1 00:00:10,780 --> 00:00:21,760 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2012 Don Dorf lecture in memory of this country's third warden, Ralph. 2 00:00:21,820 --> 00:00:27,370 Don Dorf, I'm delighted to welcome several members of the to family here today. 3 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:37,300 It's a great pleasure to have you with us. I'd also like particularly to recognise Professor Michael Gehring of the Site Foundation in Hamburg, 4 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:46,600 to which Rudolph was very closely connected and which has been a great friend of the Don Dorf program. 5 00:00:48,880 --> 00:01:03,970 I think it's no exaggeration to say that our lecture this evening is the most influential philosophical exponent of liberalism in the world today. 6 00:01:05,320 --> 00:01:14,559 That's certainly true in the English speaking world, almost certainly in the wider West, but even beyond the traditional West. 7 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:22,630 I was just recalling that we met quite by chance in the foyer of a grand hotel in Beijing, 8 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:31,779 where some senior members of the Chinese academic establishment had asked Professor 9 00:01:31,780 --> 00:01:38,680 Dworkin to explain to them this apparently somewhat unfamiliar concept of liberalism. 10 00:01:41,290 --> 00:01:53,260 For more than 40 years, Professor Dworkin has developed, elaborated, refined a consistent account of modern egalitarian liberalism, 11 00:01:54,100 --> 00:01:58,870 particularly in the field of philosophy of law, but by no means only. 12 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:05,320 And many of us will remember a conference in this very room three years ago which 13 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:11,020 resulted in this publication you can pick up outside called Liberalism in East and West, 14 00:02:11,020 --> 00:02:20,229 in which after two days in which we had explored all the multiple complexities of liberalism in different parts of the world and the many, 15 00:02:20,230 --> 00:02:28,870 many meanings of the term. The very end. Professor Dworkin stood up and told us exactly what liberalism is in the singular, 16 00:02:29,380 --> 00:02:41,980 in a really magnificent account which has now culminated in this book, Justice for Hedgehogs. 17 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:54,700 The word magisterial is much overused, like the word revolution, but this is truly a magisterial book immensely learned, 18 00:02:54,700 --> 00:03:05,319 lucid, wide ranging and also strikingly moving in its reflections on how a good and meaningful life might be lived. 19 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:10,810 Reflections from perhaps a slightly later stage than than some people in this room. 20 00:03:12,850 --> 00:03:19,840 And therefore, there could be no speaker better qualified to address us today. 21 00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:30,490 On the question of how universal is liberalism, we are also extremely fortunate in our respondent, our own Professor Adam Roberts, 22 00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:40,150 president of the British Academy Emeritus Professor of International Relations in this university, the doyen of international relations in Britain. 23 00:03:40,810 --> 00:03:50,080 And many of us will recall that in your retirement seminar, if if retirement is exactly the right word from what followed, 24 00:03:51,250 --> 00:03:58,150 which was, in a sense, all about this question, it was about what we call complex universalism. 25 00:03:58,390 --> 00:04:02,440 And the question how you build a liberal international order. 26 00:04:02,890 --> 00:04:12,220 The subject on which Professor Roberts is currently writing a book in a world of very different cultures and civilisations and a world in which. 27 00:04:15,310 --> 00:04:23,710 non-Western powers are becoming more powerful and arguably trying to spread their own rather different norms. 28 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:30,880 So no one could be better qualified to respond from the perspective of international relations. 29 00:04:31,450 --> 00:04:37,360 So with that, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming this year's Down to Earth lecture. 30 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:48,440 Professor Oliver. Thank you. 31 00:04:49,770 --> 00:05:00,750 And I have to turn this. I'm sorry. Can I be heard now on the back? 32 00:05:02,820 --> 00:05:07,800 Thank you for that extraordinary introduction. 33 00:05:08,370 --> 00:05:18,130 Undeserved, but nevertheless very welcome, particularly considering its source. 34 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:24,090 Our topic, as Tim said, is liberalism a political creed? 35 00:05:24,990 --> 00:05:34,980 The creative Ralph Dawn of the creed that I would venture to say most of us here endorse. 36 00:05:35,850 --> 00:05:43,230 Our question is about the scope of liberalism's domain, its authority. 37 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:50,040 Is liberalism a required political morality? 38 00:05:50,700 --> 00:06:01,559 Everywhere there are human beings so that a society in which women are subordinated or there's grotesque 39 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:11,390 inequality of wealth or people are required to worship in a certain way or politics is one party, 40 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:21,030 if any part of it. Can we say of such places that they are illegitimate because illiberal? 41 00:06:22,230 --> 00:06:35,340 Or on the contrary, should we say that liberalism is a mandatory political morality only in those communities 42 00:06:35,340 --> 00:06:42,200 in which liberalism resonates with shared understanding and shared tradition? 43 00:06:42,210 --> 00:06:48,450 That would be the view that liberalism is only parochial, not universal, 44 00:06:48,810 --> 00:06:57,120 and is moreover parochial so only a relatively few political communities in the world. 45 00:06:57,420 --> 00:07:00,960 The question is which of these two views is right? 46 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:08,970 Politicians in the West, particularly in my country, strongly support the universal view. 47 00:07:09,990 --> 00:07:15,900 They say we should export our values and they speak. 48 00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:20,940 Famous line now a very long time ago. 49 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:30,780 We should make the world safe for democracy, by which was meant we should make the world safe for our conception of democracy. 50 00:07:31,620 --> 00:07:46,440 But the rival view, the view that liberalism only has a parochial grip, is held by a great many scholars and is held in a range of sophistication. 51 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:56,280 There are, for example, cultural anthropologists who say that a political morality can't be true, 52 00:07:56,280 --> 00:08:03,600 absolutely can only be true for those communities in which it has roots. 53 00:08:05,290 --> 00:08:09,280 There are more sophisticated versions of this idea. 54 00:08:10,270 --> 00:08:21,490 One developed by Isaiah Berlin, has proved particularly influential and to be called, as he called it, pluralism. 55 00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:27,250 Let me read his one of his statements, a piece he wrote in the New York Review of Books. 56 00:08:29,230 --> 00:08:38,830 I came to the conclusion that there is a plurality of ideals as there is a plurality of cultures and of temperaments. 57 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:46,360 I believe that there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek and that these values differ. 58 00:08:47,050 --> 00:08:52,120 There is not typical Berlin statement that there is not an infinity of them. 59 00:08:52,600 --> 00:09:01,210 The number of human values, of values that I can pursue while maintaining my human assemblage, my human character is finite. 60 00:09:01,810 --> 00:09:14,110 Let us say 74 or 122 or 26 or some other number, but finite, whatever it may be. 61 00:09:14,650 --> 00:09:23,980 And the difference it makes is that if a man pursues one of these values, I, who do not am able to understand why he pursues it, 62 00:09:24,710 --> 00:09:30,490 what it would be like in his circumstances for me to be induced to pursue it. 63 00:09:31,450 --> 00:09:39,430 Now, John Rawls, certainly the most influential political philosopher of all time, 64 00:09:40,210 --> 00:09:47,140 endorsed Berlin's view in Rawls's mature later book, Political Liberalism. 65 00:09:47,770 --> 00:09:56,560 And he quoted the following further passage from Isaiah Berlin The realm of values is objective, 66 00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:04,570 but values clash, and the full range of values is too extensive to fit into any one social world. 67 00:10:05,410 --> 00:10:12,640 Not only are they incompatible with one another imposing conflicting requirements on institutions, 68 00:10:13,060 --> 00:10:21,010 but there exists no family of workable institutions that can allow sufficient space for them all. 69 00:10:22,530 --> 00:10:31,920 A just liberals ASADA. They may have far more space than other social worlds, but it can never be without loss. 70 00:10:32,850 --> 00:10:39,090 The basic error is to think that because values are objective and hence truly values, 71 00:10:39,450 --> 00:10:45,480 they must be compatible in the realm of values as opposed to the world of fact. 72 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:49,980 Not all truths can fit into one social world. 73 00:10:49,980 --> 00:10:55,260 Well, that is an elegant, very refined statement of the parochial view. 74 00:10:55,890 --> 00:10:59,670 It is the view that I wish to contest. 75 00:11:00,300 --> 00:11:05,520 I want to argue that liberalism is a universal creed. 76 00:11:06,830 --> 00:11:12,740 Universal in the sense that if it's true for anyone, it's true for everyone. 77 00:11:14,410 --> 00:11:21,130 We have to pause now. I've been speaking as if it was perfectly clear what liberalism is. 78 00:11:21,150 --> 00:11:32,070 I said it was a political creed, but there are many different theories, some radically different from another that people have called liberalism. 79 00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:39,400 And the ambiguity, or at least abstraction of these views, has caused trouble. 80 00:11:39,420 --> 00:11:43,650 I remember that when I first came to Oxford as a student, I. 81 00:11:46,290 --> 00:11:49,830 Was asked, what are your political views? I said, I am a liberal. 82 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:59,520 Very unexpected reaction. All the nice, scruffy, bearded people showed me the tarps that I later learned to call them. 83 00:11:59,620 --> 00:12:07,380 Thought I was. I was all right. In America now, liberalism is a pejorative term. 84 00:12:08,460 --> 00:12:17,670 No politician running for office, for the office of the president, certainly since Michael Dukakis announced that he is a liberal, 85 00:12:17,670 --> 00:12:23,730 Obama calls himself a progressive, but I don't think he uses the word liberal. 