The liberals believed in a Laissez-Faire attitude to economics-favouring private property and free trade (Adam Smiths theory. They also prize freedom over equality, favouring equal opportunities over egilitarianism.
3 main figures that we looked at this week are:
- John Wilkes
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- John Stuart Mill
Wilkes had a colourful life, being forced into exile several times, and elected into Parliament 3 times whilst in prison, and going on to become Mayor of London. His private life was notorious; he was buried in debt and had numerous mistresses, however was popular with lower class mobs in London and the Americans, because of his work in civil liberties.
Wilkes proposed male suffrage in his first bill in 1775. At this time, King George III had appointed a Scot: John Stuart, whom Wilkes detested, as Prime Minister. Stuart set up a paper called The Briton, and so Wilkes counteracted it with a publication called The North Briton, using it to attack the Government and the Scottish Cabal with scandulous rumours, including implications of a relationship between John Stuart and the King's mother.
The King tried to smash Wilkes with prosecutions and lawsuits, and even bribed him to leave the country, followed by an assassination attempt during a duel, however they could not prove that Wilkes was the author of the North Briton.In Issue 45, Wilkes called the King a liar, and so a general warrant was issued. A general warrant was very broad in nature and did not specify the individual criminal. Therefore, Wilkes was arrested, and proceeded to sue the Government for invasion of privacy and false arrest. At the time this was unheard of, but he won and so established these rights for the first time.
Once again, the Government tried to prosecute Wilkes, but they had learnt a lesson. Since they couldn't prosecute a member of Parliament, they expelled him from the House of Commons, before charging him with blasphemous libel.
His obscene poem: Essay on Woman, caused chaos when read aloud, so he fled to France, where he stayed for 4 years, only to be arrested on his return.
Whilst in prison, Wilkes was re-elected, but the House voted him incapable of filling a seat in the House of Commons, and so he was elected Mayor of London instead, where he began reporting on Parliament.
Mary Wollstonecraft is the next key figure we looked at. She had a difficult start to life-she had a violent, drunken father, and their social standing declined into lower class. Therefore, she was forced to work as a Governess to a wealthy family in Ireland, where she became obssessed with education.
In 1787, she wrote her first publication: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. This argued that the education women recieved was superficial and promoted an obssession on vanity and appearance, and activities such as sewing and singing. This did not equip women with independence of thought or judgement.Some of the underpinning of these ideas came from Locke- in that the mind begins as a blank slate, and can be shaped by education. Locke's ideas were very attractive to Wollstonecraft, as they meant that people can be changed. Thus, if you educate people properly you can make them rational, responsible citizens.
Wollstonecraft then returned to London and set up a school before applying her ideas to religion, and becoming a Unitarian.
Wollstonecraft was fascinated by Rousseau, finding him inspirational as well as aggravating. She liked his anti-eliticism, and his attack on modern manners and egilitarianism. However, she was also critical of him in other circumstances. His idea of the ideal woman was submissive, and dominated by the needs and desires of men.
Wollstonecrafts second publication: Vindication of the Rights of Men was based on the ideas of Edmund Burke. Burke was very critical of the French Revolution, and believed that societies were built on tradition. Mary disagreed with this and believed that the ideas of hereditary power and aristocracy were mistaken.This publication was followed by Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which although didnt go into much detail about the civil rights of women, looked into the current state of female manners, claiming that women accept the role given to them and that the education they recieve reinforces that. Her central idea was that men and women should be equal.
Although Wollstonecraft seems like a role model and an idol, her personal life was a completely different story. She had a failed affair, after falling in love with a married man. This resulted in her attempted suicide. This time was also the beginning of the Terror in Paris, and her publications on Vindication were given a warm response. Mary later met and married Goodwin, who published a biography on Wollstonecraft, exposing the truth about her. This horrified people, and her reputation started to slip.
Wollstonecraft later gave birth to a daughter, Mary Shelley, (the same one who wrote Frankenstein) but died shortly after childbirth. Her reputation was severely damaged, until the end of the 19th Century when the Suffragette movement picked it up again, by using her as a role model for the work she had done for womens rights.
John Stuart Mill educated himself from a young age. He taught himself to speak several languages fluently at a young age, and went on to influence great changes in civil liberty. At the age of 17 he was thrown in jail for distributing literature on contraception, and was forwaeven threatened with death. He also put forward the first bill to give women the vote, before having a nervous breakdown at the age of 20.
Mill recovered from his breakdown by reading poetry, and went on to put forward ideas on freedom of speech. He believed that an opinion should never be silenced, as sometimes the majority may be wrong, and even if the majority are right, by challenging their ideas, their opinion is strengthened by the conflict. He also points out that Socrates, and Jesus, were both put to death for being dissenters.
Mill was against uniformity, and believed that living is an experiment. He dismisses the ideas of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau regarding the Social Contract, but admits that individuals must follow societies rules.
He believed that if an action affects society, then the State can enforce certain behaviour, however, the state should not interfere with peoples' choice of pleasures, as long as they do not harm others. He does state that the government can interfere in certain situations.Mill, just like Wollstonecraft, agreed that all children should be educated-otherwise it is a "moral crime". A parent does not have the liberty or choice to withhold a childs' education.
Utilitarianism avoids the problem of dealing with religious or moral ideas of right or wrong. This started with Benthams idea that ethics could be turned into a calculated science. Measuring happiness by determining the greater happiness for the greater number of people. He also believed that everyone's happiness mattered equally, regardless of class and social standing.
Mill was commited to producing the best outcome, but he focused on higher pleasures, andcreated a hierarchy. His education omitted all unnecessary factors, such as sport etc. He later became an MP claiming that you need to be educated to rule.
Utilitarianism is very appealing- we judge actions by consequence, favouring those that promote pleasure and reduce pain. A consequentialite theory is that we compare possible outcomes in relation to their consequences.
3 ways to look at this are:
1) Acts-evaluate the actions by determining the consequences
2) Moral rules
3) Disposition-evaluate actions in terms of traits they exemplify.
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