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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2012 Don Dorf lecture in memory of this country's third warden, Ralph.

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Don Dorf, I'm delighted to welcome several members of the to family here today.

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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,

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to which Rudolph was very closely connected and which has been a great friend of the Don Dorf program.

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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.

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That's certainly true in the English speaking world, almost certainly in the wider West, but even beyond the traditional West.

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I was just recalling that we met quite by chance in the foyer of a grand hotel in Beijing,

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where some senior members of the Chinese academic establishment had asked Professor

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Dworkin to explain to them this apparently somewhat unfamiliar concept of liberalism.

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For more than 40 years, Professor Dworkin has developed, elaborated, refined a consistent account of modern egalitarian liberalism,

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particularly in the field of philosophy of law, but by no means only.

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And many of us will remember a conference in this very room three years ago which

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resulted in this publication you can pick up outside called Liberalism in East and West,

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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,

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many meanings of the term. The very end. Professor Dworkin stood up and told us exactly what liberalism is in the singular,

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in a really magnificent account which has now culminated in this book, Justice for Hedgehogs.

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The word magisterial is much overused, like the word revolution, but this is truly a magisterial book immensely learned,

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lucid, wide ranging and also strikingly moving in its reflections on how a good and meaningful life might be lived.

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Reflections from perhaps a slightly later stage than than some people in this room.

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And therefore, there could be no speaker better qualified to address us today.

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On the question of how universal is liberalism, we are also extremely fortunate in our respondent, our own Professor Adam Roberts,

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president of the British Academy Emeritus Professor of International Relations in this university, the doyen of international relations in Britain.

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And many of us will recall that in your retirement seminar, if if retirement is exactly the right word from what followed,

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which was, in a sense, all about this question, it was about what we call complex universalism.

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And the question how you build a liberal international order.

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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.

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non-Western powers are becoming more powerful and arguably trying to spread their own rather different norms.

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So no one could be better qualified to respond from the perspective of international relations.

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So with that, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming this year's Down to Earth lecture.

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Professor Oliver. Thank you.

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And I have to turn this. I'm sorry. Can I be heard now on the back?

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Thank you for that extraordinary introduction.

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Undeserved, but nevertheless very welcome, particularly considering its source.

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Our topic, as Tim said, is liberalism a political creed?

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The creative Ralph Dawn of the creed that I would venture to say most of us here endorse.

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Our question is about the scope of liberalism's domain, its authority.

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Is liberalism a required political morality?

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Everywhere there are human beings so that a society in which women are subordinated or there's grotesque

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inequality of wealth or people are required to worship in a certain way or politics is one party,

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if any part of it. Can we say of such places that they are illegitimate because illiberal?

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Or on the contrary, should we say that liberalism is a mandatory political morality only in those communities

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in which liberalism resonates with shared understanding and shared tradition?

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That would be the view that liberalism is only parochial, not universal,

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and is moreover parochial so only a relatively few political communities in the world.

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The question is which of these two views is right?

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Politicians in the West, particularly in my country, strongly support the universal view.

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They say we should export our values and they speak.

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Famous line now a very long time ago.

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We should make the world safe for democracy, by which was meant we should make the world safe for our conception of democracy.

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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.

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There are, for example, cultural anthropologists who say that a political morality can't be true,

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absolutely can only be true for those communities in which it has roots.

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There are more sophisticated versions of this idea.

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One developed by Isaiah Berlin, has proved particularly influential and to be called, as he called it, pluralism.

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Let me read his one of his statements, a piece he wrote in the New York Review of Books.

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I came to the conclusion that there is a plurality of ideals as there is a plurality of cultures and of temperaments.

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I believe that there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek and that these values differ.

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There is not typical Berlin statement that there is not an infinity of them.

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The number of human values, of values that I can pursue while maintaining my human assemblage, my human character is finite.

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Let us say 74 or 122 or 26 or some other number, but finite, whatever it may be.

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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,

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what it would be like in his circumstances for me to be induced to pursue it.

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Now, John Rawls, certainly the most influential political philosopher of all time,

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endorsed Berlin's view in Rawls's mature later book, Political Liberalism.

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And he quoted the following further passage from Isaiah Berlin The realm of values is objective,

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but values clash, and the full range of values is too extensive to fit into any one social world.

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Not only are they incompatible with one another imposing conflicting requirements on institutions,

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but there exists no family of workable institutions that can allow sufficient space for them all.

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A just liberals ASADA. They may have far more space than other social worlds, but it can never be without loss.

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The basic error is to think that because values are objective and hence truly values,

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they must be compatible in the realm of values as opposed to the world of fact.