86 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:33,510 I have on my shelves a book whose title is How to Speak to a Liberal, If You Must. 87 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:42,500 Now, let's distinguish between types of liberalism. 88 00:12:42,540 --> 00:12:49,530 Let's try and just ambiguity the term. There is what we might call minimal liberalism. 89 00:12:50,370 --> 00:13:03,680 This is the view that. Ultimate political power should rest in the people as a whole rather than in a monarchy or in oligarchs. 90 00:13:04,970 --> 00:13:11,510 That view is compatible with no constraint at all on what the people may do. 91 00:13:12,470 --> 00:13:19,700 Another form of liberalism, often called classical liberalism, or even Manchester liberalism, 92 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:25,400 adds to the requirements of popular sovereignty, certain rights. 93 00:13:26,470 --> 00:13:40,810 Eminent among these are economic rights, free trade, the free market, no redistribution that dishonours the result of a free market. 94 00:13:41,380 --> 00:13:47,240 Also what have come to be called liberal negative rights. 95 00:13:47,260 --> 00:13:57,120 Freedom of speech, for example. Certain degree of privacy, rule of law, fair trials and so forth. 96 00:13:58,180 --> 00:14:07,110 The third kind of liberalism, the liberalism so disappointed in the United States now is egalitarian liberalism, 97 00:14:07,390 --> 00:14:11,320 or, as it's often called in Europe, social democracy. 98 00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:16,740 And this adds to the economic rights and the negative rights. 99 00:14:18,710 --> 00:14:28,160 Derogate from the economic rights to the extent necessary rights to economic equality and rights to social equality, 100 00:14:28,700 --> 00:14:39,920 favouring redistribution in search of greater equality and favouring government constraints to protect social equality. 101 00:14:40,580 --> 00:14:43,850 To guard against discrimination of various kinds. 102 00:14:44,780 --> 00:14:50,480 Now we have these three, and there are more accounts of what liberalism is. 103 00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:57,770 As Tim said, I think there's a right answer to this question and I'll try and say what I think it is. 104 00:14:58,340 --> 00:15:02,390 But we should notice a temptation. Many people have succumbed to it. 105 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:14,060 The temptation in the face of ambiguity or conflict in a shared political value is to recommend junking the term. 106 00:15:15,310 --> 00:15:19,960 Not worrying about whether liberalism is universal or parochial, 107 00:15:20,470 --> 00:15:27,400 but asking much more concrete questions like in what kind of society is a free press necessary? 108 00:15:27,730 --> 00:15:32,650 I think that's a mistake. Political concepts. 109 00:15:32,650 --> 00:15:35,980 Justice. Democracy, liberalism. 110 00:15:38,170 --> 00:15:50,170 Those are represent a kind of sharing of values that represent values that we accept exist in some neighbourhood, 111 00:15:50,710 --> 00:15:55,960 even though we disagree about precisely which values those are. 112 00:15:56,230 --> 00:16:05,650 And that makes possible a kind of discussion of the kind that, as Tim said, we have in this room last year and which we might have this evening, 113 00:16:06,790 --> 00:16:15,880 how should we understand what justice really is or democracy really is, or in our case, what liberalism really is? 114 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:26,560 I am therefore going to suggest that we raise the bar of abstraction. 115 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:35,320 I'm going to offer two principles which I believe can be defended as basic liberal principles, 116 00:16:35,830 --> 00:16:44,140 principles that are shared among those who endorse or disparage particular more concrete statements of what? 117 00:16:45,110 --> 00:16:56,510 Liberalism is these are principles that are defended before they are, in fact let loose at large injustice. 118 00:16:56,810 --> 00:17:03,530 The hedgehogs. So I'm going to state them in a rather summary form this evening. 119 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:12,860 The first basic principle of liberalism is that coercive government is illegitimate. 120 00:17:14,050 --> 00:17:24,800 Except on the assumption. Of equal concern for all those against whom Dominion is exercised. 121 00:17:25,490 --> 00:17:36,350 Equal concern means that in political calculations in the final overall decision of what to do in the coercive realm. 122 00:17:37,510 --> 00:17:42,460 Everyone's fate comes the same. That's the first principle. 123 00:17:43,460 --> 00:17:53,950 The first of the basic liberal principles. The second is that coercive government is not legitimate unless it respects the 124 00:17:53,950 --> 00:18:01,810 right and responsibility of each individual to decide for himself or herself. 125 00:18:02,410 --> 00:18:08,200 What counts would count as success in living. 126 00:18:09,010 --> 00:18:12,160 What would count as a good life? 127 00:18:12,970 --> 00:18:22,630 That is a decision. According to the second liberal principle that must be left to individuals one by one. 128 00:18:22,660 --> 00:18:34,900 That, of course, is not the decision. What economic system to impose, what criminal law to have it hold only for each person's decision. 129 00:18:36,310 --> 00:18:44,710 A decision that must be taken into effect by equal concern as to what success in living would be for that person. 130 00:18:46,170 --> 00:18:49,650 Now I wanted to comment about these two principles. 131 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:56,910 As I say, I've argued for them and tried to make them more developed elsewhere. 132 00:18:57,780 --> 00:19:07,110 But one thing it's important to remember is that these are principles about the necessary conditions of legitimate coercion. 133 00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:13,330 They are not principles of individual morality. 134 00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:23,680 I am not required by any moral code to have equal concern for your children, as I have for my children. 135 00:19:24,250 --> 00:19:33,110 I am certainly not required to respect your idea of what a good life would consist. 136 00:19:34,850 --> 00:19:41,190 I may, in fact, hold that view in contempt and try to persuade you out of it. 137 00:19:41,210 --> 00:19:47,630 These are principles only about the conditions of collective coercion. 138 00:19:49,370 --> 00:19:58,460 Secondly, just part of that first I of marriage, these are positions of about coercion, not persuasion. 139 00:19:59,700 --> 00:20:07,440 It is doesn't follow from these Liberal principles that government may not endorse. 140 00:20:07,590 --> 00:20:18,090 Particular values may not, for example, construct museums and select which art is protected in which museum. 141 00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:22,350 These are about direct coercion of individuals. 142 00:20:23,100 --> 00:20:28,710 Now, the third and most important point about these basic principles. 143 00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,640 Is that they are both imperative. 144 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:41,260 It's perfectly true that the first principle of equal concern sounds like equality, 145 00:20:42,050 --> 00:20:47,630 and the second principle of respect for people's autonomy sounds like liberty. 146 00:20:48,320 --> 00:21:00,530 And it's an old idea in political morality that liberty and equality must one day conflict and that governments must be free to choose, 147 00:21:00,530 --> 00:21:03,530 among them, value pluralism. 148 00:21:04,310 --> 00:21:16,420 The view, endorsed by Berlin and Rawls, takes as its paradigm instance the supposed conflict between liberty and equality. 149 00:21:16,430 --> 00:21:25,370 As I've stated these principles, liberalism denies that these are principles that can be compromised. 150 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:31,230 One to the benefit of another. 151 00:21:32,340 --> 00:21:38,700 They are both imperative because they state the conditions of human dignity. 152 00:21:39,150 --> 00:21:42,390 And dignity is not for compromise. 153 00:21:43,410 --> 00:21:55,410 But how do we apply them together? Through interpretation, we must arrive at a an understanding of what equal concern requires. 154 00:21:55,770 --> 00:22:00,420 That is consistent with respecting individual autonomy. 155 00:22:01,590 --> 00:22:11,940 We must correspondingly develop a sense of what autonomy requires that is consistent with our understanding of equal concern. 156 00:22:12,660 --> 00:22:23,340 We must approach political morality as a problem calling for a solution to simultaneous equations. 157 00:22:25,290 --> 00:22:40,920 How might that how might that go? I'll summarise two important consequences of seeing these as principles with simultaneous demands. 158 00:22:41,250 --> 00:22:51,480 The first A Theory of Distributive Justice. Society has resources, develops these resources through commerce and trade and production. 159 00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:56,370 How shall the consequences be distributed? 160 00:22:57,540 --> 00:23:11,700 You might think that equal concern for the fate of everybody will require a distribution in which everyone has, in the end, the same wealth. 161 00:23:12,790 --> 00:23:19,650 Without regard to skill. Without regard to luck, without regard to choices. 162 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:29,380 Of occupation or work as against leisure investment as against consumption. 163 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:35,470 You might think that equal concern would require what sometimes called flat equality, 164 00:23:35,980 --> 00:23:45,790 but we can see quite quickly it can't be that that understanding of equal concern would destroy the second principle, 165 00:23:46,750 --> 00:23:54,580 because it would deny individual responsibility for all the kinds of decisions I've just mentioned. 166 00:23:55,540 --> 00:24:06,370 No, we cannot aim. If we want to take both principles on board, we cannot aim at equality of well. 167 00:24:07,420 --> 00:24:16,090 Ex post. That is, after all the decisions have been made after the wheel has spun. 168 00:24:17,630 --> 00:24:28,010 But we can and must insist on equality, ex ante equality before the various decisions have been made. 169 00:24:28,820 --> 00:24:35,240 And that means that we must see distributive justice as guided. 170 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:49,370 Buy insurance. By asking suppose before all of the decisions, all of the episodes of good bad luck have been met. 171 00:24:49,820 --> 00:24:56,870 Suppose people had equal wealth and could buy insurance against unemployment. 172 00:24:57,740 --> 00:25:01,580 Accident or disease on the same terms. 173 00:25:02,060 --> 00:25:06,130 Of course that. Is it an imaginary fantasy? 174 00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,670 But we can answer the question, I suppose. 175 00:25:10,270 --> 00:25:13,870 And that question can't be answered. Precisely. 176 00:25:13,870 --> 00:25:19,320 Serves as an important guide. Two programs of distributive justice. 