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Please do not confuse "liberalism", the moral philosophy espoused by Locke/Montesquieu/Mill et al., with "liberal" as used as an adjective in modern-day US poli
by NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
Please do not confuse "liberalism", the moral philosophy espoused by Locke/Montesquieu/Mill et al., with "liberal" as used as an adjective in modern-day US politics. The two have almost nothing to do with each other.
- bitdizzy 6y agoI would not consider the philosophy of those three writers to be the same philosophy.
- hacknat 6y agoThey don't have almost nothing to do with one another. Modern American liberalism is based pretty heavily on universal suffrage and human rights. The Rawlsian veil of ignorance[1] that the modern American left is pretty much based on is largely an extension of Locke. Sure, there are some economic ideas that the early liberals had that most modern liberals (and modern conservatives for that matter) would eschew, but to reduce their thinking to being purely libertarian does a disservice to the modern left, which needs all the historical support it can muster. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance