AN ANTI FEDERALIST VIEW OF LIBERTY

This posting aims to continue the topic this blog took up in its last posting.  That posting, entitled “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020), asked and began to answer the question:  what influence does the moral beliefs of the natural rights view over governance and politics have on a person?  And a subsequent question is:  what does such an influence mean when it is applied to the staff of a secondary school especially among that school’s civics teachers?

          That posting pointed out that the main element of that influence is that it encourages people to see politics from a purely personal perspective.  Since that construct emphasizes a person’s right to determine his/her values and the rights associated with advancing those values, the construct directs a person to look inward and remove him or her from the interests of others.  The problem is that in the US, a nation that has a federalist foundation to its polity, it counts on a proactive posture in relation to communal concerns, at least more so then what natural rights view promotes.

          So, a value orientation that affects this relationship between how people feel toward others and the needs of maintaining or, perhaps, strengthening a more communal foundation should not only be of concern to people in general but also should have a targeted effect on what is taught in civics classes.

          Contextually, one understands that holding a belief as a moral claim, a person upgrades that belief as a guiding principle.  The belief becomes more than a standard by which to judge what is prudent; its advocate elevates the belief to a life guiding principle.  As this principle becomes more central to one's moral standing, one will be disposed to encourage others to abide by that same standard. 

Policy preferences that are held because of this principle are given more importance than would otherwise be the case.  The bearer of such a value, in the extreme, becomes ideological about it.  In such a case, practical aspects of related situations or the interests of negatively affected parties are mundane and dispensable.  On the other hand, for “true believers,” related positions and arguments – those that oppose that person’s belief – become extremely important; they are judged as being hazardous.  To the extent that anyone is so affected, related or derived concerns become very serious.

For most educators of civics, this is not the case; a commitment to natural rights values – particularly that of liberty – is more moderate.  The extreme is mentioned only to provide a point of comparison for the varying positions different advocates might take.  As for these advocates, to any degree of fidelity, they follow the tenets of classical liberal political thought.[1] 

To the extent it applies, one benefits from understanding what constitutes classical liberal thought.  Again, liberal thought believes that individuals should be free to form their own values and goals in life along with the freedom to act toward fulfilling those values and goals.  Following John Locke's standard, the right to pursue one's value choices is limited only by the rights of others to do likewise.

This is a legitimate expression of a version of liberty,[2] but that legitimacy does not make it optimal when one considers the interests of the commonwealth.  As a trump value, the sanctity of a person to be such a free agent has been identified by the term, individual sovereignty.[3]  Or as Locke stated, “every man has a Property in his own Person.”[4]  Many can agree with such a sentiment.  Most Americans believe in liberty.  The question becomes:  how central to one's core beliefs is such an allegiance and, in turn, how does that centrality affect the common welfare? 

As this blog has stated elsewhere, one might believe in liberty; one might even cherish it, but is it one’s ultimate or trump value in a general sense or in terms of civic concerns?  Those who hold liberty so centrally as the ultimate value tend to see government's most important function, even its only function, as guaranteeing this form of liberty. 

They see government securing individual sovereignty with the least amount of coercion possible.  They ascribe to this political position a moral quality to the point that they see challenges to liberty, as just mentioned, as extremely important.  Such devoted advocates – the ideologues – define how moral a person is in his/her civic behavior by how well he/she lives according to the tenets of liberty.

By applying this whole moral concern to the work of civics curriculum developers and implementers, they would obviously champion individual rights in their proposed instructional plans.  They believe individual students are free to develop for themselves any set of moral beliefs if such beliefs do not trump liberty as defined above.  Applying this moral claim to civics curriculum, of course, places individual rights as prominent.  And, in line with this blog’s contention, that construct is currently dominant among Americans.

What that means in public schools is that, under the auspices of a natural rights view, students can follow any religious tradition – Christian, Judaic, Islamic, secular humanistic, etc. – if one is not coerced into doing so.  Which means one does not prohibit others from the same choices.  In summary, all reasonable moral claims are equally tolerated.  Or, using other words, the natural rights moral stand has little to say about most moral questions.  At least that’s the impression it gives. 