177 00:25:19,650 --> 00:25:29,890 I believe it can be seen, for example, as the skeleton model behind President Obama's Affordable Health Care Act. 178 00:25:29,910 --> 00:25:33,270 I'll say something about that in a few moments. 179 00:25:35,150 --> 00:25:41,610 Free speech. Topic of our deliberations tomorrow. 180 00:25:43,580 --> 00:25:52,070 The two basic principles together demand a very generous understanding of free speech. 181 00:25:52,990 --> 00:26:04,240 The first principle, principle of equal concern requires not just equal concern in the economic distribution. 182 00:26:05,410 --> 00:26:11,110 It requires political equality and political equality. 183 00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:20,740 Requires democracy. And democracy requires not just equal vote, but equal voice. 184 00:26:22,130 --> 00:26:24,800 An equal voice must mean. 185 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:39,040 But each of us is free not just to vote his own convictions, but to attempt in the fora of democratic argument to convince others to his view. 186 00:26:40,260 --> 00:26:46,290 And he must have that right, no matter how unwise. 187 00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:59,090 Or repellent or offensive. His views may be that is a condition of democracy, which is a condition of equal concern. 188 00:26:59,510 --> 00:27:09,139 And we must accept that with whatever price we must pay in injured feelings to secure the second principle. 189 00:27:09,140 --> 00:27:15,530 The second basic principle also recommends a generous conception of free speech. 190 00:27:16,250 --> 00:27:22,460 It says people have the right and responsibility to form their own personality. 191 00:27:22,700 --> 00:27:26,960 Their own sense of what counts is good for them. 192 00:27:27,890 --> 00:27:40,640 And that, as sociologists have taught now for two generations, cannot be done by individuals just behind their own arms. 193 00:27:40,970 --> 00:27:55,300 We form personalities in society, and we form them by presenting ourselves to others as having the personality we wish to be understood to have. 194 00:27:55,310 --> 00:28:06,620 And again, this can't be done unless individuals are free to express their opinions, however unpopular or indeed however repellent. 195 00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:20,720 Now these are examples of the consequences that I believe follow from liberalism understood not in any particular concrete way, 196 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:27,980 but understood as the two basic principles I've tried to describe that is understood in an abstract way. 197 00:28:28,190 --> 00:28:33,950 Now we come back to our question. Are the two principles? 198 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,510 Is liberalism so understood for everyone? 199 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:47,670 Is it a universal creed or only parochial for those communities whose traditions endorsed it? 200 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,860 Of course. Liberalism. 201 00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:59,700 The two principles must be sensitive to the circumstances of a particular community. 202 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,080 They must be sensitive to the wealth of the community. 203 00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:10,620 What concern requires by way of medical care must be different in a poor community from a rich one. 204 00:29:11,620 --> 00:29:21,430 And what counts as incitement to violence will depend upon vocabularies which differ from society to society. 205 00:29:21,730 --> 00:29:29,230 Our question is not. Does liberalism have different consequences in different under different circumstances? 206 00:29:29,590 --> 00:29:40,150 It's rather the question is liberalism itself the two principles true only for some communities and not for others. 207 00:29:40,810 --> 00:29:52,560 That is our question. We come now to what I believe is a very important juncture. 208 00:29:54,710 --> 00:30:06,130 I wish to argue. That though political morality may be sensitive to distinctions of culture. 209 00:30:06,940 --> 00:30:17,680 What counts as the correct morality in one society is not necessarily the same as what counts in another society with very different traditions. 210 00:30:18,340 --> 00:30:28,720 Political morality can be sensitive to culture, broadly understood, but it cannot be sensitive all the way down. 211 00:30:29,950 --> 00:30:36,610 It must bottom out in principles that are claimed to be universal. 212 00:30:38,370 --> 00:30:51,000 Consider by way of an example what I suppose is the most extravagant version of cultural relativism that we could imagine. 213 00:30:51,150 --> 00:30:52,710 Consider the following theory. 214 00:30:55,290 --> 00:31:10,830 Political morality of a particular community must be a morality that reflection has roots in resonate with shared understanding and a shared history. 215 00:31:11,250 --> 00:31:15,840 Foster. That sounds tremendously. 216 00:31:17,050 --> 00:31:22,930 Parochial. But since it's a moral claim, we must ask. 217 00:31:24,060 --> 00:31:27,520 Why? Why is that so? 218 00:31:28,870 --> 00:31:32,440 And many answers are in principle available. 219 00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:42,010 We might say, for instance, what some anthropologists had said, cultural diversity is itself something worthwhile. 220 00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:50,260 Different communities have different cultures and hence different kinds of institutions. 221 00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:57,760 And it is a very good thing that there be that kind of diversity for any number of reasons. 222 00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:07,160 That's it. You might say a collective rather than an individual claim, but there are individual claims we might make. 223 00:32:07,180 --> 00:32:16,300 We might say that a society which has not known democracy will be. 224 00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:29,930 Riddled with tensions will become inefficient or become unstable if an attempt is made to end graft, democracy and a culture resistant to it. 225 00:32:31,070 --> 00:32:36,800 We hear this quite a bit. We hear about Asian values. 226 00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:48,760 Mr. Business man called Mr. Lee wrote an extremely interesting op ed piece in The New York Times a couple of months ago saying 227 00:32:48,850 --> 00:32:59,290 explaining that the Chinese conception of democracy is very different from ours because the Chinese believe that democracy is a means. 228 00:32:59,290 --> 00:33:05,050 Whereas he said, You in America somehow seem to think it's an end in itself. 229 00:33:05,890 --> 00:33:10,300 And he offered that as an explanation for the massacre of Tiananmen Square. 230 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:20,140 There's there are other possible explanations, justifications for this paradigm of cultural relativism. 231 00:33:20,470 --> 00:33:30,610 We might talk about people's expectations. We might talk about people's sense of dignity being connected to continuity with their ancestors. 232 00:33:30,940 --> 00:33:43,330 The world is full of explanations of that. So but one thing that must be true about each of them is that it must claim universal dominion. 233 00:33:45,070 --> 00:33:56,470 But they claim that diversity of culture is something good in itself can't itself be thought to be parochial or cultural. 234 00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,270 Because then we would have an infinite regress of explanation. 235 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:11,570 Relativity was bottom in a universal claim. 236 00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:20,570 It cannot we cannot if we're talking about morality rather than simple anthropology, 237 00:34:21,930 --> 00:34:30,340 our moral conviction must, in the end, be universal in their claim. 238 00:34:31,590 --> 00:34:34,950 Now. How deep? 239 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:41,520 Can. Relativity go, when must it bottom out? 240 00:34:43,370 --> 00:34:49,910 Here's a suggested answer. Relativity must come to a point. 241 00:34:51,300 --> 00:34:57,660 At which it deploys principles of moral valence. 242 00:34:58,660 --> 00:35:08,290 Principles of moral valence are those that answer the question when morally speaking, are things getting better and what are they getting worse? 243 00:35:10,240 --> 00:35:20,110 It doesn't demand that doesn't demand a consequentialist answer, though consequential and consequentialist answer would serve. 244 00:35:22,020 --> 00:35:28,860 A principle of moral valence may be a candid kind of claim about intrinsic respect for human being, 245 00:35:29,700 --> 00:35:35,910 or it may be a claim about the prosperity of community. 246 00:35:36,930 --> 00:35:42,070 But again, a claim of moral valence is indispensable. 247 00:35:42,090 --> 00:35:53,190 At some point you can't have a moral theory without an understanding when things are getting better or getting worse, morally speaking, 248 00:35:54,270 --> 00:36:07,320 and any such theory of moral balance must be universal in its claim, or it can't do the work it has to do to make a theory of moral theory. 249 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:19,620 Now I emphasise that because the two basic principles of liberalism are principles stating moral valence. 250 00:36:20,890 --> 00:36:29,290 But first principle says what counts as going better has to do with the fate of individual people. 251 00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:35,710 And the fate of each must count the same when coercion is in point. 252 00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:45,920 The second principle argues what counts as things going better for an individual. 253 00:36:46,250 --> 00:36:52,910 It says that must be left person by person to the person whose life it is. 254 00:36:54,480 --> 00:37:04,770 These are statements of moral vengeance. They may be wrong, but they can't be right for some and wrong for others. 255 00:37:06,650 --> 00:37:13,850 If liberalism is true for some. If it's true for us, it's true for everyone. 256 00:37:15,020 --> 00:37:22,390 Is it true for us? I've argued that it is true. 257 00:37:22,450 --> 00:37:28,389 Indeed, I've offered an argument in the Hedgehogs book, which I'm now going to summarise. 258 00:37:28,390 --> 00:37:34,120 I find that argument absolutely compelling. And here it is. 259 00:37:35,620 --> 00:37:46,600 We're talking, remember, about coercion, about people in power, forcing other people to do what they do not want to do. 260 00:37:47,380 --> 00:37:52,950 Coercion is justified only when certain conditions are met. 261 00:37:52,960 --> 00:38:01,150 Coercion is justified only when it is consistent with the dignity of the person coerced. 262 00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:12,100 It cannot be consistent with his dignity unless it treats his fate as as important as anybody else's. 263 00:38:12,460 --> 00:38:16,300 Otherwise, it's a form of slavery and inconsistent with dignity. 