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On the Origins of Classical Liberalism
Some argue that classical liberalism (now conservatism), as a philosophy, began in the Enlightenment (late 17th century into the 18th century) with the works of thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Bastiat, and Hume. As Friedrich Hayek categorized it, classical liberalism had a French and British branch.
Conservatism, according to this narrative, was rather a unique and radical idea in comparison to all previous philosophies. In other words, what the English did in the Glorious Revolution was the result of a new Protestant paradigm shift from the old and defunct schools of thought which permeated a still predominantly Catholic Continent.
Usually such a movement in the “Enlightenment” is pitted as rational Protestants in England and the Netherlands, along with more secular French and German thinkers, against the superstitious and ritualistic Catholics from Spain and France. As if such areas were entrenched in some permanent medieval paradigm.
I find such a narrative to be antiquated and lacking in detail or support. The roots of classical liberalism are to be traced (obviously in Judeo-Christian writings, the Bible not being the least) in thought to the works of Aristotle (his Politics) then to Augustine (City of God), to Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica), but they were formulated and codified not in the Enlightenment but rather in early 16th-century Spain, with the School of Salamanca.
The School of Salamanca was a group of Jesuit/Dominican thinkers that more or less followed in the Thomist tradition (Scholastics) and their scholarly focus was generally deployed to understanding the various issues in the context that Spain found itself in as an imperial nation in the early 16th century with the unification of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain and its conquests in the New World.
This meant that they dealt with the issue of the humanity of American Indians (do they have souls?), the value of money (all that bullion), the human condition itself (where does sovereignty come from?), the free market (trade across a vast colonial empire), and international law (just wars and treaties).
From the beginning, with the school’s founder Francisco de Vitoria, this group of thinkers more or less made the argument of classical liberalism. They asserted that even the native Americans were humans worthy of dignity. That government’s legitimacy was founded in the will of those under it in a contractual manner, the opposite of the English theory at the time which posited Divine Right (as the king was also head of the Anglican Church).
Free trade was seen as a moral good, as it was the use of free will to the benefit of yourself and your fellow man (thus increasing the bonds of community among all). Value in goods was also subjective (and relied on scarcity), and this meant that only free allocation of goods and services could create efficient outcomes (and was the natural result of said free will).
The concept of usury was undone by the time theory of value posited by Martín de Azpilcueta. The concept of private property being a right of man was posited by Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva, entailing that one had the right to the fruits of that property. These thinkers also devised the concept of just war. To summarize, their theory was that war was supposed to be used to prevent greater evils.
This meant that war ought to occur in order to prevent a greater war, to depose unjust enemies (a government that represses the natural rights of humans), and when it was possible (as a form of charity) to establish some form of peace in areas without structure. In terms of humanity, the school argued that all humans (Christian and non-Christian) had inherent rights that came with our humanity (Vitoria called it ius gentium, the law of all people), and this was the foundation of international law.
In short, such a school formulated classical liberalism (conservatism as we know it today). All humans have an inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the state is supposed to act in a way that does not impede upon such but rather protects it from foreign and native coercion and fraudulence. Free trade is a natural effect of our free will and is the best means of enriching ourselves and our communities.
Thus conservatism was not some radical break from precedent that occurred in the late 17th century, but rather a philosophical tradition already developing in Europe (and arguably had been developing for many centuries). It was finally given its best example in 1787, with the creation of the US constitution, which better exemplified the promise of the Declaration of Independence (classical liberalism). That all men are created equal in the eyes of their creator, and that they have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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If those barriers are constructed based on the premise that marriage is strictly to encourage procreation, then you must add a fertility barrier.
If not, then those barriers are based on your preference. And hence, a gay person would be as much justified in banning straight marriage, enforcing their preference.
The most preferable situation would be for the government not to be involved in marriage, and leave it to private individuals and institutions. But if the government is to be involved, we must view marriage contracts as a state privilege, which every individual must have equal opportunity to access.
Nonsense. The premise is opposite sex, not fertility. We do not legislate for the exceptions — or, at least, it used to be considered unwise to do so.
[Nonsense.]
Marriage was one man with one woman ever since the beginning. Your suggestion fails to recognize that there was nobody wanting to change the definition of marriage until the Left decided that they needed to re-define it in a way that would allow same-sex couples.
The estate of marriage has been very badly damaged in the previous hundred years, primarily through the errors and excesses of the sexual revolution. Through all that, conservatives were resisting changes that we felt were bound to yield unintended consequences. We opposed change. There was never any conservative initiative to make changes.
The initiatives on all the rot and ruin we have experienced as our society breaks down have come from the Left. The Libertines led the charge. The Libertarians were cheerleaders from the sidelines.
You premise was that opposite sex barriers exist because marriage is to encourage child bearing. If that is the case, marriage should be restricted to relationships capable of bearing children entirely.
Your definition of marriage has been the same for a very long time. However, you do not have any more a right to exclusivity over the law because of age than homosexuals have to exclusivity over the law because of their youth.
If seniority determined right to law, then the American Revolution was a sham, and we should be searching for the decedents of Caesar to command us.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe both that marriage is for civilizing the procreation of children and that testing men and women entering marriage for infertility would be too intrusive.
Bright-line rules that only roughly approximate what they’re testing for (like age of majority or age of consent) are accepted as a reasonable part of the law (despite how we all know that some below that age are precocious while others above that age are immature).
Nor do I think it’s unreasonable to be pro-SSM and believe that, if the sole purpose of marriage were to civilize the procreation of children, then testing male-female pairs for fertility before granting marriage would be too intrusive.
Tiresome. Marriage for the attachment of men to the women they may (or may not) impregnate and the children they produce (if nature takes its course) is a societal good! Always has been, always will be.
It isn’t a social welfare/self-esteem program for gays or any other adult. It’s much more about adult responsibility than rights. This is and has always been why government is involved and should be. Not to mention the dicey issue of the disposition of children and property in the case of dissolution of a marriage.
And individuals have always had equal access (miscegenation laws in a few states notwithstanding) in the US based on four limiting criteria: opposite sex, two, age of consent, not blood-related.
I know I’m repeating myself so I’ll stop. And instead, I’ll ask, what are your limiting criteria for marriage and why??
An intellectually honest supporter of SSM must return that there are no limits except consent. Everyone should have equal access no matter who or how many they wish to marry, so long as everyone involved consents. There is literally no “reason” to deny anyone having the sanction of the state.
The point is that the institution of marriage is not strictly about procreation. That are are factors of sentiment and romance, otherwise we would consider infertile people unfit for marriage.
It is wrong to use the power of the state, which we are all subject to, to establish a definition/institution of marriage. And if one is established, then we must fight to ensure that its benefits are not exclusive.
This “logical
That is NOT what I said. I said it was for the purpose of attaching men to the women they have the potential to impregnate and the children they (often) naturally produce.
And this idea that the logical progression is therefore to test for fertility is belied by the history of marriage in this country. No one has ever suggested empowering the state to test for fertility before issuing marriage licenses. No one.
Age, because children are not capable of consent in the way adults are.
However, as I have said before. Marriage ought not be a government function. Beyond that, you simply must make the definition of marriage as inclusive as possible, so as to not exclude people from government privileges based on opinions.
Also. Government Marriage benefits serve to encourage marriage between couples who are prone to divorce. Privatizing marriage will help ensure people make the choice to marry based on their personal relationship and chances at longevity.
I don’t think it would be untenable to hold that marriage’s purpose is procreation, but, because of the bright-line rules used to qualify for it (opposite sex, two, age of consent, not blood-related) and the desirability of avoiding intrusive fertility tests, a few couples pretty much everyone would suspect of being infertile (the very aged, for example) would inevitably get a “free ride” off an institution whose purpose they cannot fulfill.
I don’t take a hardline procreative approach to marriage myself, but I don’t think those who do so are being inconsistent.
You believe the government should define marriage as between a man and a woman because it is a Male-Female Relationship that is capable of naturally bearing children.
The natural progression, since we are able to know who is fertile, is to restrict marriage further. Since an infertile man cannot naturally get a woman pregnant.
Then you are being arbitrary with your exceptions if you are wiling to give exception to an infertile man who loves a woman, but not a man who loves a man.
The fact of this conversation is why it is important that the government not be the guardian of the definition of marriage. Because we are all under the government, but are in disagreement over the definition of marriage. None of us is more qualified to define it for the rest.
If it is to be a defined institution, then it needs to be as inclusive as possible. So as not to exclude members of society from government privileges and providing unequal protection of the law.
I have been rather pointedly mute on which exceptions I would or wouldn’t grant if I were queen of the world.
Nor have I insisted that marriage not be a matter of private law.
It’s possible you’re seeing more antagonism than there is.
Oh for the love of…
Marriage historically serves three purposes:
1.) binding men and women to each other and their potential children for the raising of the next generation.
2.) preventing fornication (which damages other relationships)
3.) encouraging family formation
and a distant 4th in rich societies with stable politics: companionship.
Infertile couples achieve all those ends, keeping the fertile member of the couple from producing bastards, in the event that they do get pregnant linking the family together, and even if they never produce children of their own, the relationship shows others how to create families, thus still encouraging the third.
These are not new ideas, John Locke discusses some of them in the Second Treatise of Government and you can find antecedents at least as far back as the First Letter to the Corinthians.
Would it kill you to do your stupid homework before spamming the thread.
Doesn’t SSM achieve numbers 2 and 3 of your definition?
Wouldn’t SSM help demonstrate to homosexuals how to lead stable family oriented lives?
And this is how marriage devolves into nothingness.
Why is permanence to be desired in marriage? Isn’t that your morality imposed on the government function of marriage?
Again, you emphasize the “privileges” when, in truth, the purpose of marriage has always been to encourage couples with the power of procreation to act responsibly for the good of future citizens and society.
