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What Ails Modern Liberalism?

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What Ails Modern Liberalism? RIGHT NOW making it possible for them to teach creative- ly, not just to the standardized tests; allowing Explore More Crows Know How to them to assume leadership roles influencing Have Fun their schools’ values and practices; and im- For additional, online-only, articles If you think birds lack plementing thorough, good-faith evaluation on research, see : intelligence, think again: systems that help teachers improve, rather these tool-making crows than look for ways to punish them. In schools Scholars Advocate “Managed are some of the smartest animals on earth. where evaluation systems worked well, John- Retreat”—Before Climate harvardmag.com/ son writes, “teachers appreciated receiv- Change crows-19 ing detailed recommendations that were Sinks grounded in thorough observations...to be Coastlines There’s (Still) No Gay effective, evaluators must have a deep under- The question is Gene standing of instruction and, ideally, be able no longer if Genes seem to play a role in to demonstrate the skills they recommend.” we abandon determining sexual orienta- Johnson says people often imagine “a trade- coasts, but when and how. tion, but it’s small, uncertain, and compli- off between teachers and whether they like harvardmag.com/coast-retreat-19 cated.harvardmag.com/gaygene-19 their jobs,” on the one hand, and students, on the other. “The assumption…is that it’s zero sum: what the teachers gain the students lose. ed States treats teachers. Those who are in- knowledges and funds the costs of a first- But the research is pretty clear that [when] trinsically motivated to teach, as she knows class education system will our schools and teachers report their workplace is a positive directly, aren’t trying to get rich. But neither teachers succeed in providing it.” support for them, students do better,” even should citizens imagine that high-quality ed- vmarina n. bolotnikova controlling for demographic differences. ucation can be done on the cheap. Cost-cut- In her final chapter, “What Pay Means to ting schemes “can save only so much before susan moore johnson website: Teachers,” Johnson addresses one of the most they begin to compromise students’ learn- projectngt.gse.harvard.edu/people/ publicly visible debates about how the Unit- ing,” she writes. “Only when our society ac- susan-moore-johnson METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS religious sense. An anti-Pelagian, Rawls first denied the possibility of meriting salvation, and then maintained this denial of merit, even What Ails after abandoning religion. Modern, Rawlsian liberals, unknowingly drawing from this theological debate, hold CLOCKWISE FROM MCCOY; ALFRED TOP DAKOTA RIGHT: PASIEKA/SCIENCE SOURCE; TORNADO CHASER/ISTOCK Modern Liberalism? that a person’s actions are most often “ar- bitrary from a moral point of view” because they are contingent on circumstance. Hu- central tenet of modern lib- the world’s ills follow from their unavoid- mans do not choose their birth families or eral political philosophy is that able errors. A dissenting group, the Pela- the traits they inherit, so how can they de- individuals can be governed only gians, asserted instead that “human beings serve any consequent benefits? A truly fair A by consent. But both the nature are fully able to choose” to be good. In that society, such thinkers claim, would elimi- of this consent and the conditions under case, humans can be held accountable for the nate all such unmerited differences. Only which it may be obtained have been de- results of their actions—but if they choose then could individuals be free to consent bated for centuries. In his new book, The correct conduct, they can merit salvation. to liberal government. Theology of Liberalism (Harvard University As Nelson explained in an interview, liber- The problem, Nelson argues, is that hu- Press), Beren professor of government Eric alism is “downstream of all that,” hinging mans cannot claim to know what perfect M. Nelson enters that debate, positing that on the Pelagian concept of humans as free- equality would entail. “For what we are re- liberalism took a “fateful wrong turn” in ly choosing agents. From that point follow ally asking,” he expanded in the interview, the 1970s. The problem, he argues, emerged contracts, democratic political representa- “is whether a world characterized by the because liberal thinkers forgot their meta- tion, and the notion of both accountability existing distribution of natural endow- physical roots. and reward for our decisions. ments among human beings is, from the Liberal thought, Nelson writes, sprang In the 1970s, John Rawls initiated a rejec- point of view of justice, the