264 00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:30,080 It cannot be consistent with dignity if it usurps that person's judgement about what it is to take his interests into account as an equal. 265 00:38:32,060 --> 00:38:37,580 Now, as I say, I find that perfectly compelling. I admit, reluctantly, that you may not. 266 00:38:38,450 --> 00:38:44,630 But. If you don't, then you have another theory. 267 00:38:45,230 --> 00:38:51,060 Another theory of what justifies coercion. That is a theory of moral valence. 268 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,910 And that theory, whatever it is, must be universal. 269 00:39:01,670 --> 00:39:09,140 I. I might take a moment to. To warn against a certain mistake that might be possible at this point. 270 00:39:10,050 --> 00:39:21,880 I think it's a mistake. And that is to say. We can't talk about political morality, liberalism or any other. 271 00:39:22,900 --> 00:39:27,680 As true or false. They're entirely subjective. 272 00:39:28,460 --> 00:39:32,630 And because they're subjective, they can only be different. 273 00:39:32,810 --> 00:39:36,650 Not right or wrong, not true or mistaken. 274 00:39:38,060 --> 00:39:45,240 Time is now short, so I can't be polite that viewers incoherent. 275 00:39:46,070 --> 00:39:53,660 It's incoherent because scepticism of that form is itself a moral position. 276 00:39:54,860 --> 00:40:07,640 To say there can't be right or wrong is to say the rich have no obligation to help the poor, that they do have an obligation to help the poor. 277 00:40:07,670 --> 00:40:17,660 It's a moral claim. No matter how fancy we get with ontology, no matter how much we talk about the distinction between meta ethics and ethics, 278 00:40:17,990 --> 00:40:27,350 it remains true that someone who says there is no right and wrong in this neighbourhood is denying that rich people have an obligation. 279 00:40:28,330 --> 00:40:33,320 To help the poor. He understands the language he must use tonight. 280 00:40:33,450 --> 00:40:37,290 It so impolite. Incoherent. 281 00:40:38,130 --> 00:40:39,900 I want to end with. 282 00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:52,320 An observation that as I began these remarks by talking about politicians in the West, a lot of them in the United States, I confess, 283 00:40:52,830 --> 00:41:03,750 who talk about exporting our values to the rest of the world, exporting or might say our liberal attitudes to the rest of the world. 284 00:41:05,430 --> 00:41:11,600 But we. We understand liberalism in terms of the two principles. 285 00:41:11,900 --> 00:41:17,540 We can hardly say with a straight face that we have achieved liberalism. 286 00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,590 The welfare state in this country. Admirable, I believe. 287 00:41:23,580 --> 00:41:30,300 Could be seen as an attempt to distribute in accordance with the hypothetical insurance. 288 00:41:30,930 --> 00:41:38,130 I think it can be I think that was the the Fabian instinct behind the development of the welfare state here. 289 00:41:38,820 --> 00:41:48,210 But if we look at it that way, we must agree that it's dramatically underfunded and getting worse day by day. 290 00:41:49,490 --> 00:41:55,550 In the United States, we celebrate the generosity of our conception of free speech. 291 00:41:56,390 --> 00:42:01,610 But our Supreme Court so much understood what free speech is about, 292 00:42:02,240 --> 00:42:12,350 that it held that our Constitution demands that corporations be allowed to give unlimited sums to political campaigns. 293 00:42:12,650 --> 00:42:18,770 That's in fear, striking distance, corrupting democracy beyond repair. 294 00:42:19,250 --> 00:42:26,210 And it's an extreme, illiberal understanding of free speech in France. 295 00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:29,750 I've discovered by reading about the recent election, 296 00:42:30,140 --> 00:42:41,540 the odious Michel Le Pen was convicted of a crime for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not inhumane. 297 00:42:41,870 --> 00:42:52,820 That's a repellent view, but we can't suppose in any fidelity to the basic principles of liberalism that it's a criminal offence. 298 00:42:54,060 --> 00:43:07,320 We should stop talking about exporting liberalism for a while and begin to think about importing liberalism from where? 299 00:43:09,010 --> 00:43:18,260 From the only place we can. From universal, timeless, objective, moral truth. 300 00:43:18,620 --> 00:43:26,720 Where else? Thank you for your patience. Well, ladies and gentlemen, can you hear me all right at the back? 301 00:43:27,370 --> 00:43:31,820 Oh, I'm sure you will agree with me that that was an extraordinary tour de force. 302 00:43:33,170 --> 00:43:34,820 Done. Note this. 303 00:43:35,750 --> 00:43:46,760 My comments will not be so hopeless because Professor Wilkin was kind enough to give me some advance warning of his main line of argument. 304 00:43:47,690 --> 00:43:57,680 And it helped me to compile some notes, which I think will be sure to come into his category of incoherence. 305 00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:07,940 And he, early on in his remarks, I quoted and criticised Isaiah Berlin. 306 00:44:08,720 --> 00:44:21,470 And I'm reminded that once when going from Oxford to Chelsea to give a lecture in the early post-Cold War years on the subject of international norms, 307 00:44:22,490 --> 00:44:27,890 I found myself standing at the bus stop in the high street next to Isaiah Berlin, 308 00:44:29,210 --> 00:44:33,800 and I couldn't resist the opportunity to get a line from him as to what I should say at LSC. 309 00:44:34,370 --> 00:44:38,930 I said, Are there any such things as universal norms? 310 00:44:40,190 --> 00:44:46,330 And as I said, No, no, no. 311 00:44:46,970 --> 00:44:54,140 Such thing as a universal norm viewed equality that is universally admired is courage, and that's deeply ambiguous. 312 00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:59,419 So that was his answer to today's question. 313 00:44:59,420 --> 00:45:12,170 And today we've had a rather more inspiring and encouraging answer, which is that liberalism is of universal value. 314 00:45:13,220 --> 00:45:18,200 And I start out from a sympathy with that position. 315 00:45:18,980 --> 00:45:27,950 Indeed, today I was reading, as is my habit, a report from the Canadian Parliament, 316 00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:40,220 which was giving an award recognising the extraordinary achievements of Metropolitan Jet Ski in the Second World War in saving the lives of many Jews. 317 00:45:40,910 --> 00:45:45,530 And it referred to human rights as mankind's highest obligation. 318 00:45:46,430 --> 00:45:50,870 And again, I have deep sympathy with that approach. 319 00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:59,120 It's a noble expression of, uh, not just an important point of view, but a fundamental value. 320 00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:13,940 Well, now, I still have to confess that I have a bit of trouble with the presentation that we had just heard from Ron Dworkin. 321 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:20,810 Uh, he laid out the central question before us with absolutely characteristic clarity. 322 00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:32,780 Um, he said one question is whether liberalism is only a parochial political morality with roots and authority and only part of the world. 323 00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:41,030 Not as many of us think, a universal political manoeuvre, morality with authority everywhere. 324 00:46:42,380 --> 00:46:50,120 Now, my purpose in these initial remarks is to suggest a slightly different framing of the question, 325 00:46:51,140 --> 00:46:57,470 and I'll suggest a slightly reframed version at the end on the way there. 326 00:46:58,100 --> 00:47:05,180 I'll try and indicate where I wholeheartedly agree with Professor Dworkin and where I have some reservations. 327 00:47:08,940 --> 00:47:19,470 Professor Dworkin makes it crystal clear that his advocacy of a universal political morality is not the same as advocacy of particular actions, 328 00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:25,680 whether they be trade boycotts or military interventions, etc., to end practices we dislike. 329 00:47:26,250 --> 00:47:33,090 So this is not an argument about intervention. However, the risk of making a cheap point, 330 00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:39,750 I should say that there's a long history of a belief in the universal value of 331 00:47:39,750 --> 00:47:46,500 liberal ideas being associated inextricably with patterns of interventionism. 332 00:47:47,430 --> 00:47:58,560 This nexus has continued in our own time with interventions Western interventions in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq. 333 00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,970 Now, you may take different views of each of these, and I'm not criticising them all. 334 00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:09,900 Some I have great sympathy and support for, but because of that nexus, 335 00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:21,090 I am perhaps more wary than Professor Dworkin about proclaiming the universality of liberalism as a foundational political idea. 336 00:48:23,220 --> 00:48:26,620 If, despite my note of concern, we agree on the principle. 337 00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:28,920 This is not a discussion about interventionism. 338 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:40,530 We also agree that liberalism, which this discussion certainly is about, is both an important concept and one that is very hard to define. 339 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:49,410 It's certainly not for me to go into the different meanings of liberalism in any detail, but I do just want to move a difficulty, 340 00:48:49,950 --> 00:48:59,670 which was also noted by Professor Dworkin about the sheer complexity of getting a formal agreed definition of what liberalism is. 341 00:49:00,570 --> 00:49:10,800 The term is encrusted with a huge number of barnacle like connotations, nowhere more so than, as he indicated in the United States. 342 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:18,030 Indeed, so much so that the American inner city political joke has some real resonance. 343 00:49:18,620 --> 00:49:22,230 A question What is the definition of a liberal answer? 344 00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:33,690 A decent person who hasn't been mugged yet? If one ignores the whole question of connotations, even basic meanings of the term can vary. 345 00:49:34,890 --> 00:49:39,480 The meaning pursued in this discussion can be put reasonably simply, 346 00:49:40,260 --> 00:49:47,880 it refers to a political philosophy that emerged in modern and still recognisable form in the late 18th century. 347 00:49:49,290 --> 00:49:53,520 And the essence of it is a belief in liberty as the key condition of intellectual, 348 00:49:54,030 --> 00:49:59,930 social and economic growth, and in progress as an attainable outcome from it. 349 00:50:01,060 --> 00:50:08,110 The main, perhaps the only constraints on liberty that are accepted are those that are embodied in an agreed framework of law, 350 00:50:08,590 --> 00:50:11,830 administered with impartiality and integrity. 