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Not all truths can fit into one social world.

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Well, that is an elegant, very refined statement of the parochial view.

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It is the view that I wish to contest.

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I want to argue that liberalism is a universal creed.

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Universal in the sense that if it's true for anyone, it's true for everyone.

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We have to pause now. I've been speaking as if it was perfectly clear what liberalism is.

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I said it was a political creed, but there are many different theories, some radically different from another that people have called liberalism.

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And the ambiguity, or at least abstraction of these views, has caused trouble.

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I remember that when I first came to Oxford as a student, I.

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Was asked, what are your political views? I said, I am a liberal.

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Very unexpected reaction. All the nice, scruffy, bearded people showed me the tarps that I later learned to call them.

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Thought I was. I was all right. In America now, liberalism is a pejorative term.

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No politician running for office, for the office of the president, certainly since Michael Dukakis announced that he is a liberal,

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Obama calls himself a progressive, but I don't think he uses the word liberal.

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I have on my shelves a book whose title is How to Speak to a Liberal, If You Must.

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Now, let's distinguish between types of liberalism.

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Let's try and just ambiguity the term. There is what we might call minimal liberalism.

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This is the view that. Ultimate political power should rest in the people as a whole rather than in a monarchy or in oligarchs.

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That view is compatible with no constraint at all on what the people may do.

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Another form of liberalism, often called classical liberalism, or even Manchester liberalism,

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adds to the requirements of popular sovereignty, certain rights.

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Eminent among these are economic rights, free trade, the free market, no redistribution that dishonours the result of a free market.

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Also what have come to be called liberal negative rights.

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Freedom of speech, for example. Certain degree of privacy, rule of law, fair trials and so forth.

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The third kind of liberalism, the liberalism so disappointed in the United States now is egalitarian liberalism,

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or, as it's often called in Europe, social democracy.

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And this adds to the economic rights and the negative rights.

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Derogate from the economic rights to the extent necessary rights to economic equality and rights to social equality,

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favouring redistribution in search of greater equality and favouring government constraints to protect social equality.

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To guard against discrimination of various kinds.

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Now we have these three, and there are more accounts of what liberalism is.

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As Tim said, I think there's a right answer to this question and I'll try and say what I think it is.

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But we should notice a temptation. Many people have succumbed to it.

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The temptation in the face of ambiguity or conflict in a shared political value is to recommend junking the term.

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Not worrying about whether liberalism is universal or parochial,

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but asking much more concrete questions like in what kind of society is a free press necessary?

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I think that's a mistake. Political concepts.

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Justice. Democracy, liberalism.

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Those are represent a kind of sharing of values that represent values that we accept exist in some neighbourhood,

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even though we disagree about precisely which values those are.

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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,

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how should we understand what justice really is or democracy really is, or in our case, what liberalism really is?

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I am therefore going to suggest that we raise the bar of abstraction.

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I'm going to offer two principles which I believe can be defended as basic liberal principles,

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principles that are shared among those who endorse or disparage particular more concrete statements of what?

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Liberalism is these are principles that are defended before they are, in fact let loose at large injustice.

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The hedgehogs. So I'm going to state them in a rather summary form this evening.

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The first basic principle of liberalism is that coercive government is illegitimate.

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Except on the assumption. Of equal concern for all those against whom Dominion is exercised.

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Equal concern means that in political calculations in the final overall decision of what to do in the coercive realm.

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Everyone's fate comes the same. That's the first principle.

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The first of the basic liberal principles. The second is that coercive government is not legitimate unless it respects the

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right and responsibility of each individual to decide for himself or herself.

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What counts would count as success in living.

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What would count as a good life?

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That is a decision. According to the second liberal principle that must be left to individuals one by one.

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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.

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A decision that must be taken into effect by equal concern as to what success in living would be for that person.

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Now I wanted to comment about these two principles.

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As I say, I've argued for them and tried to make them more developed elsewhere.

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But one thing it's important to remember is that these are principles about the necessary conditions of legitimate coercion.

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They are not principles of individual morality.

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I am not required by any moral code to have equal concern for your children, as I have for my children.

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I am certainly not required to respect your idea of what a good life would consist.

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I may, in fact, hold that view in contempt and try to persuade you out of it.

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These are principles only about the conditions of collective coercion.

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Secondly, just part of that first I of marriage, these are positions of about coercion, not persuasion.

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It is doesn't follow from these Liberal principles that government may not endorse.

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Particular values may not, for example, construct museums and select which art is protected in which museum.

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These are about direct coercion of individuals.

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Now, the third and most important point about these basic principles.

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Is that they are both imperative.

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It's perfectly true that the first principle of equal concern sounds like equality,

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and the second principle of respect for people's autonomy sounds like liberty.

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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,

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among them, value pluralism.

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The view, endorsed by Berlin and Rawls, takes as its paradigm instance the supposed conflict between liberty and equality.

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As I've stated these principles, liberalism denies that these are principles that can be compromised.

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One to the benefit of another.

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They are both imperative because they state the conditions of human dignity.

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And dignity is not for compromise.

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But how do we apply them together? Through interpretation, we must arrive at a an understanding of what equal concern requires.

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That is consistent with respecting individual autonomy.

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We must correspondingly develop a sense of what autonomy requires that is consistent with our understanding of equal concern.

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We must approach political morality as a problem calling for a solution to simultaneous equations.

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How might that how might that go? I'll summarise two important consequences of seeing these as principles with simultaneous demands.

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The first A Theory of Distributive Justice. Society has resources, develops these resources through commerce and trade and production.

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How shall the consequences be distributed?

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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.

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Without regard to skill. Without regard to luck, without regard to choices.

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Of occupation or work as against leisure investment as against consumption.

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You might think that equal concern would require what sometimes called flat equality,

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but we can see quite quickly it can't be that that understanding of equal concern would destroy the second principle,

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because it would deny individual responsibility for all the kinds of decisions I've just mentioned.

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No, we cannot aim. If we want to take both principles on board, we cannot aim at equality of well.

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Ex post. That is, after all the decisions have been made after the wheel has spun.

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But we can and must insist on equality, ex ante equality before the various decisions have been made.

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And that means that we must see distributive justice as guided.

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Buy insurance. By asking suppose before all of the decisions, all of the episodes of good bad luck have been met.

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Suppose people had equal wealth and could buy insurance against unemployment.

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Accident or disease on the same terms.

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Of course that. Is it an imaginary fantasy?

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But we can answer the question, I suppose.

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And that question can't be answered. Precisely.

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Serves as an important guide. Two programs of distributive justice.

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I believe it can be seen, for example, as the skeleton model behind President Obama's Affordable Health Care Act.

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I'll say something about that in a few moments.

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Free speech. Topic of our deliberations tomorrow.

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The two basic principles together demand a very generous understanding of free speech.

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The first principle, principle of equal concern requires not just equal concern in the economic distribution.

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It requires political equality and political equality.

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Requires democracy. And democracy requires not just equal vote, but equal voice.

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An equal voice must mean.

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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.

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And he must have that right, no matter how unwise.

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Or repellent or offensive. His views may be that is a condition of democracy, which is a condition of equal concern.

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And we must accept that with whatever price we must pay in injured feelings to secure the second principle.

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The second basic principle also recommends a generous conception of free speech.

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It says people have the right and responsibility to form their own personality.

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Their own sense of what counts is good for them.

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And that, as sociologists have taught now for two generations, cannot be done by individuals just behind their own arms.

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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.

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And again, this can't be done unless individuals are free to express their opinions, however unpopular or indeed however repellent.

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Now these are examples of the consequences that I believe follow from liberalism understood not in any particular concrete way,

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but understood as the two basic principles I've tried to describe that is understood in an abstract way.

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Now we come back to our question. Are the two principles?

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Is liberalism so understood for everyone?

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Is it a universal creed or only parochial for those communities whose traditions endorsed it?

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Of course. Liberalism.

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The two principles must be sensitive to the circumstances of a particular community.

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They must be sensitive to the wealth of the community.

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What concern requires by way of medical care must be different in a poor community from a rich one.

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And what counts as incitement to violence will depend upon vocabularies which differ from society to society.

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Our question is not. Does liberalism have different consequences in different under different circumstances?

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It's rather the question is liberalism itself the two principles true only for some communities and not for others.

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That is our question. We come now to what I believe is a very important juncture.

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I wish to argue. That though political morality may be sensitive to distinctions of culture.

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What counts as the correct morality in one society is not necessarily the same as what counts in another society with very different traditions.

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Political morality can be sensitive to culture, broadly understood, but it cannot be sensitive all the way down.

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It must bottom out in principles that are claimed to be universal.

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Consider by way of an example what I suppose is the most extravagant version of cultural relativism that we could imagine.

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Consider the following theory.

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Political morality of a particular community must be a morality that reflection has roots in resonate with shared understanding and a shared history.

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Foster. That sounds tremendously.

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Parochial. But since it's a moral claim, we must ask.

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Why? Why is that so?

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And many answers are in principle available.

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We might say, for instance, what some anthropologists had said, cultural diversity is itself something worthwhile.

