Authors: Kuper & Kuper
Summary: In slightly more than 1400 words, this entry describes liberalism's modern development, discusses several theories of liberalism, and concludes with a look at economic liberalism since the mid-1970s.
All the different variants of liberalism derive from a common source--interpretations of the morally appropriate relationship between the individual and the state. Traditionally, liberalism rests on the belief that the individual deserves a politically protected sphere because the individual is logically prior to society. Although liberals differ about the role of rationality, the protection of individual self-fulfillment is a primary and more important consideration than obligation to traditional institutional arrangements.
John Locke is identified as the originator of modern liberalism, but liberalism's development also owes much to the influence of the Enlightenment on European thought. Starting in the early nineteenth century, liberalism became explicitly associated with laissez-faire economics and utilitarianism. Any moral dimension to liberalism was limited to that required to promote individual happiness. The theories of David Hume, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are briefly treated.
By the early twentieth century, liberalism became more socially oriented, with the burden placed on the state to provide those conditions necessary for individual fulfillment. At this time, British liberalism became associated with the rise of the welfare state, and emphasis on economic liberty and private property rights waned in significance. Here the entry mentions the works of Hobhouse and Keynes. The entry next discusses late twentieth-century liberalism. Rawls's theory of social justice is explored in some detail, but the work of Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick and Friedrich von Hayek is also treated.
The entry concludes by emphasizing liberalism's commitment to individual sovereignty and methodological individualism.