351 00:50:13,300 --> 00:50:19,240 And that's why Professor Dworkin does something really valuable when he seeks to refine liberalism, 352 00:50:19,240 --> 00:50:26,950 as he has done here today, into two basic principles which I remind you of. 353 00:50:26,950 --> 00:50:35,350 Take it as coercive government. Note that interesting emphasis on coercion is not legitimate unless it meets the two conditions. 354 00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,520 It shows equal concern for the fate of all those under its dominion. 355 00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:49,330 And unless it acknowledges and facilitates the responsibility of all those to define for themselves their own conception of how to live well. 356 00:50:51,010 --> 00:50:57,910 No one may, I think, legitimately wonder how even reduced to this essential core. 357 00:50:59,030 --> 00:51:09,169 These how universal these two principles can be even long established, democratic and yes, 358 00:51:09,170 --> 00:51:16,400 liberal polities may fail to meet the high standards of these two basic principles. 359 00:51:17,390 --> 00:51:27,920 The question of whether or not a government shows equal concern for the fate of all those under its dominion is precisely what is in contention. 360 00:51:28,370 --> 00:51:37,910 Whether one is discussing the budget. The excessive power of the Murdoch press, the provision of protective equipment to our troops in Afghanistan, 361 00:51:38,420 --> 00:51:48,290 or the residential arrangements of gypsies. And to what extent did we wish in the past to extend to Catholics, 362 00:51:49,070 --> 00:51:58,130 or do we wish today to extend to Muslims or Hindus or others the right to define for themselves how to live well? 363 00:51:59,300 --> 00:52:07,190 Similar questions arise, if in subtly different forms in other liberal democracies, including, of course, in France. 364 00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:17,720 So I end up being even more cautious than Professor Dworkin about whether there can be an agreed and universal definition of liberalism. 365 00:52:18,890 --> 00:52:23,090 But there certainly is a universalist strength in liberalism. 366 00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:29,000 There's a general tendency in political theory, anyway, to work from first principles, 367 00:52:29,570 --> 00:52:36,830 to work out what the good life consists of, and to devise a political system of universal applicability. 368 00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:41,840 That's a characteristic of political science or much political science. 369 00:52:42,470 --> 00:52:46,880 And liberalism has been very much part of that approach. 370 00:52:48,130 --> 00:52:54,760 And since at least the 17th century, many enunciation of liberal interventionism, 371 00:52:55,630 --> 00:53:00,790 whether by politicians or writers, have been worryingly general in character. 372 00:53:02,140 --> 00:53:05,080 The US Declaration of Independence, 1776. 373 00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:12,820 Famously, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. 374 00:53:14,350 --> 00:53:18,490 Wonderful words, but with an implication of universality. 375 00:53:20,020 --> 00:53:22,640 No, not for nothing. 376 00:53:22,660 --> 00:53:31,840 Was the UN's first declaration the first document on human rights after the charter called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? 377 00:53:32,620 --> 00:53:41,349 It couldn't be anything other than Universal. The whole point of it was to establish that there are basic human rights that 378 00:53:41,350 --> 00:53:46,180 should apply to all societies and to get a minimum agreement on what they are. 379 00:53:46,750 --> 00:53:50,710 And in no way do I want to mock this universalist streak. 380 00:53:53,310 --> 00:54:02,370 As a matter of record, all those political philosophers and there have been many who have pronounced that certain types of people were not 381 00:54:02,370 --> 00:54:10,780 yet ready for the practice of democratic politics have been proved wrong in one respect or another at various times. 382 00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:17,610 More or less serious academics have said that of Asians, of Arabs, of Catholics, 383 00:54:18,240 --> 00:54:22,560 that they are destined towards authoritarian rule and nothing can change that. 384 00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:31,560 Yet events in many countries Korea, Spain, Portugal, one could go on and on with a very long list. 385 00:54:32,370 --> 00:54:48,250 Show that. That. Negative approach or denial of the applicability of Western or generally universal liberal ideas is itself simply wrong, 386 00:54:48,850 --> 00:54:54,879 that there is a general attraction that even states clinging on to systems of one party 387 00:54:54,880 --> 00:55:03,610 rule often go to some lengths to pay at least lip service to liberal ideas and decency. 388 00:55:05,820 --> 00:55:14,460 So it's obvious that I don't think that liberalism is only a parochial political morality with roots and authority is only part of the world. 389 00:55:14,820 --> 00:55:18,810 To use the exact words. The initial question we were asked. 390 00:55:20,490 --> 00:55:29,790 Doesn't follow them. That the alternative is to view it as a universal political morality with authority everywhere. 391 00:55:29,940 --> 00:55:33,630 Again, quoting from Dawkins words. 392 00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:40,460 My answer, I'm afraid, is no, it isn't a universal political morality. 393 00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:45,770 True, no society is immune to liberal ideas. 394 00:55:46,790 --> 00:55:54,440 Maybe one could even say that no society is immune to the ultimate implicated implementation. 395 00:55:55,830 --> 00:56:03,590 But liberal ideas always have to compete with others, and other ideas do sometimes have a logic to them, 396 00:56:04,250 --> 00:56:10,850 especially in deeply divided societies in which distrustful communities jostle for power. 397 00:56:11,510 --> 00:56:16,850 There is often a case for a degree of authoritarian rule. 398 00:56:17,900 --> 00:56:22,280 This is not a matter of one part of the world being inherently different from others. 399 00:56:23,090 --> 00:56:29,090 Even in our own, I hope, relatively liberal policy of the United Kingdom, 400 00:56:29,690 --> 00:56:38,480 we imposed direct rule on Northern Ireland for most of the time between 1972 and 2007, 401 00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:48,500 because of the unsatisfactory problems of the relationship arising from the relationship between majority and minority communities. 402 00:56:49,490 --> 00:56:55,790 In some countries, such as Singapore. A similar authoritarian version of democracy flourishes. 403 00:56:55,790 --> 00:56:59,660 And because it flourishes, will be very difficult to change. 404 00:57:01,740 --> 00:57:09,030 And it's true also, as Tim mentioned in introducing this today's event, 405 00:57:09,780 --> 00:57:18,540 that new powers don't necessarily subscribe to a single core of liberal values, newly emerging powers. 406 00:57:20,740 --> 00:57:29,950 And it is also noteworthy that when liberal ideas do get implemented in authoritarian societies, they often get implemented piecemeal. 407 00:57:31,070 --> 00:57:38,710 Uh, liberal ideas in culture or within particular areas of society, in universities or whatever. 408 00:57:39,010 --> 00:57:43,839 Rather than being implemented as a general philosophy, we are not. 409 00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:51,220 It seems to be yet at a stage where it's wise to claim that a political idea is universal. 410 00:57:51,880 --> 00:58:00,940 Ideas of the world, consisting of a plurality of types of political system still themselves have some moral value. 411 00:58:02,140 --> 00:58:12,820 This was put eloquently by my predecessor to his Montague Burton professor, all in an article in Foreign Affairs all the way back in 1972. 412 00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:18,730 And that was, of course, at the time of the Vietnam War, which he was deeply critical of. 413 00:58:20,260 --> 00:58:26,080 And he wrote that the world is still divided into different political and cultural civilisations. 414 00:58:26,770 --> 00:58:31,870 And the main rationale and function of a multiple balance in the past has been to 415 00:58:31,870 --> 00:58:37,100 preserve the freedom of its members while minimising the risks and scale of war. 416 00:58:38,020 --> 00:58:47,440 The autonomous state or of civilisation has a great deal of vitality and we are more likely to live in relative tranquillity if 417 00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:55,990 we respect differentiation while opposing the temptations of universality for our own values or the claims of other polities. 418 00:58:57,310 --> 00:59:01,600 In conclusion, then coming back to Professor Dawkins original question, 419 00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:10,150 I would say liberalism is not just a parochial political morality with a roots and authority in any part of the world, 420 00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:23,470 but is rather one political morality with appeal everywhere, but which must necessarily coexist and compete with other political realities. 421 00:59:23,860 --> 00:59:36,850 Thank you very much. Now, I think that with ideas as well as with people, we should avoid guilt by association. 422 00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:49,209 It's perfectly true that the issue I spoke about is often confused with the question of intervention at many different levels military, 423 00:59:49,210 --> 00:59:52,840 economic, voluntary boycott and so forth. 424 00:59:53,500 --> 01:00:02,590 And it may be that talking as many of my presidents have done about universal values is dangerous politics. 425 01:00:02,890 --> 01:00:13,420 But that's not our issue here. Issue is whether it's true or false that liberalism has the universal authority that I claim. 426 01:00:13,690 --> 01:00:18,190 I should also I meant also to say that we're not talking. 427 01:00:18,190 --> 01:00:22,360 Not only are we not talking about intervention, we're not talking about blame. 428 01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:32,610 Abraham Lincoln, the saint of emancipation, once said that, of course, a white man should not sit down to a table with a black man. 429 01:00:33,300 --> 01:00:38,160 We we find that repulsive. But we don't blame Lincoln. 430 01:00:39,100 --> 01:00:46,240 I think it's all very different from the question that we're discussing, which is whether it's right or wrong. 431 01:00:46,270 --> 01:00:54,340 The second point I want to make is to emphasise the importance of disentangle the various questions. 432 01:00:55,120 --> 01:01:07,030 One is the question of whether we perforce will find ourselves having to accommodate and live with different conceptions of political morality, 433 01:01:07,090 --> 01:01:10,480 competitive conceptions. Of course we will. 434 01:01:11,530 --> 01:01:13,090 That is our situation. 