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Different communities have different cultures and hence different kinds of institutions.

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And it is a very good thing that there be that kind of diversity for any number of reasons.

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That's it. You might say a collective rather than an individual claim, but there are individual claims we might make.

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We might say that a society which has not known democracy will be.

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Riddled with tensions will become inefficient or become unstable if an attempt is made to end graft, democracy and a culture resistant to it.

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We hear this quite a bit. We hear about Asian values.

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Mr. Business man called Mr. Lee wrote an extremely interesting op ed piece in The New York Times a couple of months ago saying

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explaining that the Chinese conception of democracy is very different from ours because the Chinese believe that democracy is a means.

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Whereas he said, You in America somehow seem to think it's an end in itself.

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And he offered that as an explanation for the massacre of Tiananmen Square.

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There's there are other possible explanations, justifications for this paradigm of cultural relativism.

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We might talk about people's expectations. We might talk about people's sense of dignity being connected to continuity with their ancestors.

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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.

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But they claim that diversity of culture is something good in itself can't itself be thought to be parochial or cultural.

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Because then we would have an infinite regress of explanation.

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Relativity was bottom in a universal claim.

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It cannot we cannot if we're talking about morality rather than simple anthropology,

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our moral conviction must, in the end, be universal in their claim.

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Now. How deep?

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Can. Relativity go, when must it bottom out?

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Here's a suggested answer. Relativity must come to a point.

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At which it deploys principles of moral valence.

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Principles of moral valence are those that answer the question when morally speaking, are things getting better and what are they getting worse?

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It doesn't demand that doesn't demand a consequentialist answer, though consequential and consequentialist answer would serve.

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A principle of moral valence may be a candid kind of claim about intrinsic respect for human being,

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or it may be a claim about the prosperity of community.

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But again, a claim of moral valence is indispensable.

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At some point you can't have a moral theory without an understanding when things are getting better or getting worse, morally speaking,

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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.

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Now I emphasise that because the two basic principles of liberalism are principles stating moral valence.

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But first principle says what counts as going better has to do with the fate of individual people.

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And the fate of each must count the same when coercion is in point.

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The second principle argues what counts as things going better for an individual.

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It says that must be left person by person to the person whose life it is.

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These are statements of moral vengeance. They may be wrong, but they can't be right for some and wrong for others.

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If liberalism is true for some. If it's true for us, it's true for everyone.

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Is it true for us? I've argued that it is true.

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Indeed, I've offered an argument in the Hedgehogs book, which I'm now going to summarise.

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I find that argument absolutely compelling. And here it is.

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We're talking, remember, about coercion, about people in power, forcing other people to do what they do not want to do.

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Coercion is justified only when certain conditions are met.

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Coercion is justified only when it is consistent with the dignity of the person coerced.

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It cannot be consistent with his dignity unless it treats his fate as as important as anybody else's.

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Otherwise, it's a form of slavery and inconsistent with dignity.

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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.

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Now, as I say, I find that perfectly compelling. I admit, reluctantly, that you may not.

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But. If you don't, then you have another theory.

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Another theory of what justifies coercion. That is a theory of moral valence.

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And that theory, whatever it is, must be universal.

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I. I might take a moment to. To warn against a certain mistake that might be possible at this point.

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I think it's a mistake. And that is to say. We can't talk about political morality, liberalism or any other.

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As true or false. They're entirely subjective.

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And because they're subjective, they can only be different.

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Not right or wrong, not true or mistaken.

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Time is now short, so I can't be polite that viewers incoherent.

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It's incoherent because scepticism of that form is itself a moral position.

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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.

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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,

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it remains true that someone who says there is no right and wrong in this neighbourhood is denying that rich people have an obligation.

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To help the poor. He understands the language he must use tonight.

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It so impolite. Incoherent.

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I want to end with.

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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,

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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.

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But we. We understand liberalism in terms of the two principles.

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We can hardly say with a straight face that we have achieved liberalism.

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The welfare state in this country. Admirable, I believe.

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Could be seen as an attempt to distribute in accordance with the hypothetical insurance.

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I think it can be I think that was the the Fabian instinct behind the development of the welfare state here.

289
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But if we look at it that way, we must agree that it's dramatically underfunded and getting worse day by day.

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In the United States, we celebrate the generosity of our conception of free speech.

291
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But our Supreme Court so much understood what free speech is about,

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that it held that our Constitution demands that corporations be allowed to give unlimited sums to political campaigns.

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That's in fear, striking distance, corrupting democracy beyond repair.

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And it's an extreme, illiberal understanding of free speech in France.

