Abstract
In a liberal society, the price we pay to secure our own freedom is relinquishing the power to impose our ideas, beliefs, opinions and values on others. Bromell argues that freedom is not the only value, but it has a very high priority in a pluralist democratic politics. This chapter reflects on what freedom means and why it matters, principles that may justify interfering with others’ freedom, and limits to tolerance. The proposed resolution for public leadership is to be respectful of our own and others’ freedom. This implies opting for governmental intervention as a last resort, not a first resort; seeking opportunities to reduce inequalities and enable the effective freedom of people to lead lives they have reason to value; facilitating citizen participation in self-government; and declining to dominate, threaten or belittle people with whom we do not agree.
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Notes
- 1.
The English Civil Wars and Glorious Revolution (1688), the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) all reflected and contributed to the development of liberalism, the origins of which can be traced back to disputes between plebeians and patricians in ancient Rome.
- 2.
Raz (1986) elaborates on four features of tolerance: (1) only behaviour that is unwelcome to the person towards whom it is addressed or behaviour that is normally seen as unwelcome is intolerant behaviour; (2) one is tolerant only if one inclines or is tempted not to be; (3) that inclination is based on dislike or antagonism to the behaviour, character or some feature of the existence of its object; and (4) the intolerant inclination is in itself, at least in the eyes of the person experiencing it, worthwhile or desirable (pp. 401–407).
- 3.
On the “presumption of liberty”, see Feinberg (1973, pp. 20–22). Raz (1986, p. 8) argues that “talk of a presumption of liberty is misleading and confusing.” He does affirm, however, that “Liberalism is a doctrine about political morality which revolves around the importance of personal liberty” (p. 17).
- 4.
Sen (2009) wryly observes that tension between different approaches to freedom arises “if and only if we have room for ‘at most one idea’” (p. 308).
- 5.
- 6.
Civic republicanism is not the same thing as membership of the Republican Party in the United States, or proposals to end constitutional monarchy in Commonwealth countries like Australia and New Zealand. See further Pettit (1997, 2006); Sandel (1996, 2005, pp. 9–34). Pettit (1997) focuses a great deal of his discussion on the political ideal of freedom as non-domination—“the condition under which you live in the presence of other people but at the mercy of none” (p. 80).
- 7.
On “liberty-limiting principles”, see especially Feinberg (1973, 1980, pp. 69–70). Feinberg (1973, pp. 22–24) explicitly addresses the anarchistic principle, which denies that any coercion by the state or society can ever be justified. Contra anarchism, liberals believe that the circumstances of human life being what they are, human well-being can best be achieved in communities that are subject to political authorities, provided those authorities are in turn subject to principles requiring the protection and promotion of freedom (Raz, 1986, p. 21).
- 8.
To be clear, an intervention may be justifiable without necessarily being justified. Whether or not a particular intervention is justified requires political determination and the settled agreement of the public in a given context.
- 9.
- 10.
The Wolfenden Report (Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, chaired by Sir John Wolfenden) was commissioned following a number of high-profile trials for homosexual “offences”, including those of Alan Turing and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.
- 11.
In fact, New Zealand’s Crimes Act 1961 (ss. 143–144) prohibits bestiality (“upon penetration”) or any act of indecency with an animal, without specifying whether the animal is dead or alive.
- 12.
- 13.
What is sometimes called libertarian paternalism is a form of soft paternalism, but not as soft as others. Behavioural economics and “nudge theory”, for example, seeks to steer an individual’s preferences in welfare-enhancing ways without either eliminating freedom of choice but also without necessarily requiring conscious choice. See further Thaler and Sunstein (2008); John, et al. (2011).
- 14.
Neither are economistic considerations of market failure, government failure and benefit-cost ratio either necessary or sufficient to justify all government intervention, but they too may be important things to think about.
- 15.
The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed in 1840 between representatives of the British Crown and over 500 iwi (tribe) and hapū (sub-tribe) chiefs.
- 16.
Janet Anderson-Bidois (2018), Chief Legal Advisor for New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission, has explained that the Commission has no power to investigate or prosecute potential breaches of s.61 of the Human Rights Act. The Commission can assist the parties to resolve a complaint through its independent dispute resolution and mediation service. If a complaint is not resolved through mediation, or one party will not participate, the complainant can then go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, which can decide whether the law has been breached and award damages and other remedies. The Tribunal and the High Court have both affirmed a very high legal threshold to breach s.61.
- 17.
Popper’s note on this is worth reading in full, as it sets a high bar for intolerance of intolerance: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal” (Popper, 1966, p. 265 n.4).
- 18.
Although the Treaty of Waitangi is commonly referred to as “the founding document of the nation”, it is not part of New Zealand’s domestic law except where its “principles” are referred to in various statutes enacted since the 1980s. There is no consensus, however, on what these principles are or what they mean for public life. Since 2004, when he was leader of the National Party, Dr Brash has argued that New Zealand must build “a modern, prosperous, democratic nation based on one rule of law for all” (Brash, 2004).
- 19.
Ben Elton’s Identity crisis (2019) is a biting satire about an identity-focused crisis in public discourse and the manipulation of information and outrage for political purposes.
- 20.
In this respect, multiculturalism undermines liberalism to the extent that liberalism seeks to protect the autonomy of equal individuals, while multiculturalism promotes equal respect for cultures, even when those cultures do not respect the autonomy of the individuals who participate in them (Fukuyama, 2018, p. 111).
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Bromell, D. (2019). Freedom, Toleration and Respect. In: Ethical Competencies for Public Leadership. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27943-1_4
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