best of all pos- from answers to a longstanding problem for tion of this brand of liberalism. Before becom- sible worlds.” While most modern liberal Christianity: how can suffering and injustice ing a philosopher, he had studied theology, philosophers would say no, Nelson writes exist in the world if God is both good and planning to join the priesthood. His under- that he sees no way to know for sure. all-powerful? The orthodox position, which graduate thesis, which sparked Nelson’s proj- Religious faith, he says, can provide an an- Saint Augustine championed, blames human ect, dealt explicitly with the question of how swer: those Christians, for example, who be- sin. Humans cannot choose to be good, and and whether humans can be redeemed in a lieve their God is perfectly just, and the world 14 November - December 2019 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 RIGHT NOW “What we are really asking is whether a world By returning to a Pelagian appre- ciation for human choice and ac- characterized by the existing distribution of natural countability, he believes liberalism can avoid the difficulties of attempt- endowments…is the best of all possible worlds.” ing to ascertain such a cosmic verdict. Governments can compel egalitarian is decidedly fallen, can answer that a better critiques the idea that liberalism requires re- redistributions so long as their subjects con- world than this one must exist. But without distribution, not redistribution itself. The sent to be governed in that way, even if an in- such beliefs, the question is harder to answer. two ideas can coexist, and often do, “but dividual’s consent entails mere participation Equally difficult is the problem of they needn’t.” Their exact relationship, ab- in the society the government administers. whether leveling advantages, as Rawlsian sent a link of necessity, becomes “a matter Consent need not be necessary for each ac- liberalism advocates, could alter someone’s of fine-grained judgment about what kind tion the government takes, Nelson suggests. character unrecognizably. A man with of society we want to live in.” The key lies in respecting the individual’s brown hair may remain the same person A modern, Rawlsian liberal might expect original consent to be governed. if he dyes his hair red, or even if a pill turns policy decisions to point toward a perfect vjohn a. griffin his hair blond. But what if the government equality in which all individuals can par- gave him a pill to change his personality, ticipate as equals in a liberal state. But as eric nelson email: making him smarter and easier to work Nelson counters, “It’s not that there’s some [email protected] with? If he is not the same man, it seems kind of cosmic verdict that will tell us what eric nelson website: difficult to say that the original individual tax policy should be.” scholar.harvard.edu/ericnelson/home has benefitted. Nelson worries that attempts to an- Eric Nelson swer such questions breed illiberal atti- tudes, both in academic circles and in the general public. Intelligence pills may be an esoteric example, but he argues that many liberals advocate redistributing wealth or eliminating educational selec- tivity based on the same denial of merit. Such liberals, he has noticed, increasingly assume they know what is best for oth- ers. More pointedly, he offers, it seems counterintuitive to uphold free choice by forcibly redistributing wealth. If these arguments read like veiled attacks on egalitarianism, Nelson in- sisted during the interview that they are not. “We can agree to distribute all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons,” he emphasized. If one accepts that eco- nomic inequality breeds political insta- bility, for example, “that’s a very good reason to mitigate inequality.” His book TEMPERATE ZONING Land Use and Climate Change he first man who, having anyone who wants to tackle the might of trickle-up politics of parochial interests enclosed a piece of ground, NIMBYism and local property rights in the and local sovereignty overpower broader bethought himself of saying, global fight against climate change today. societal needs. When environmental the- “T‘This is mine,’ and found peo- To combat the polluting byproducts of ory becomes zoning practice, few subur- ple simple enough to believe him, was the civilization’s development, many environ- ban homeowners want their neighbors to real founder of civil society.” So argued Jean- mental researchers agree that cities need convert their garages into granny flats, or Jacques Rousseau in 1754. And so bemoans to become denser. Very often, though, the see tall, multifamily walk-ups replacing bu- Photograph by Jim Harrison Harvard Magazine 15 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746.
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