# PP 14 liberty 2

**Channel:** John J. Park
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34IoYzwroqY
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/34IoYzwroqY

## Chapters

- 0:01 — Liberty, Intrinsic Value, and Offense
- 4:13 — Marx on Political and Human Emancipation
- 8:04 — Capitalism, Competition, and Alienation
- 13:48 — Communitarian Critique of Liberal Freedom
- 20:50 — Closing Reflections on Liberty

## Transcript

**[0:01]:** all right so let's continue talking about Liberty there is this question of whether or not Liberty is intrinsically good or not Mill claims that Liberty is only instrumentally good in leading to the greatest happiness rather happiness is the only intrinsic good so remember if something has intrinsic goodness and this means that it's good in and of itself that has intrinsic value so the idea here is that the only thing for utilitarian at least that has intrinsic goodness or inherent or in and of itself goodness is happiness and Liberty itself is only good insofar as it can be used as an instrument or as a tool or as a means towards achieving or leading towards the greatest happiness so the ultimate thing that the only thing that has intrinsic goodness is happiness for Mill and for utilitarians and Liberty is good only in the sense that it is instrumentally good it's good only in that isn't

**[1:07]:** can be used as an instrument towards leading to the greatest happiness but rather Liberty itself is not intrinsically good in and of itself or inherent within Liberty it does not have goodness it only has goodness because it can be used as an instrument towards leading to the greatest happiness that's the only respect we can think of as Liberty of Liberty as having goodness only in the instrumental sense not in the intrinsic sense however I'd like for you to think now is Liberty intrinsically good and I'll leave you this to discuss even further and get even deeper into it in the discussions and in the group blog okay so let's discuss this difference here between a harm and offence so we've already discussed harms for mill remember harms are those things that break rules rules such as I don't kill innocent people all rules and rights like having the right to life right to freedom of

**[2:18]:** thought etcetera so those are what harms are right harms are the violation of rules rules of which are ultimately justified based on utility what is an offense then if something is offensive but it's not harm offenses are not harms but they are violations of etiquette convention or custom for example belching at the dinner table right that is an offensive act but it's not a harm in the sense of harm in the harm principle so Mill appears at times to want the government to suppress what are and to be considered as offensive acts like sex in public having sex in public prostitution sibling incest right brothers and sisters having sex right these are offensive among consents consenting adults this these there these aren't harming others are they so it's thought but rather these are offenses these are not harms so is there a contradiction here because in the in Mills writings it does appear that he

**[3:29]:** wants to at time suppress offensive acts but at the same time he puts forth the harm principle you can perform any act and live your life as you so choose so long as you don't harm others right so shouldn't you have the freedom to perform offensive acts because you're not harming someone you're just offending others you're not harming them so you should have the freedom to do these kinds of things like have sex in public and we have this other question should the government be involved in regulating offences should the government should the government's reach go even further than preventing harms but it all should also be to prevent offenses

**[4:13]:** so I'll leave further discussion of that issue to the blog posts and we'll get deeper into it then and let's move on here to our Marxist critique of liberalism Marx is a famous political philosopher he distinguishes between political versus human emancipation so Marx is a particular critical ISM hinges is dependent upon this distinction so it's important to get this distinction between political and humanity patient down and also just to be clear here liberalism can be shorthand for Western liberal democracy once again remember Western liberal democracy is a technical term in political philosophy meaning a representative government that has things such as equal rights for all separation of powers having checks and balances separation of church and state and having the freedom to live your life as you choose so long as you don't harm others alright so marx provides a critique of Western liberal democracies or liberalism now in making this criticism he relies on

**[5:28]:** this distinction between political and human emancipation he says political emancipation is when a state has equality irrespective of one's religion right and that is kind of trademark of liberalism is that you should have equal rights right separation of church and state so that itself should disallow any kind of discrimination based on one's religion and Marx had a Jewish heritage growing up in places like Germany and received discrimination based on religion so he you know thanks political emancipation that's involved in Western liberal democracies is a good thing but it's not enough because there's this other kind of emancipation which is human emancipation this is when day to day discrimination in employment education etc are eliminated so human emancipation is actual events in your day-to-day life and such as going to the store you know driving your car meeting people a here and there at different places etc your day-to-day actions this is when in in such

**[6:42]:** day-to-day actions there is no discrimination in things like employment and finding a job education just in buying things you're not being discriminated against there are no snide remarks racist remarks bigoted remarks coming your way right if you're in a relevant group so human emancipation is when these kinds of things are eliminated on it from daily interactions he says you can have political emancipation where it's in the laws that there should be equal treatment and equality but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can you're gonna have human emancipation because it could be the case that in your day-to-day interactions right you're treated less than others due to being a member of a particular group or people give out slurs right against you because you're a member of this particular group things like that you're degraded denigrated in your day to day life that's so you can have political emancipation but it doesn't necessarily follow that there's

**[7:46]:** human emancipation and human emancipation is important right really important so at this point I'd like you to thank this reading comprehension question what is his critique of political liberalism from the reading

**[8:04]:** all right so continue on with his critique of liberalism he says that liberalism seeks political emancipation but fails to have human emancipation he says in Western liberal democracies you know you can have it in your laws that there should be equality and equal treatment but really in the day to day interactions and Western liberal democracies there is not human emancipation he says political liberalism is shallow it only has political emancipation but not human emancipation so in that respect political liberalism is shallow and is an obstacle even to human emancipation he says that liberalism political liberalism or in other words Western liberal democracies they that it self that institution of liberalism is an obstacle to having human emancipation in a way he's saying you cannot have human emancipation in a Western liberal democracy why is this so he says liberal rights in a capitalist society our egoistic individual rights so it says in Western liberal democracies

**[9:15]:** they tend to focus on individual rights like the right to life the right to property the individual right to have freedom of speech etc freedom of assembly also Western liberal democracies tend to be in capitalist societies and capitalist societies and capitalism itself has certain kinds of attributes to it he says once again starting again here he says liberal rights in a capitalist society our egoistic individual rights where others are seen as possible limitations to freedom and seen as competitors so people fellow citizens within a liberal democracy are seen as possible limited as seen as possible limitations to freedom insofar as Western liberal democracies are largely grounded in individual rights so individual rights like the right to life well he says those individual rights like the right to life freedom to be the right to have be free from torture these kinds of things are rights that are in place for your benefit kind of assuming

**[10:22]:** or thinking that others are about to harm you right others about to take away these rights like your right to life or your right to be free from torture etc so the idea here is with individual rights and Western societies do tend to be very individualistic more focused on the individual rather than the group he says these individual rights kind of inherent within them is they look upon other citizens as possible violators of your rights right that's why we have these individual rights like the right to be free the right to life is because others might take away your right to life so in this respect others are seen as possible limitations to your freedom and to your life itself so others are seen as competitors and he says this because he says this is kind of an inherent part of capitalism is that capitalism is based on competition right we have competition between businesses

**[11:17]:** and this can be a benefit because through competition various businesses will lower their prices which can be to the advantage which will be to the advantage of the consumers right having these lower prices but essentially in a capitalist society there is competition you have competition and you're competing against other businesses right trying to get the customers and trying to take customers away from other businesses who are in your same field or selling your same prod product so others within your society are seen as competitors so insofar as others fellow citizens are seen as possible limitations to your freedom and to your life and they're also largely viewed as being competitors he says this is a huge detriment towards having human emancipation where people really treat each other on a daily basis in daily interactions with equality and without bigotry and this is because we see other people as being limitations possible limitations on our freedom

**[12:18]:** as well as being competitors he says human emancipation requires seeing others as being equal cooperating community and members so here we see a certain elements of his communist theory and with a communist theory all businesses are socialized they're all owned by the government the government has a road map or kind of a plan economic plan set in place and all businesses are public publicly owned owned by the state and they set up the various businesses in certain ways and then have the citizens run certain businesses in the particular way that the government would like them to run it in this kind of communist society right where there is no competition because everyone's part of the same team right we're all in a common society everyone's part of the state and working for the state there are no private businesses is all owned in common or by the community so communism itself doesn't have built within

**[13:21]:** it this kind of competition right that is existent within capitalism with a competition among fellow citizens but rather all the citizens working in the various businesses all the businesses are being run by the state it's run by the same team so to speak so everyone's kind of part of the same team he says in this kind of setup the kind of way we view others is in a more communal way and this is what we need

