It has been said increasingly that, unlike other political ideologies, liberalism doesn’t have an answer to questions like what constitutes the good life, or how a good person should live their life. However, this is actually either a bad faith misrepresentation, or perhaps more frequently, an innocent misunderstanding. Let me explain.
If liberalism has a central commitment, it is to the truth. The real, objective truth, unfiltered by pre-existing biases of any kind, and certainly uncontaminated by powerful forces who want to deceive the masses, for example. I think one can think of all of liberalism as geared towards this one goal: that the truth can be best understood, in an unbiased, unpressured and uncompromised way. This, in turn, is because liberals believe that the good life can only come from a complete and unbiased understanding of the truth. The more of the truth we understand, the better life will be. This, I think, has actually been vindicated by the past few centuries, where improvements in our understanding of science has indeed led to many improvements in the quality of human lives.
Our commitment to the truth, tied to our vision of the good life, is why we are so insistent on free speech. There is nothing more sacred to liberals than the marketplace of ideas. Other ideologies with other visions of the good life aren’t as insistent on free speech as us. For example, nationalists might find it acceptable to limit free speech in the name of ‘the national interest’. Woke-left activists might find it acceptable to limit free speech in the name of ‘social justice’ (although I frankly can’t see a situation where this would actually make sense, to be honest). I also remember a socialist online influencer once said that, how can free speech be a high priority, when so many people are living in poverty. To which I think we liberals should answer, the marketplace of ideas is so sacred to us, that free speech shall be a high priority even when everyone is starving! I’m actually serious. The point is, liberals are unusually committed to free speech, because our vision of the good life depends on it. This, I think, proves that we do have a vision of the good life after all!
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Welcome to Moral Libertarian View , a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual li...