435 01:01:14,100 --> 01:01:25,290 But we mustn't confuse whatever accommodation we make, however, that affects as it should affect our decisions about even rhetoric. 436 01:01:25,590 --> 01:01:35,120 We mustn't confuse that with the question of whether it is what our rivals say is true, 437 01:01:35,130 --> 01:01:39,710 whether it's right that what's true for us is not true for them. 438 01:01:39,730 --> 01:01:49,620 And I think we have to be very careful intellectually to separate the practical questions and indeed the historical questions. 439 01:01:49,860 --> 01:01:53,160 Will we ever achieve liberalism? 440 01:01:54,060 --> 01:02:01,920 From the question of how we should define liberalism and what is to be said in its favour. 441 01:02:03,460 --> 01:02:11,870 How we should do. I agree. That it is very unlikely that we could come to an agreement. 442 01:02:11,990 --> 01:02:19,490 Statement I offered two principles. I said, maybe you will disagree with them, then you should supply others. 443 01:02:20,210 --> 01:02:25,760 It isn't. It seems to me important whether we will precisely agree on them. 444 01:02:26,180 --> 01:02:35,480 What is important that we try to achieve some clarity in what our claims are and to make the best case we can for those claims. 445 01:02:36,170 --> 01:02:45,790 Adam said that in some parts of the world there is a case for a degree of authoritarian rule. 446 01:02:46,740 --> 01:02:49,270 Here is where the disentanglement is very important. 447 01:02:49,290 --> 01:02:56,310 This could mean a case for living with it, or it might mean a case for it if there's a case for it. 448 01:02:56,850 --> 01:03:05,610 If there's a moral argument in its favour, then that moral argument will have to find roots in more general moral principles. 449 01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:16,130 And if it can be found in the two principles I'd describe, which might, given the circumstances happen, then we can endorse it. 450 01:03:16,140 --> 01:03:20,560 Otherwise we will say regrettably, Singapore will continue. 451 01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:26,720 It doesn't mean that we have to say there's a case for Singapore on this. 452 01:03:27,150 --> 01:03:32,580 We can make out a case other than in the fact that we have it and we have to live with it. 453 01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:38,070 Finally. What is the role? 454 01:03:38,100 --> 01:03:42,870 Something I didn't talk about. Terribly interesting. What is the role in all of this? 455 01:03:43,170 --> 01:03:54,460 Of history? What is the role of the fact that liberalism emerged as an distinct and identified political morality at an identified time? 456 01:03:55,120 --> 01:04:00,670 I think that's important for what I tried to say earlier. 457 01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:07,510 When that history gave us an assumption, a shared assumption. 458 01:04:08,450 --> 01:04:17,300 That has a value somewhere in the neighbourhood that we each try and get at with our unpersuasive definitions. 459 01:04:17,630 --> 01:04:19,040 That's an important fact, 460 01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:31,820 but it isn't important that the understanding we now promote of liberalism be like that which was promoted in the 18th century. 461 01:04:32,330 --> 01:04:36,020 Thank you. Thank you very much. Adam, 462 01:04:36,020 --> 01:04:48,919 I think with your permission for an open but just to state again one of the questions on the table is whether a plurality of political systems or 463 01:04:48,920 --> 01:04:59,690 models is itself something potentially desirable in the way that desirable and argued that a plurality of individual values was itself desirable. 464 01:05:00,830 --> 01:05:06,620 I'm sure there will be many questions if you could please identify yourself and ask for 465 01:05:06,620 --> 01:05:13,460 preference short questions rather than long statements at the back Rasmus Nielsen doesn't make. 466 01:05:17,770 --> 01:05:21,370 Thank you very much of a very inspiring and rich lecture, Professor Dawson. 467 01:05:21,670 --> 01:05:28,959 I have a very simple question the way. Do you think it is in any way a problem for your argument that it's force? 468 01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:33,280 If you will seem to rely on the idea that people who do not agree with you simply do not get it, 469 01:05:34,180 --> 01:05:38,410 that they are either at best suffering from false consciousness or at worst in bad faith. 470 01:05:38,830 --> 01:05:44,290 They certainly don't have to be in bad faith to disagree with me. I think I'd turn this off. 471 01:05:45,100 --> 01:05:48,400 I've known people to disagree with me in perfectly good faith. 472 01:05:53,140 --> 01:06:01,390 But no, I don't find it. I would find it surprising if people agreed with me in great masses. 473 01:06:01,570 --> 01:06:09,309 The whole it's one of my one of my more theoretical claims that these concepts liberalism, 474 01:06:09,310 --> 01:06:14,020 justice, democracy, or what I've called interpretive concepts, 475 01:06:14,020 --> 01:06:24,070 that is, we share them, but we disagree in the large very often and almost always in detail about the best interpretation of them. 476 01:06:24,610 --> 01:06:30,460 And I think that the disagreement in interpretation is very valuable. 477 01:06:32,620 --> 01:06:37,330 Thank you very much. Daniel Daniel Johnson, editor of Standpoint. 478 01:06:38,380 --> 01:06:42,370 You mentioned in the course of your remarks that there were different kinds of liberalism. 479 01:06:42,670 --> 01:06:49,720 You mentioned in particular classical liberalism and what you called egalitarian liberalism or social democracy. 480 01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:57,250 And one gathered you said that you thought there was a right answer as to which which was fully entitled to to the claim. 481 01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:00,309 You didn't quite spell that out, 482 01:07:00,310 --> 01:07:10,000 but I assume that you felt that the you feel that the egalitarian form of liberalism has a better claim to to it, but under your principles. 483 01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:14,950 And you also mentioned Obamacare as a good example, perhaps, of the insurance principle. 484 01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:23,230 But under your two basic principles, I can just about see how mandatory health insurance could be justified. 485 01:07:23,500 --> 01:07:29,920 I can see no case at all for how you could justify forcing, for example, 486 01:07:30,220 --> 01:07:43,630 Catholics or evangelicals institutions to provide services under under Obamacare, which contradict their basic religious principles. 487 01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:52,960 So my question really is, is egalitarian liberalism really capable of observing your two principles? 488 01:07:54,640 --> 01:08:02,730 Thank you. Well, it will be controversial in any case, whether the two principles, as Adam said, 489 01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:08,980 people disagree about what equal concern is in me and a particular case that you mentioned. 490 01:08:09,340 --> 01:08:15,360 I believe that Catholic institutions should not be required to provide abortions. 491 01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:20,790 It's and that is the view of the Obama administration. It's a distinct question. 492 01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:31,240 Here's where the controversy lies, whether if a Catholic hospital takes out group insurance plan for its employees, 493 01:08:31,630 --> 01:08:36,940 whether that insurance plan can can be required to provide abortion services. 494 01:08:36,970 --> 01:08:45,040 Now, that's very different. I take the view that that is not engaging the hospital in violating its principles. 495 01:08:46,340 --> 01:08:51,770 So I don't have trouble with that particular case, but I certainly agree they'll be very hard cases. 496 01:08:53,380 --> 01:08:57,260 Now. I already have about seven people who want to ask questions. 497 01:08:57,260 --> 01:09:00,610 So with your permission, Randy, I know groups and groups of three. 498 01:09:00,610 --> 01:09:13,070 I'll talk less. Michael I think, I think you can probably manage without the mike from here, but if you read, I want to help you. 499 01:09:13,310 --> 01:09:19,640 You. Yes, please. 500 01:09:21,570 --> 01:09:29,460 To bring my simple proposition to you is that a parochial view of Jerusalem is that it is universal. 501 01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:36,080 Is itself a notion that derives from it is located in particular. 502 01:09:37,340 --> 01:09:42,490 Yes. Oh, thank you. Okay. Or do you want to. 503 01:09:42,650 --> 01:09:46,260 Oh, yes. No. Jeremy, could you sing the mic down? 504 01:09:47,440 --> 01:09:55,720 Right. Run from all souls. 505 01:09:56,710 --> 01:10:04,210 Ronnie, at the beginning you mentioned the possibility that liberal values may resonate in some social settings and not on others. 506 01:10:04,660 --> 01:10:07,930 And I wonder whether we didn't brush past that a little bit too quickly. 507 01:10:08,440 --> 01:10:13,090 The respect principle talks about the self constitution of an individual life. 508 01:10:13,690 --> 01:10:20,460 And we can imagine social settings where that really makes sense to an awful lot of people and strikes them as tremendously important. 509 01:10:20,950 --> 01:10:27,849 And other social settings. Where that seems like an idiosyncratic concern or a marginal concern or for many people is largely 510 01:10:27,850 --> 01:10:33,850 unintelligible because they think about their lives in ways that are quite different from that. 511 01:10:34,600 --> 01:10:39,430 So I wondered what you thought about that, because it looks as though the respect principle. 512 01:10:39,460 --> 01:10:46,150 The second of the two principles that you mentioned requires us to pay attention to a facet of 513 01:10:46,150 --> 01:10:51,820 people's lives that may not be as central always for them as the principle makes it appear. 514 01:10:52,930 --> 01:11:01,270 And this might indicate that liberalism in some sense has limited scope because there is a deeper principle that has universal scope. 515 01:11:01,690 --> 01:11:09,850 And the deeper principle, a sort of a pre liberal principle, is pay attention to people's lives in terms that make sense to them. 516 01:11:10,550 --> 01:11:18,140 Yeah. And that we would accept as a universal, say, a necessary condition on fundamental moral valence. 517 01:11:18,740 --> 01:11:22,879 But it might yield the conclusion that these specifically liberal principles, 518 01:11:22,880 --> 01:11:28,670 fundamental though they are, will apply perhaps in some circumstances, not on others. 519 01:11:29,090 --> 01:11:37,200 Perhaps in some eras. And not in others. Thank you. 520 01:11:40,340 --> 01:11:44,180 Um. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Um. I'm so sorry. 521 01:11:45,940 --> 01:11:49,090 Wave to me earlier, Pablo said literally of his months in college. 522 01:11:49,390 --> 01:11:54,459 The form of your argument seems to be not limited to political principles. 523 01:11:54,460 --> 01:12:03,460 You defined your first two principles as principles of legitimacy, of coercive, uh, exercise of coercion by the within dominion. 