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Understanding Conservatism

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Understanding Conservatism IMMIGRATION, JUSTICE AND SOCIETY UNDERSTANDING CONSERVATISM www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform Established by Margaret Thatcher, New Direction is Europe’s leading free market political foundation & publisher with offices in Brussels, London, Rome & Warsaw. New Direction is registered in Belgium as a not-for-profit organisation and is partly funded by the European Parliament. REGISTERED OFFICE: Rue du Trône, 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Naweed Khan. www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform The European Parliament and New Direction assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this publication. Sole liability rests with the author. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 THE UNSOLVABLE PROBLEMS OF LIBERALISM by Alvydas Jokubaitis 6 2 CONSERVATISM: TRUE AND FALSE by Andreas Kinneging 14 3 VERITAS, REALISM AND THE CONSERVATIVES by András Lánczi 20 4 CONSERVATIVE RESPONSES TO THE CRISIS OF THE EU AND TO THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL 24 CHANGES TAKING PLACE IN MAJOR EU MEMBER STATES AND IN THE US by Miłowit Kuniński 5 THE FUTURE OF CONSERVATIVE POLITICS IN EUROPE – 38 A CENTRAL-EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE by Ferenc Hörcher 6 CONSERVATISM: TRUTH AND MODERATENESS by Zoltan Balazs 51 7 CENTRAL EUROPE, CONSERVATISM AND BREXIT by John O’Sullivan 60 8 THE FUTURE OF CONSERVATISM IN SLOVAKIA by Juraj Šúst 68 APPENDIX 78 European Conservatives and Reformists Group 79 Belgium 82 Bulgaria 86 Croatia 86 Cyprus 87 Czech 88 Denmark 92 Finland 96 Germany 98 Greece 99 Ireland 100 Italy 104 Latvia 105 Lithuania 106 Netherlands 107 Poland 108 Slovakia 113 United Kingdom 114 New Direction - The Foundation for European Reform www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform Alvydas Jokubaitis onservatism is a paradoxical phenomenon. the problems of their opponents. By attempting to Conservatives defend their beliefs, which stay relevant in contemporary political discussions, C sometimes are unmodern, but to defend conservatives have to fulfill two tasks: (1) to show them they are engaged in discussions which are the weak spots in the positions of their opponents necessarily modern. Conservatives are well known for and (2) to prove that the attempt to solve modern their critique of ideologies but they themselves are problems requires conservatism. The purpose of this ideologues. They are engaged in modern ideological article is to present a new challenge to the political discussions, but do not believe that these discussions philosophy of liberalism. This challenge should have any serious meaning. Once conservatives serve be useful in attempts to rethink conservatism. become adherents to ideological thought, their The contemporary problems about the identity of situation becomes even worse. From its very liberalism are also the problems of conservatism. beginning conservatism is a reactionary ideology, While the identity of political liberalism remains and for this reason conservatives should not follow unclear, the identity of conservatism also seems the path of their opponents. Their calling is to show destined to remain unclear. 1 TWO PARADOXES THE UNSOLVABLE OF LIBERALISM oday the political philosophy of liberalism faces principles of political liberalism. However, according a situation that Hans Christian Andersen told in to Rawls, we can have no serious objections against PROBLEMS OF T his tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. Since the calling them liberals. publication of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism, it has become clear that a liberal society cannot be built on Rawls’s works demand us to reconsider the identity moral liberalism. This means that liberalism cannot be of the philosophy of liberalism. The American LIBERALISM the basis of a liberal society. The idea that a society philosopher developed a theory of liberalism, should defend only liberals is a misunderstanding according to which liberals are equal to nonliberals because common principles of liberalism have to in a liberal society. More than 20 years have passed Alvydas Jokubaitis be defended by since the publication of Political Liberalism; however, individuals who no one seems to have explained why a society that is are not liberals. If composed of a considerable number of people who liberals want to be are opposed to the doctrine of liberalism is called consistent, they a ‘liberal society’. Liberals cannot apply their moral have to reject the philosophy to liberal politics. Such an application concept of liberal would destroy their commitment to fairness. Political society. Respect liberalism can only be defended when liberals admit for moral pluralism that their philosophy of morality cannot be enforced does not mean that politically. Liberals and anti-liberals have to be treated society as a whole as equal members of a liberal society. The advocates should be called a of political liberalism cannot claim that the moral ‘liberal society’. It is clear that when a society agrees philosophy of liberalism has to become the ruling on the