The Case For a Common Good Liberalism | TaraElla Report Lab

Why there is no reason to choose 'common good conservatism' over liberalism.

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about the idea of the 'common good' from a liberal perspective. It's an important discussion to have, because I fear the West is about to see a wave of anti-liberal sentiment. For many years, people on both the Left and the Right have criticized liberalism for supposedly promoting selfishness and ignoring the common good because of its individualist orientation. With the recent rise of 'common good conservatism' as a focus of the illiberal Right, this debate is likely to heat up again soon. Here, I will offer a defense of liberalism, and explain why I believe liberalism is actually the best model for advancing the common good.

Firstly, there is nothing in liberal values and principles that inherently promotes selfishness or opposes notions of the common good. As I first pointed out several years ago, liberalism is not inherently against communitarianism, indeed, I argued that a fusion of liberalism and communitarianism could be the best way forward. Liberalism, especially the Moral Libertarian model, guarantees individual autonomy and moral agency. But that doesn't mean individuals can't or won't use that moral agency to advance what they believe to be the common good.

The key to advancing the common good is to have a culture that stresses the importance of morality, and our duty towards each other. It is these cultural values that will prevent selfishness from prevailing in the general population. Contrary to what the illiberal Right claims, widespread selfishness and lack of regard for the common good is a product of cultural dysfunction, not a product of liberal individualism. Indeed, the Moral Libertarian model of liberalism places morality at its heart, and I believe the promotion of this model will greatly help to advance the common good in the long run.

The actual difference between liberalism and more authoritarian forms of politics like what the illiberal Right is advocating, is that liberalism stresses individual autonomy. Looking at it from another angle, decision making in liberalism is non-hierarchical, whilst decision making in authoritarian conservatism is done in a hierarchical way. Hence, what constitutes the common good in 'common good liberalism' will ultimately be determined by the marketplace of ideas, especially in the long run, while the common good in 'common good conservatism' will be determined by those at the top of the hierarchy.

Hence, the choice between 'common good liberalism' vs 'common good conservatism' would essentially be a choice between decisions being made by the marketplace of ideas, vs decisions being made by those at the top of the hierarchy. And there is good reason to choose the marketplace of ideas. Firstly, the marketplace of ideas represents the thinking of many minds, the experiences of many lives, and the combined knowledge of a lot of information that a small group of elites simply can't match. Secondly, the marketplace of ideas allows for trial and error, and ideas which are objectively found to be successful can be adopted and further developed by other people. Most importantly, the marketplace of ideas allows for negotiation, where the best parts of each package of ideas can be remixed into new proposals, to create even better solutions moving forward. This is a level of complexity and efficiency top-down decision making simply can't match.

In conclusion, I believe that liberalism is, in fact, the best model to advance the common good, as long as it is practiced in a pro-common good culture. Pro-morality models of liberalism like Moral Libertarianism can also help bring about this culture. Hence, there is no reason to choose 'common good conservatism' over liberalism at all.