295
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I've discovered by reading about the recent election,

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the odious Michel Le Pen was convicted of a crime for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not inhumane.

297
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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.

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We should stop talking about exporting liberalism for a while and begin to think about importing liberalism from where?

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From the only place we can. From universal, timeless, objective, moral truth.

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Where else? Thank you for your patience. Well, ladies and gentlemen, can you hear me all right at the back?

301
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Oh, I'm sure you will agree with me that that was an extraordinary tour de force.

302
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Done. Note this.

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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.

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And it helped me to compile some notes, which I think will be sure to come into his category of incoherence.

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And he, early on in his remarks, I quoted and criticised Isaiah Berlin.

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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,

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I found myself standing at the bus stop in the high street next to Isaiah Berlin,

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and I couldn't resist the opportunity to get a line from him as to what I should say at LSC.

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I said, Are there any such things as universal norms?

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And as I said, No, no, no.

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Such thing as a universal norm viewed equality that is universally admired is courage, and that's deeply ambiguous.

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So that was his answer to today's question.

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And today we've had a rather more inspiring and encouraging answer, which is that liberalism is of universal value.

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And I start out from a sympathy with that position.

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Indeed, today I was reading, as is my habit, a report from the Canadian Parliament,

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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.

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And it referred to human rights as mankind's highest obligation.

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And again, I have deep sympathy with that approach.

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It's a noble expression of, uh, not just an important point of view, but a fundamental value.

320
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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
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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
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Not as many of us think, a universal political manoeuvre, morality with authority everywhere.

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Now, my purpose in these initial remarks is to suggest a slightly different framing of the question,

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and I'll suggest a slightly reframed version at the end on the way there.

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I'll try and indicate where I wholeheartedly agree with Professor Dworkin and where I have some reservations.

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Professor Dworkin makes it crystal clear that his advocacy of a universal political morality is not the same as advocacy of particular actions,

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whether they be trade boycotts or military interventions, etc., to end practices we dislike.

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So this is not an argument about intervention. However, the risk of making a cheap point,

330
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I should say that there's a long history of a belief in the universal value of

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liberal ideas being associated inextricably with patterns of interventionism.

332
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This nexus has continued in our own time with interventions Western interventions in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq.

333
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Now, you may take different views of each of these, and I'm not criticising them all.

334
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Some I have great sympathy and support for, but because of that nexus,

335
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I am perhaps more wary than Professor Dworkin about proclaiming the universality of liberalism as a foundational political idea.

336
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If, despite my note of concern, we agree on the principle.

337
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This is not a discussion about interventionism.

338
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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
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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
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which was also noted by Professor Dworkin about the sheer complexity of getting a formal agreed definition of what liberalism is.

341
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The term is encrusted with a huge number of barnacle like connotations, nowhere more so than, as he indicated in the United States.

342
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Indeed, so much so that the American inner city political joke has some real resonance.

343
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A question What is the definition of a liberal answer?

344
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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.

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The meaning pursued in this discussion can be put reasonably simply,

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it refers to a political philosophy that emerged in modern and still recognisable form in the late 18th century.

347
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And the essence of it is a belief in liberty as the key condition of intellectual,

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social and economic growth, and in progress as an attainable outcome from it.

349
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The main, perhaps the only constraints on liberty that are accepted are those that are embodied in an agreed framework of law,

350
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administered with impartiality and integrity.

351
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And that's why Professor Dworkin does something really valuable when he seeks to refine liberalism,

352
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as he has done here today, into two basic principles which I remind you of.

353
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Take it as coercive government. Note that interesting emphasis on coercion is not legitimate unless it meets the two conditions.

354
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It shows equal concern for the fate of all those under its dominion.

355
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And unless it acknowledges and facilitates the responsibility of all those to define for themselves their own conception of how to live well.

356
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No one may, I think, legitimately wonder how even reduced to this essential core.

357
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These how universal these two principles can be even long established, democratic and yes,

358
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liberal polities may fail to meet the high standards of these two basic principles.

359
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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
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Whether one is discussing the budget. The excessive power of the Murdoch press, the provision of protective equipment to our troops in Afghanistan,

361
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or the residential arrangements of gypsies. And to what extent did we wish in the past to extend to Catholics,

362
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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
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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
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And liberalism has been very much part of that approach.

370
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And since at least the 17th century, many enunciation of liberal interventionism,

371
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whether by politicians or writers, have been worryingly general in character.

372
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The US Declaration of Independence, 1776.

373
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Famously, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

374
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Wonderful words, but with an implication of universality.

375
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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
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should apply to all societies and to get a minimum agreement on what they are.

379
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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
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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.