**[13:48]:** in order to have true human emancipation or so he argues all right so let's see another objection against against liberalism and this is a communitarian critique so communitarian ethics is not necessarily a communist ethics but a communitarian ethics largely held in African societies as well as in Latino and Asian societies a communitarian ethics is an ethics that focuses on the group group rights and what's good for the group moreso than the individual right in Western societies like the US for example we tend to focus more on individual and individual rights in communitarian societies they focus more on the community good and the idea behind a communitarian ethics is a one kind of central philosophical notion behind it is this notion of one's identity and who you are right so there's this philosophical question of who are you what makes up who you are what is your identity and a very common answer is that while

**[15:01]:** your identity is your psychological States right your wishes once desires your moral values etc that's what your identity is in a Western individualistic society our identities are looked upon as being individual atoms so to speak individual entities that are separate from others individuals for example my identity myself is different from your identity or yourself we're individual separate identities we have individual or separate identities and this is the kind of general viewpoint of from Western liberal democracies however in a communitarian society our identities are bound to the community so in a communitarian society there's the kind of theory or view of the self or of one's identity is not that our identities are separate from each other but rather that our identities are necessarily kind of intertwined with each other for example what makes up your identity such as your beliefs your wishes once desires your moral values well a communitarian is gonna say you're all

**[16:18]:** those things your psychological self are significantly in part influenced by others such as by teachers coaches family friends your parents your government right your society putting forth having for example a constitution let's say or certain general principles or values of the state that are promoted in public education and in schools so the members the idea here is that it takes a community to raise a child and various members of the community have had an impact on who you are on yourself on your wishes one's desires beliefs values etc others in your community have had a significant impact on yourself so therefore ourselves or our identities cannot be separated from each other as is commonly held in a Western individualistic liberal society but rather where our selves are intertwined and entangled with each other such that they cannot be separated therefore in a communitarian society what's good for the group is what's good for the individual

**[17:29]:** and what's good for the individual is what's good for the group they cannot be separated from each other because your own self an individual self is necessarily entangled with the group so therefore says it can't be separated from the group what's good for you is what's good for the group and what's good for the group is what's good for you and continuing on this objection liberalism promotes separation from social tradition you have the freedom to live your life so long as you see fit as long as you're not harming others so this can allow for a kind of lifestyle that goes away from social tradition however the communitarian who focuses on the good of the community says this this kind of separation from social tradition can alienate the individual and dislocate society it can separate the individual from the group right it can such that it dislocates a society right and then we have a

**[18:32]:** kind of ending of society a close-knit tight society that's working together for the common good of the society or the group or the community so in that respect this can lead to really bad things the communitarian says allowing this kind of extensive freedom to live your life so long as you see fit so on so long as you don't harm others can lead to a kind of destruction of the community and the group but the community and the group is what's most important right what helps people survive and what's help helps people flourish is the fact that we live in groups we are social animals and we do live in communities and groups and it's important to have a tight-knit community or group and the communitarian continues and says Liberty isn't not achieved by leaving people alone to make their own decisions rather there should be state guidance and positive freedom so negative freedom is

**[19:32]:** defined as being in line with the harm principle negative freedom is where people are free to live their life as they so choose so long as they don't harm others they have that Liberty to make their own decisions in life so we should understand negative freedom as being in line with the harm principle but remember positive freedom is freedom where one is forced to be free where the government intervenes and restricts what kinds of lifestyles you can choose to live such that you live a lifestyle that a rational person would choose in that respect you're free so a communitarian comes in and says we shouldn't have negative freedom or we shouldn't have bide by the harm principle but rather there should be positive freedom there should be more government intervention bigger government intervening in people's lives telling them what lifestyle to live what not to live so the communitarian would say the government should intervene

**[20:33]:** for someone who is a drug addict or someone who is a drunker right and should try to get them to stop living that kind of lifestyle right so communitarians this is the communitarian critique of liberalism before we looked

**[20:50]:** at the Marxist critique of liberalism we've also looked at John Stuart Mill and his defense of liberalism and this idea of the harm principle and so I'll leave you now at this point and what you should do is think further about how much Liberty should a government provide for its citizens and this also can be another topic for you to write about in the blog post and to get deeper into it all right so with that I will see you for the next