Describe the Basic Principles of Liberalism.
Answers
Description :
Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free market, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom
Answer:
It’s beginning to sound cliché to say liberalism is in crisis, but anti-liberal parties are on the rise across Europe, Brexit is generally understood to be a setback for liberalism, and in America, Donald Trump rode anti-liberal sentiments to power and early signs point to a deeply anti-liberal agenda. Many have abandoned liberal principles, and even those I would call friends of liberalism have begun to think that liberalism has failed. It’s time to remind ourselves of just what liberalism is and what are its basic features.
Liberalism comes in many forms, and any tradition this old and studied will frustrate those who attempt to define even a common, agreed upon core. What I’ll offer instead is a family of principles that almost always constitutes what we think of as liberalism. My aim is to describe these principles and discuss what they mean and dispel what they don’t mean. My hope is that many people who may be disillusioned with liberalism will look upon these principles with fresh eyes.
Liberalism is often defined in terms of the primacy of individual liberty. This is already two concepts: individualism and liberty. These apply to all human persons, which is to say the principles are universal. Individualism and universalism are supported by the idea that persons have in some sense an innate moral equality merely by virtue of their humanity. Finally, pluralism, or a commitment to toleration of diversity of belief and culture, directly obtains from the moral equality of individuals and their free use of reason.