I’ve explained in the introduction that our political beliefs are shaped by core values that most of us can agree on in principle, although their reification may result in divergence of opinion due to competing principles and prioritisation preferences (I am not making a philosophical word salad, please do read the introduction if you haven’t done so).
Over the next few posts we will explore my core values, which you will hopefully agree are reasonable.
The first is the freedom of the individual.
A person should be allowed to live as freely as possible (an ambiguous expression which, like I said, can cause disagreement when we specify how it is “implemented”). I believe in freedom because I believe we are all born against our will: nobody is born out of choice, and so it would be unfair to be born into a world that puts restrictions on us. At birth, we don’t owe anything to anyone: we should not, in other words, be limited by anyone’s rules as we did not agree to them — we should be free. Freedom applies to both the freedom to act and the freedom to think: we should be free to do whatever we want, free to think however we like, and free from anyone and everyone around us.
Of course, the first conflict already emerges from this definition: if every individual is to be given absolute freedom of agency, then one’s freedom can be an impediment to another person’s right to freedom. This happens for example when a person decides to kill another — taking away their freedom to live. I won’t get into the details of defining a boundary between a person’s freedom and another’s (not yet, anyway), as I believe philosophers have spent enough time and words on the subject that anyone who wishes to dig into this may do so, and find out for themselves exactly where they stand on the matter. Besides, I believe that getting into the specifics would force us to step into the realm of policy, and that is something we will eventually (have to) do but it is not the object of this post. I will, for now, summarise my stance this way: an individual should be as free as possible, in a way that maximises everyone’s right to freedom.
Although parties across the (Western) political spectrum claim to defend freedom, most parties fail to properly stand up to the definition above in one way or another. Conservative parties are generally closer to an approach that prioritises freedom of the individual in their policies: they believe in a smaller state, have a more laissez-faire approach to the economy and society in general, and they believe that people’s life choices are what make people succeed or fail — and as such should be interfered with as little as possible. However they often still have religious or cultural ties to Christianity, and as such take freedom-denying stances on issues like same-sex marriages or abortions. The issue of abortion deals with the very definition of “individual”, and I understand some readers might consider abortion one of those practices that (in my own words from above) do not “maximise everyone’s right to freedom”. I hope, however, that we can all agree that regardless of whether we like same-sex marriage or not, allowing same-sex marriage is more “freedom enhancing” than not allowing it.
As you can see, as soon as we step out of the theoretical concept of freedom and into its practical applications we are forced to make decisions and “take sides”. However, most “sides” (i.e.: political parties) get it wrong in at least some way, which means it can be hard to find a party that interprets freedom in the exact same way we do: voting in a democracy therefore is, as always, a form of compromise between what we want and what we can vote for.