I have no quarrel with gays having their relationships (except on a very personal level of wishing them to understand authentic love better). But, socially, legally, and governmentally, no one has made the case for why their relationships matter. “Marriage” may be personally fulfilling for them to be sure, but SSM doesn’t serve a significant social purpose. Unless you count feeling good about advocating for the “underprivileged” at the expense of the bedrock institution for the formation of families.
There is no “natural progression.” You are building a straw man of what additional restrictions conservatives would want, while ignoring the fact that conservatives were content for thousands of years with the restrictions that were in place before the Left started pushing to change things. (There was a sad history of messing around with limits based on race and class, but these had long ago been discarded and were not an issue.)
Once marriage has been established to protect the potential progeny of the union, then the need for state involvement is satisfied. There is no conservative brief for “further restrictions.”
Absolutely not true. I know for a fact that many of us, most especially Tom Meyer have made the societal case for SSM. You just choose to ignore it.
Lol “authentic love” only a Catholic can so demean others while making it sound like its for their benefit.
Where do you derive those Three Purposes of Marriage as so true that they must be declared as morality with the force of law. The fact of their age does nothing to make them so incredibly true, the British Empire preceded the United States but that doesn’t make it more legitimate. I could just as easily say the youth of homosexuality justifies taking heterosexual marriage off the books, so everyone can try something new.
We are talking about things beyond just what the definition of marriage is. But whether you can so unequivocally declare that marriage is between a man and a woman that you can use the force of the law, a force which gays are also beholden to, to institutionalize your definition of marriage and thus grant state privileges exclusively to heterosexuals.
It is the Classical Liberal position to say that the definition and institution of marriage are in God’s realm, and that your relationship with God is private. The State does not speak to society on God’s behalf, he does not need intermediaries.
Yes; I am willing to concede that Same-sex “Marriage” might improve the stability of some same-sex relationships.
I still oppose this mess, because the change of definition further de-stabilizes the foundational unit of our society. Marriage is a battered union, and undermining the definition in a way that eliminates one of the key elements will lead to bad outcomes.
What good will it be to aid the relationships of a few thousand same-sex couples if the cost is measured in tens of thousands more children not born by women who are married to the fathers of the children? Family instabilities are already yielding a bitter harvest.
The Libertarian cry to “get the government out of marriage” only serves to advance the Libertine cause of free sex. It is the children who will suffer.
I am not willing to make that trade-off.
That is not the classical liberal position, that is your position. You may defend it to your heart’s content, but it is not the position held by Locke or Hobbes or any of the Spanish philosophers we are ostensibly discussing. Locke is quite clear that patriarchal power within the family is the first political institution which state institutions must support in order to have legitimacy, just as they must support the commonwealth -and when the state turns against either it loses its legitimacy and enters into a state of war with its own people.
You may argue that the commonwealth changing its mind about those pre-political institutions and reforming them through legislative action is consistent with Lock, but it is not what he actually said. I reiterate: do your homework.
And I have better uses of my time.
In American parlance, I’d argue there’s a great deal of overlap between “conservative,” “classical liberal,” and “libertarian.” Sal Padula and I attempted to address this in our podcast “Mere Libertarianism.”
On the specific issue mentioned here, not all libertarians have quite the dovish attitudes you describe regarding nationalism and defense.
It is not a conservative position to try something new if it is reasonably likely to result in bad unintended consequences.
Homosexuality is not “young.” The idea that homosexual couples deserve to be “married” according to law is an idea that is only a couple of decades old. But homosexual relationships are very old.
You are removing Chesterton’s Fence.
You are being deliberately deaf to explanations as to why it is there.
It is not a few thousand, it is a few million.
Gay People aren’t Jedi. They can’t use mind tricks to destroy relationships. There is no reason why Gay People receiving a Marriage Certificate would destroy the Marriages of so many other people. If the mere fact of a Gay Couple getting married is somehow able to rip a family apart, than the family institution is far to weak to be worth saving.
And to be clear, I am not arguing against family. I am arguing that family structure is not to shallow or weak.
I know why you’re frustrated, because longtime members have gone round and round (and round) on this issue before. Stoicous is a fairly new member, though, (joined Jan 2016) and may simply be unaware that long-time veterans of Ricochet’s SSM wars already feel as if these points have been talked to death.
Jamie, not helping.
Classical Liberalism is defined by its philosophical conventions, not its political platform at any given time.
Locke’s contribution was to refute Paternalism. The idea that the State is the moral parent of the people. In Locke’s England, that meant defending religious pluralism. Today that entails the State not establishing an exclusive definition of marriage. Locke probably never even thought of Gay Marriage, just as he probably never thought of American Independence, yet we call the Declaration of Independence a corner stone of Classical Liberalism, because it followed in the same lineage of thought as Locke.
You must learn the distinction between Conventions of Society and the Laws of the State. One arises from consensus, the other from force. Which one should define marriage?
Not necessarily.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with arguing that some free-riders are acceptable while others are not, so long as a rationale is offered. That rationale could pertain to substantive differences, matters of enforcement, or both.
While I’m not convinced by the SoCon rational for excluding gay free-riders while including infertile ones, I think their logic is sound and their arguments are defensible.