principles of political justice (as postulated by philosophy of the liberal regime. They can reasonably Rawls’s theory), it cannot be designated as ‘liberal’ expect to be called moral liberals, but they cannot because the agreement is valid to all members of seriously think that all citizens of a liberal regime society, even to those who hold the most antiliberal should be called liberals. This is the coping stone of convictions. It would be absurd to call fascists ‘liberals’ Rawls’s political liberalism. Liberal and nonliberal because they live in a society which is built on the citizens have to live their daily political lives according 6 New Direction - The Foundation for European Reform www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform 7 THE UNSOLVABLE PROBLEMS OF LIBERALISM Alvydas Jokubaitis MORAL PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT MORALITY iberals cannot ground their identity in the field it become clear that the so-called morality of of politics. They are also incapable of doing liberalism is not a system of virtues but merely L this in the field of morality. Most liberals tend the right to criticize any code of morality. Liberals to take moral liberalism for granted. However, there feel obliged to revise all moral codes and this is no moral philosophy of liberalism. Liberals could critical revision is the essence of their moral never agree on principles of morality that could be philosophy. By asserting the right of individuals codified. If we admit that their moral philosophy is to criticize any conviction, liberals reveal the essentially a critique of other systems of moralities, strange status of their own moral convictions. we would have to see Joseph de Maistre as a more Their conception of morality is a repetition of consistent liberal than John Stewart Mill because de the matrix of political liberalism. When someone Maistre was a much sharper critic than Mill. Critique argues that abortions should be made illegal, to the same principles of justice. Political liberalism Liberals focus their view on guarding the rights of is incapable of grounding a common identity of liberals say that the admissibility of abortions has cannot exist if it is recognised only by liberals. In citizens. Such a narrowing of perspective makes them the moral philosophy of to be left to the decision of a order to exist it has to be recognised by citizens incapable of grounding any sort of ethics that would liberalism. According to the freely acting individual. This who can privately reject the doctrine of liberalism. be directed toward moral perfection. This necessarily traditional understanding, means that Catholics cannot Political liberalism can exist only if it is recognised by follows from the premise that the status of moral a liberal is someone who become liberals as long as individuals who do not hold themselves to be liberals. choice is the same as that of the choice between takes a critical stance their catechism opposes the Liberals have no stable or unchanging identity that different kinds of ice cream, shoes or cars. This trait of towards conservatives. If legalization of abortions. would allow us to distinguish them from nonliberals. liberalism proves the truth of Böckenförde’s insight de Maistre had criticized Since the regime of political liberalism has to be that the very existence of liberal regimes depends the conservatives he The contemporary popular recognized by citizens who are not liberals, we have on moral resources that are not liberal. would be regarded as a idea of the end of morality no reason to call this regime ‘liberal’. The struggle for liberal thinker; however, allows us to gain a better a liberal identity that has lasted for a few hundred Rawls proposes a form of liberalism that unites he criticized the French understanding of the moral years seems to have ended as a failure. Liberals liberals and nonliberals. Political liberalism is not revolutionaries and today philosophy of liberalism. have to base their political identity on the same inseparable from the moral philosophy of liberalism. is held to be an enemy of Alasdair MacIntyre is right to foundations as nonliberals. It can function without the support of liberal morality. liberalism. When a person state that what traditionally Political liberalism can be (and has to be) defended by takes a stance against was understood to be morality According to the German jurist and political the opponents of moral liberalism. Nonliberal citizens abortions, he is called a has disappeared during some philosopher Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, a liberal can freely live according to their convictions in conservative; however, when he takes a stance against point of modernity. In his words, ‘We possess indeed state cannot survive without moral resources that liberal regimes. However, there are limits to their abortions and adds the statement that in the end simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of are not liberal. He states the same thing as Rawls freedoms, and these limits are set politically by everything depends on the choice of the individual, he the key expressions. But we have – very largely, – political liberalism cannot stand on its own legs liberals.
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