524 01:12:04,030 --> 01:12:09,440 Nevertheless, the principles of moral valence could easily apply to any ethical principle. 525 01:12:09,460 --> 01:12:16,630 We make these distinctions, even in interpersonal or simply personal assessments of our virtue or of our lives. 526 01:12:17,110 --> 01:12:21,040 So doesn't your argument take you to ethical universalism as well? 527 01:12:26,810 --> 01:12:34,200 I finally suggested paradox enticing, but I. 528 01:12:35,560 --> 01:12:39,900 Yes. Universalism is, in one sense, parochial. 529 01:12:40,290 --> 01:12:46,110 It's unpopular in a lot of places, particularly universities. 530 01:12:46,500 --> 01:12:51,720 It's it's very popular in illiberal societies. 531 01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:58,410 Universalism has its its most enthusiastic reception in tyrannies. 532 01:12:59,040 --> 01:13:02,729 That was, I think, the point of two concepts of liberty. 533 01:13:02,730 --> 01:13:09,060 The great essay in which. Pluralism made its particular appearance in our. 534 01:13:10,010 --> 01:13:17,379 Addiction. It doesn't mean that Universalism is itself parochial. 535 01:13:17,380 --> 01:13:24,820 Whether it's parochial, there's not a sociological question about where and how enthusiastically it's received. 536 01:13:25,360 --> 01:13:30,100 It's a moral question, and I've dragged into it. 537 01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:37,260 My answer is at a certain level. Moral principles have to be universal. 538 01:13:37,860 --> 01:13:39,960 On the whole house of cards collapses. 539 01:13:41,130 --> 01:13:51,180 Jeremy's point about Shouldn't we have a pretty liberal principle that says political authority should be exercised? 540 01:13:51,180 --> 01:13:56,370 Some make sense to them. Makes sense to the people. 541 01:13:57,090 --> 01:14:04,800 Well, I find make sense ambiguous. Does it mean it can be endorsed by them? 542 01:14:05,430 --> 01:14:09,240 In which case it's just the second principle all over again. 543 01:14:09,300 --> 01:14:17,550 And I like it. If it means make sense to them in a way that is. 544 01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:28,049 The fact is due to the fact that they don't believe that they should think about and endorse a way of life. 545 01:14:28,050 --> 01:14:38,010 And just to worship, for example, if they think that is part of what makes my life go well, if liberalism says be our guest. 546 01:14:38,850 --> 01:14:44,040 On the other hand, if the pre political liberalism says they are stuck with it, 547 01:14:44,340 --> 01:14:51,000 we don't ask them to understand or endorse the values that are reigning over them. 548 01:14:51,360 --> 01:14:56,520 Then I'd just agree with it. Now, it's not only a pretty liberal, it's an anti liberal principle. 549 01:14:57,690 --> 01:15:02,069 Now on valence and personal morality. 550 01:15:02,070 --> 01:15:14,250 Yes, that is that is certainly so when I say that the liberal principles up political principles and principles about coercion. 551 01:15:14,730 --> 01:15:19,200 I don't mean that there aren't universal ethical principles. 552 01:15:19,200 --> 01:15:26,460 Universal moral principles. I think there are I've tried to defend some of them, but there are different principles. 553 01:15:27,750 --> 01:15:32,700 As I said, I don't have to have the same concern for your children as I have for mine. 554 01:15:33,510 --> 01:15:40,620 That's a matter of personal morality. It's because I'm not in a position to exercise power over you. 555 01:15:42,090 --> 01:15:44,460 Thank you very much on it. Beautiful to. 556 01:15:48,210 --> 01:15:56,010 In my many discussions with the late Jerry Cohen, I would, at a suitable stage, introduce the concept of the real world. 557 01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:01,420 Which he always rejected as a red herring. 558 01:16:03,700 --> 01:16:09,460 Could I dangle this red herring before your nose with the following question? 559 01:16:10,120 --> 01:16:20,740 If, as you say, liberal values are political values, they require political institutions or devices for their implementation. 560 01:16:22,210 --> 01:16:25,480 What are the minimum political conditions? 561 01:16:25,480 --> 01:16:34,190 The minimum institutional? Conditions when you stripped out all communities specific variations, 562 01:16:34,490 --> 01:16:45,800 all legitimate communities specific variations for ensuring that liberal values can prevail to the benefit of all or most. 563 01:16:46,820 --> 01:16:53,270 My own shortlist would be respect for the individual person. 564 01:16:54,710 --> 01:16:58,250 Which is, of course, the history of the world, a revolutionary idea. 565 01:16:59,520 --> 01:17:06,330 The rule of law and the accountability of the governors to the government. 566 01:17:06,960 --> 01:17:11,130 That's my shortlist. My question is, does it satisfy you? 567 01:17:11,490 --> 01:17:17,070 Do you want it shorter, still or longer? Thank you very much. 568 01:17:17,090 --> 01:17:20,389 I'm very sorry if I failed to grasp this. 569 01:17:20,390 --> 01:17:23,600 And it may be because you had to condense your argument. 570 01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:31,820 And if I read the book, I probably will understand it better. But as I understood your two principles, the state. 571 01:17:32,840 --> 01:17:40,100 Can use coercive power as long as it takes account of equally of the interests of all. 572 01:17:40,670 --> 01:17:49,520 And at the same time, it has to allow each to define his or her interests for his or her self. 573 01:17:50,060 --> 01:17:52,910 And that's second. But I'm not quite clear how it works. 574 01:17:53,300 --> 01:18:01,520 Supposing I define my interests or my idea of the good life as one in which I can have four wives, 575 01:18:01,970 --> 01:18:09,590 or I have authority in my family and will not allow girls to go with my daughters, 576 01:18:09,590 --> 01:18:14,770 to go to swimming classes with my sons, or a number of other things like that. 577 01:18:14,780 --> 01:18:25,250 I think you get my drift. I'm not quite clear how the state, in using its coercive power, goes about respecting those views that I might have. 578 01:18:26,690 --> 01:18:37,250 Simon Head, Oxford and NYU. Rania I want to focus on the concept of dignity, which features very prominently in your discourse. 579 01:18:37,820 --> 01:18:45,730 And you define dignity, it seemed to me, is the right of people to decide how they would live well and make something of their lives. 580 01:18:45,740 --> 01:18:48,049 And I recall that Bernard Williams, 581 01:18:48,050 --> 01:18:55,310 in the great essay he wrote at the end of his life philosophy as a humanist discipline used exactly the same form of words. 582 01:18:55,580 --> 01:19:00,320 I also recall that you in the conference we had with the New York Review. 583 01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:09,589 You know, we've used the word tyranny to describe the growing inequality of wealth and power in the American capitalist economy. 584 01:19:09,590 --> 01:19:17,960 And one could say the same thing in the British. I would put it to you that one of the aspects of this tyranny is that an increasing 585 01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:24,650 proportion of the population is being denied the economic preconditions of dignity. 586 01:19:25,130 --> 01:19:35,030 And these preconditions require a certain education to make a way in the capitalist economy the availability of work and when work exists. 587 01:19:35,510 --> 01:19:40,040 But it should have a certain dignity. And it seems to me that we are in the capitalist economy, 588 01:19:40,370 --> 01:19:48,620 moving to a kind of radical instrumental ism in the deployment of labour, which actually is a threat to dignity. 589 01:19:48,680 --> 01:19:56,000 So my question is, how far are we away from a situation where the growth of what you called a tyranny 590 01:19:56,540 --> 01:20:01,340 undermines the liberal legitimacy of American or British capitalist society? 591 01:20:06,940 --> 01:20:13,590 Thank you. Now a prelude to my answer. 592 01:20:13,600 --> 01:20:25,329 I'm very fond of herring. And I I've never had a red herring, but particularly one dangled in front of me. 593 01:20:25,330 --> 01:20:29,560 But I certainly would try it if I had the opportunity. 594 01:20:30,130 --> 01:20:39,390 I the I wouldn't now say that I want a longer or short of this. 595 01:20:40,390 --> 01:20:45,430 I want a more sensitive list that is. 596 01:20:48,070 --> 01:20:59,380 In some communities, I would say that judicial veto over legislation is an institutional, 597 01:20:59,530 --> 01:21:08,469 if not requirement, at least that it's enormously recommended in that community where you have, 598 01:21:08,470 --> 01:21:21,910 for example, to use a now immortal phrase in a footnote in the Supreme Court opinion where you have impacted isolated and discrete minorities. 599 01:21:22,510 --> 01:21:34,629 I would say that the institutional arrangement cannot be fully majoritarian and achieve liberal consequences in other communities. 600 01:21:34,630 --> 01:21:42,520 It may be it may be very different. So I think I agree with you that the real world is important. 601 01:21:43,690 --> 01:21:49,360 But, you know, as said, we have to have ideas in the back. 602 01:21:50,080 --> 01:21:51,400 We've got to have theories in the back. 603 01:21:52,930 --> 01:22:10,600 Now, the distinction that Mortimer suggests is this If someone says, I need four wives to make my life complete, 604 01:22:11,500 --> 01:22:22,510 it follows from liberal principles that government must not say to him, You are wrong in your view about what makes your life go better. 605 01:22:23,740 --> 01:22:29,620 However, it's our job taking at face value that that's how you define it. 606 01:22:29,980 --> 01:22:37,210 It's our job to protect other people from your pursuit of that way of life. 607 01:22:38,290 --> 01:22:43,719 That's a distinction I think crucial to liberalism and is liberalism. 608 01:22:43,720 --> 01:22:49,030 Reject the false consciousness view rejects the idea. 609 01:22:49,030 --> 01:22:58,899 We know better than you what's in your good, but it certainly does not endorse the idea that you can have whatever you think is in 610 01:22:58,900 --> 01:23:06,030 your good because equal concern requires a discipline to protect the rights of others. 611 01:23:06,040 --> 01:23:09,400 In this case, three of the four wives and. 612 01:23:12,610 --> 01:23:16,450 Simon yes, I, I agree about the tyrannies. 613 01:23:16,570 --> 01:23:25,720 I think that we don't that they we don't have to look to the consequences downstream 614 01:23:26,440 --> 01:23:32,440 of a terribly unjust distribution of wealth to see whether it threatens dignity. 615 01:23:33,490 --> 01:23:41,049 I think that, too, to run a course of legal order, to take taxes from people, 616 01:23:41,050 --> 01:23:50,080 to limit them via the criminal and civil law in a society in which they are being denied, 617 01:23:50,770 --> 01:23:59,440 the economic resources that equality would require is in and of itself an insult to that dignity. 