king’s catholicism and his attempts to promote it & religious tolerance

→ Caused parl power to increase and monarchial power to decrease

Wolstonecraft provenance

→ Women highly dependent on men

→ Female education was limited to training to be a wife

→ Women barely allowed land ownership or paid employment and sacrificed what little individualism they had to become wives, no ability to divorce husbands

→ In ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’ (1792) - Extended Locke’s arguments to women - they are just as rational as men

Mill provenance

→ English philosopher, economist and believed and supported utilitarianism

→ Father was a philosopher, economist and British historian who he was taught by - very diciplined

→ Depression - reevaluate utilitarianism & what is happiness

→ Core ideas were about being free

Rawls provenance

→ Wrote during post-war prosperiy

→ The economic inequalities of the 20th century, along with the failures of both unregulated capitalism and authoritarian socialism, led him to argue in A Theory of Justice (1971) for a model of justice as fairness.

→ Cold war - debates over capitalism and communism - emphasised the need for liberalism against absolutism

→ Civil rights movement (50s & 60s) - showed Americans justice system needed reform

Green provenance

→ Observing how industrial capitalism left many unable to exercise real freedom (due to poor education, low wages, and lack of opportunity), he developed the idea of positive liberty

→ Studied @ Oxford - classics and philospophy

→ Most of his career @ Oxford as a teacher and tutor

→ Altruism - doing what is best for others becuase it is moral

→ Liberal party - dominant during his lifetime

Friedan provenance

→ Post-WW2 return to domesticity where women were pressured to abandon wartime jobs for housewife roles - grew dissatisfied expectations for women at the time

→ The widespread belief that women’s fulfillment came solely from marriage and motherhood led Friedan to challenge the notion that formal legal rights alone ensured freedom.

→ In The Feminine Mystique (1963), she redefined liberalism to include personal freedom and self-actualization, arguing that societal norms, not just legal restrictions, could be barriers to freedom.