It promotes an individualism whose effects have grown through the years and has become in the last seventy-five years or so the moral foundation for how Americans define their nation’s institutions.  That is, it has become the prevalent construct and it has taken on a more institutionalized role.  For example, the reigning economic view, according to William K. Tabb,[5] is the neoliberal view that was initiated by the Ronald Reagan administration and its economic policies.  Those policies glorified individualism in the nation’s markets and, even after the 2008 financial crisis, is still the operating view of economic policy makers.[6]

As such, one can judge how such a position among fellow citizens has become ever more ingrained and a source of many of our assumptions about our social world.  With that influence, it steers, more than any other view, the political views of Americans and into many other realms of life.  As such, it undermines certain other value positions or traditions. 

For example, a bias against welfare programs might emerge.  Not that such a policy is necessarily anti-liberty, but with a natural rights moral standing, a person is free to see the value choice that rejects any responsibility toward others as simply another choice with no a priori importance attached to it.  Americans in general have lost much of their communal biases or dispositions.

That is, one is not held to supporting such a policy or rejecting it because these are personal value choices with little demand for any justification.[7]  Further, there should not be any legal stigma on anyone’s indifference to the plight of others; to lack such concern is, again, just another value choice.

To federalists, this is abysmal and dangerous.  To them, given their perception that the polity was based on federalist values, such a natural rights bias among the general population is a recipe for serious problems.  Which problems?  One can look around to find out.  This writer, in another venue, has reported certain dysfunctional attributes afflicting the American polity. [8] 

That is, by asking the question, what is the current state of civics education, he reports that among Americans low levels of knowledge over governance and politics, low levels of political engagement, high levels of uncivil behavior, and, compared to other countries, high levels of criminality exists. 

On a related matter, today one can see how the spending by a billionaire through sophisticated TV adds can make him a contending candidate in the Democratic primary contests.  This is not to counter the prudence of his nomination, if he were to get it, but to just point out what the power 30-second TV bites can have on the political perceptions of people in general. 

This leads to the question:  can a billionaire “buy” an election?  Of course, the question, can a billionaire buy a politician, has long ago been answered and the answer is quite divorced from federalist values.  And this type of disconnect leads one to one more concern over natural rights values.  That is, as hinted at with the reference to neoliberal view, their association to market perceptions and values should be questioned.  Hmm, a topic for another posting?  This writer thinks so.

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[1] Not to be confused with the position on the political spectrum that lies left of neutral and further left than the conservative point on the spectrum.  Actually, classical liberal thought is considered a conservative view.

[2] Federal liberty is another version.

[3] Jeffrey Reiman, “Liberalism and Its Critics,” in The Liberalism-Communitarianism Debate, ed. C. F. Delaney (Lanhan, MD:  Rowman and Litttlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994), 19-37.

[4] Meir Dan-Cohen, Harmful Thoughts: Essays on Law, Self, and Morality (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2002), 296.

[5] William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2012).

[6] The neoliberal view has been under attack since the 2008 crisis, but its replacement has yet been defined or taken hold.  As a matter of fact, it has been given new life under the Trump administration.

[7] As a matter of fact, since welfare depends on tax dollars, such a program does inflict costs and, therefore, welfare laws impose the choice of some – those who support them – on other citizens.  That imposition obviously defies the natural rights view of liberty.

[8] Robert Gutierrez, “How Effective Is Civics Education?” A PDF accessed February 28, 2020,  https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11783&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AHFo6PFBnpUkePw .

The NATURAL RIGHTS' VIEW OF MORALITY

This posting poses the following question:  is there a sense of morality one can ascribe to the natural rights view – the dominant view of governance and politics in America today?  In the course of daily life, in this political cultural environment, one can find oneself wondering why people behave as they do, especially as that behavior affects fellow citizens. 

In terms of addressing the major concerns of the day, for example the opioid crisis, one can readily see a general sense of detachment as to the fate of others.  After all, under a natural rights regime, everyone is sovereign and basically responsible for his/her fate.  But that does not prevent or even discourage one from wondering about various related attributes one can ascribe this view. 

In terms of when one observes or is victimized by unfriendly, unconcerned, or even hostile acts of others, are those “others” lazy, hold deep-seated animosities, or feel some other anti-social bias when he/she is observed being selfish or self-centered? We often wonder what makes others “tick.”  An example might be why does a neighbor not keep his/her house presentable or keep it in a sloppy state?  Every neighborhood has that neighbor.