618 01:23:59,770 --> 01:24:06,550 Now, you are quite right that the downstream consequences of that in many societies 619 01:24:06,880 --> 01:24:12,430 deprives people of education and corrupts their ability to live a decent, 620 01:24:12,430 --> 01:24:17,470 dignified life in other ways. I would agree with that. We don't have to reach that point. 621 01:24:17,920 --> 01:24:21,700 We have tyranny enough at the start. Thank you. 622 01:24:22,000 --> 01:24:27,850 I'm afraid we are running out of time, so I'm going to select on the principle of equal voice. 623 01:24:28,450 --> 01:24:32,649 In other words, to start with someone slightly younger. 624 01:24:32,650 --> 01:24:37,330 Jeff Howard. Hi, I'm Jeff Howard. 625 01:24:37,330 --> 01:24:40,060 I'm a Dphil student in political theory at Nuffield College. 626 01:24:41,050 --> 01:24:47,680 Professor Dorgan, you mentioned Abraham Lincoln earlier, and it's it strikes me that if you or I had been born in a similar context to Lincoln, 627 01:24:47,890 --> 01:24:54,969 you or I could also share the idea that it would be impermissible morally or inappropriate in some way to share a dining table with a black man. 628 01:24:54,970 --> 01:25:00,580 And I find that an extremely sobering notion, not because it impugns my belief in the universality of liberal values, 629 01:25:00,910 --> 01:25:05,229 but that it clarifies to me just how difficult it is to convince other people to accept liberal values. 630 01:25:05,230 --> 01:25:09,880 And so I wonder if you have any reflections on what our argumentative strategy should be 631 01:25:10,060 --> 01:25:14,650 in engaging people who don't hold liberal values to think about endorsing those values. 632 01:25:15,980 --> 01:25:19,430 Shoot the microphone across to Dominic Burbidge here at Fame Row. 633 01:25:19,970 --> 01:25:25,170 If you sling it along. Thanks very much. 634 01:25:25,310 --> 01:25:32,130 Just a question about what is the role of a good citizen in this view. 635 01:25:32,580 --> 01:25:37,770 So is it, um, firstly to to speak about one's own conception of the good life, 636 01:25:38,910 --> 01:25:44,040 or is it to speak only about whether coercive government is illegitimate? 637 01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:49,860 Or finally, would it be to listen to other people's conception of the good life? 638 01:25:50,340 --> 01:25:58,260 Very much so. I'm the female equal voice catcher, but not from the catcher in battle from the International Herald Tribune. 639 01:25:58,440 --> 01:26:05,010 I was wondering whether, even though we probably all agree that there is no such thing as a perfectly liberal society today and probably in history, 640 01:26:05,250 --> 01:26:13,350 whether you can cite an example from history and perhaps also from the present that would have come closest to your ideal version of a society. 641 01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:22,840 Yeah. Okay. Argumentative strategy. 642 01:26:24,960 --> 01:26:30,940 I think we have to start by distinguishing persuasion from argument. 643 01:26:31,750 --> 01:26:37,150 They're not the same thing as when we are here trying to find out what's true. 644 01:26:37,630 --> 01:26:43,190 We're not concentrating and we would do better not to concentrate on what will be persuasive. 645 01:26:43,210 --> 01:26:55,960 Unfortunately, as American politics demonstrates amply, what is persuasive is often absurd, low quality jingles and that. 646 01:26:57,100 --> 01:27:09,640 So the question is how far should we demean ourselves by adopting techniques of persuasion which ought not to be effective because they are effective? 647 01:27:10,270 --> 01:27:15,760 And I say in my view, we should go very far down that road. 648 01:27:15,820 --> 01:27:22,270 The stakes are very high. And if our politicians are going to. 649 01:27:24,160 --> 01:27:33,280 Use Liberal as a dirty word. Then maybe we should practice saying conservative with a sneer twice. 650 01:27:36,010 --> 01:27:41,200 Should we be? The answer to the question about good citizens is all of the above? 651 01:27:41,950 --> 01:27:46,030 I would emphasise that first you've said you're a good citizen. 652 01:27:46,330 --> 01:27:49,960 Proclaim his view of the good life and try and persuade others. 653 01:27:50,350 --> 01:27:55,780 I'm mainly concerned to say it shouldn't be made difficult for him to do that. 654 01:27:56,050 --> 01:28:04,450 But I don't think myself that good citizenship demands that, or certainly it shouldn't conjecture only in that politics. 655 01:28:05,380 --> 01:28:10,990 Speaking out on justice. That is what good citizenship requires. 656 01:28:11,290 --> 01:28:15,880 Listening to others. Yes, but very important. 657 01:28:17,660 --> 01:28:23,930 We now connect the two questions because you're not going to be persuasive unless you listen to them. 658 01:28:25,370 --> 01:28:34,040 An example of a successful I am I'm a you may be very surprised at this. 659 01:28:34,040 --> 01:28:42,050 I'm very partial to Norway. They've been through, I think, the decision, for example, 660 01:28:43,310 --> 01:28:54,250 of the government to argue for the insanity of this killer shows the subtlety of the society that says, 661 01:28:54,890 --> 01:29:05,640 let us that is brand, this person is insane and therefore not to be imitated rather than a martyr who might be imitated. 662 01:29:05,780 --> 01:29:07,730 That's not the only reason I like Norway, 663 01:29:08,420 --> 01:29:19,340 but it's really achieved to decent society with the help of being perfectly a budget is almost perfectly homogenous. 664 01:29:19,340 --> 01:29:23,780 That's under threat and with the help of being extremely rich, poor citizen. 665 01:29:24,470 --> 01:29:32,950 Still, they've done very well and it's almost a perfect note to end on. 666 01:29:33,440 --> 01:29:37,249 I apologised profusely to all those who didn't get a chance to ask questions, 667 01:29:37,250 --> 01:29:44,030 but I do think that since this is the demand of lecture, the last question should go to Lady Dundas. 668 01:29:44,030 --> 01:29:47,540 So Ellen, like do you want to make. 669 01:29:47,600 --> 01:29:52,819 Yeah, my parents coming up. Thank you, Tim. 670 01:29:52,820 --> 01:29:58,970 And in a way, I'm raising the voice of Rob Diamond up here because what puzzled me. 671 01:30:00,560 --> 01:30:11,480 Always listening to you is the conviction that ultimately you can resolve the issue of liberty and equality. 672 01:30:11,960 --> 01:30:21,170 It seems to me that you're talking about a world without conflict, and there always is going to be a conflict in human society. 673 01:30:21,200 --> 01:30:27,979 And at the end of the day, there's going to be a conflict between those two values. 674 01:30:27,980 --> 01:30:34,100 And I don't quite understand how you think you can eliminate that problem. 675 01:30:35,810 --> 01:30:40,160 Don't. I'm not talking about eliminating conflict. 676 01:30:40,610 --> 01:30:43,730 Conflict for conflict. Liberty. Equality. 677 01:30:43,820 --> 01:30:50,840 Oh, that conflict. Well, I live in hatred and elimination. 678 01:30:51,150 --> 01:30:56,240 Again, we come to the same ambiguity about, you know, 679 01:30:58,760 --> 01:31:07,820 trying to talk people into accepting a certain view and figuring out what view it is that you ought to be defending. 680 01:31:08,720 --> 01:31:15,680 Now, I am now under an illusion that I will cause people, maybe a very few of them, 681 01:31:15,680 --> 01:31:24,920 around the edges to give up the idea that on the one hand, equality requires sacrifice of liberty, or on the other that liberty. 682 01:31:25,400 --> 01:31:32,450 They won't give that up. They'll continue to say that. But I have to decide what my role in the argument is. 683 01:31:33,200 --> 01:31:45,260 And all I can do is tell you how I understand what what has to be philosophically present in order for there to be a conflict. 684 01:31:46,580 --> 01:31:52,730 I don't think there can be a conflict between two values. 685 01:31:53,750 --> 01:31:58,340 Now, as Tim said, he showed you a book. 686 01:31:58,940 --> 01:32:04,730 Very fact book. And that's the burden of the argument of that book. 687 01:32:05,270 --> 01:32:17,840 So I want to distinguish my case for there being no conflict here from my chances of persuading others to eliminate their ideas of the conflict. 688 01:32:18,200 --> 01:32:23,360 The first, I'm quite tentatively pleased with the second. 689 01:32:23,600 --> 01:32:28,010 Of course, I don't think I can. Thank you very much. 690 01:32:28,310 --> 01:32:32,500 Adam, would you like to? Yeah, I enjoyed it. 691 01:32:33,290 --> 01:32:40,669 Perhaps I could just comment on the issue of Universalism, which we come back to, which is at the core of the discussion. 692 01:32:40,670 --> 01:32:45,590 Just to say, I thought Michael Friedman's question. 693 01:32:45,710 --> 01:32:49,580 Is Universalism always a form of parochialism was very apropos, 694 01:32:49,580 --> 01:32:56,000 and it reminded me of the wonderful organisation of the Liberal International and 695 01:32:56,000 --> 01:32:59,719 much of the work and records of the Liberal International would give comfort, 696 01:32:59,720 --> 01:33:03,440 I think, to Michael Friedman as in this proposition. 697 01:33:03,830 --> 01:33:08,090 But I think the discussion tonight and the lecture we've heard suggests actually 698 01:33:08,090 --> 01:33:15,140 that there is a permanent tension between the appeal of a universal political idea, 699 01:33:15,770 --> 01:33:25,820 and liberalism has enormous appeal and some of the difficulties of the real world that were put in front of us by Peter Boxer and others. 700 01:33:26,300 --> 01:33:35,270 And I thought in that against that background, what we heard was fairly far from the pure parochialism of that. 701 01:33:35,270 --> 01:33:40,010 Michael Positive. Thank you very much, Adam. 702 01:33:40,020 --> 01:33:44,510 Once again, apologies to those who didn't have a chance of have equal voice. 703 01:33:45,110 --> 01:33:53,419 If you are still wishing to speak, there are outside cards giving you the website address of our big free speech project 704 01:33:53,420 --> 01:33:57,980 free speech debate dot com and we would welcome you all to come and give voice there. 705 01:33:59,780 --> 01:34:05,780 Professor Dworkin also has a website set up to respond to critics on his book. 706 01:34:06,290 --> 01:34:17,720 It's called Justice for Hedgehogs or one word dot net and one response to a rather I think generous reviewer kind of get. 707 01:34:19,780 --> 01:34:29,270 This is professor Dworkin responding his his conjugate and equally generous comments says if I were a hotel I would be the Savoy in London. 708 01:34:30,770 --> 01:34:43,700 That hotel. I note this is Professor Dworkin speaking was closed a few years ago as an urgent need of modernisation, open brackets. 709 01:34:44,180 --> 01:34:52,740 It has since reopened. Now, I have to tell you that my wife and I recently had the pleasure of staying at the reopened Savoy. 710 01:34:52,760 --> 01:35:03,350 I hasten to add, not at our own expense. And it is the most wonderful combination of tradition and modernity. 711 01:35:03,770 --> 01:35:09,770 And I think, ladies and gentlemen, that that is what we have had this evening in a truly memorable evening, 712 01:35:09,770 --> 01:35:19,010 one that Ralph turned off would immensely have enjoyed, both from our responded Andrew Roberts, and especially from a dot of lecture, one talking. 713 01:35:19,280 --> 01:35:20,880 Thank you both very much indeed for.