When such a question involves a more important concern such as a professional doctor or lawyer’s practice that operates without sufficient levels of conscientiousness, one is tempted to assume that decisions to behave that way are based on either some morally deficient belief or an indifference to the moral issue(s) at stake.  These concerns can extend from judgements concerning that professional’s work ethic or how the behavior in question might affect patients, clients, or other people.

Based on these overall, everyday concern, this posting identifies what this writer believes to be the likely moral civic view Americans, including civics teachers, adopt and it identifies the degree to which one can hold that view responsible for the tenor of civic behavior among the populous including what one finds in American schools.  And unfortunately, that includes higher levels of hurtful actions toward neighbors, workers, professionals, and others that one encounters.[1] 

For the readers of this blog, they know the claim here is that that outlook is called the natural rights view.  And that view has affected the moral calculations most Americans perform in determining their moral choices – choices that come about from morally challenging situations of everyday life. 

By reviewing what one can determine are educators’ – those who abides by the tenets of this view – moral positions are, one can begin to understand what makes them “tick” in making their curricular choices.  And by doing so, one can begin to understand the moral culture one finds in American schools today.

What is described here (and in the next posting), of course, does not pertain to all of these professional educators equally.  The range of commitment varies substantially.  But one can claim that in the main, they share the beliefs this posting identifies as being the tenets of how they see their social and political world.  They not only believe in these beliefs but also feel a commitment toward them even if they cannot always verbalize the content and/or level of that commitment – its effects on a person are often at the subconscious level.[2]

Interestingly, natural rights’ beliefs relate to a central and on-going tension in the nation’s constitutional history.  The tension is the struggle between a belief in liberty and a belief in equality – a recurring topic of Western political writers.  That is, that literature has analyzed the inherent clashing ideals that these values (or what some might call qualities) represent.  Usually, that tension is exhibited by the competing commitments Americans have between an allegiance to individualism and an allegiance to communal values.[3]

The central moral question this tension relates to is:  when reality or policy strives to advance or protect liberty at the expense of equality, or vice versa, which of these ideals is one willing to sacrifice or minimize?  In terms of a nation’s politics, this decision often confronts policy makers and average citizens and is, at least, the subtext of what the polity must resolve. 

For example, in terms of the regulating business activity as that activity affects some employee benefits, a regulation is likely to restrain a businessperson's liberty.  But by instituting the regulation it can advance the safety or economic welfare of workers that would result in promoting equality.   In this example, though, both positions might claim it is advancing the community although evidence suggests businesspeople’s interests are not so broadly felt.[4]

For those who support a natural rights construct, they tend to share a bias favoring liberty over equality.  For natural rights advocates, in the extreme, liberty is their trump or ultimate value.  That is, in terms of civic beliefs and feeling, that value is the most important one in their civic morality.  Such cries as, “Give me liberty or give me death” can be heard at some level of consciousness.  This does not mean they do not value equality, necessarily, but its importance does not measure up to liberty’s.

This has various implications.  The above hints at some of them.  The next posting will pick up on this review, but before bringing this posting to a close, this blogger wants to remind the reader what the goal is.  The concern here is to explain the political culture students find in schools.  And by doing so, hopefully those educators who want to promote a more collaborative and communal environment can further their appreciation of the challenge such a goal faces when they work in the typical American secondary school.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, “How Effective Is Civics Education?”  An online PDF posted essay this writer submitted to make the case that civics education is highly ineffective in helping prepare youngsters ot being good citizens.  It uses evidence of how they and adults meet certain civic obligations, like voting or being knowledgeable about civic issues.  To gain access to the essay, the reader can use the following URL:  https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=CED163627385DD3C!11783&ithint=file%2cdocx&app=Word&authkey=!AHFo6PFBnpUkePw .

[2] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, (New York, NY:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011) AND Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York, NY:  Pantheon Books, 2012).

[3] According to Steven Pinker, this tension is well-based on human biologically determined psychic dispositions of all people.  See Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1997).  He places the bias to naturally lean toward individualism.  In that determination one can also cite Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

[4] See Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times (New York, NY:  Public Affairs, 2019).