Including My Liberty and My Responsibility

When someone asks how I define myself politically, answering with the name of a party seems insufficient to me. I may agree with one proposal, reject another, and vote according to a particular set of circumstances. That decision explains an electoral preference.

But to explain how I understand life in society, I need to talk about principles:

  • which decisions I consider mine,
  • what I owe to others, and
  • how far I accept that someone else may decide for me.

My starting point is individual liberty and responsibility. I have in mind a specific person, with projects and limitations, capable of deciding and also of making mistakes. I want that person to be able to build a life without having to fit an imposed model. And I want that person to answer for commitments and for the consequences that actions have on others. The liberty I claim for myself must also be recognized in someone who lives in a way I do not share.

I feel that I am in a minority when I defend this criterion through to its consequences. That feeling does not prove that I am right. I present this framework so that others can understand where I am coming from, subject it to criticism, and explain their own. Some convictions are settled. Others still need a more precise answer.

The person who must live their own life

I begin with the individual because that person experiences the life we are discussing.

  • A public administration may design a family policy; the people in that family will have to live with its effects.
  • An organization may recommend a profession; the person who follows it will devote part of their life to it.
  • I care that people retain the capacity to decide about what affects their lives, even when their choices puzzle others.

Each person has knowledge, preferences, and circumstances that another person can hardly understand completely.

  • Even someone who loves me can misunderstand what I need.
  • I appreciate advice and recognize the value of other people's experience.
  • But I believe the decision should remain, as far as possible, with the person who will have to live with it.
  • Anyone who wants to replace that decision should explain by what right and for what reason.

Imagine someone leaving a stable job to attempt a project. That person may be wrong. Family and friends may warn about the risk and may even refuse to finance it.

  • The choice stops being exclusively personal if it commits someone else's resources or breaks obligations already assumed.
  • Within those limits, I defend that person's right to try.
  • A society that requires people to be right before allowing them to choose offers a liberty that is difficult to exercise.

This includes the right to lead an ordinary life. Thinking for oneself does not require starting a company, challenging every custom, or standing out in public.

  • Someone may prefer predictable work, practice the religion of their family, or remain in their hometown.
  • I want to know whether that person can reconsider those decisions and choose differently.

Autonomy is lost when obedience replaces choice, even if the resulting life looks satisfactory from the outside.

Liberty begins with judgment

Before deciding, we should examine how we arrive at our opinions.

  • I may think I am independent while merely repeating people I admire.
  • I may also reject a sound idea because it comes from someone who irritates me.
  • None of us has time to check everything, so we need to trust others.
  • That trust should remain open to review: we should know the reasons for a claim and recognize what we still do not know.

When I speak of "stepping outside the herd," I mean that effort. The image expresses my resistance to accepting a conclusion because of belonging or convenience.

  • It does not give me a superior position over people who disagree.
  • If I end up automatically following a group that presents itself as rebellious, I will have changed company without recovering my judgment.
  • Independence requires being able to disagree with one's own side and to recognize when opponents are right.

I use a simple test: state the other person's best argument honestly.

  • If I need to distort it in order to answer, I probably have not understood it.
  • I may still disagree afterward, even firmly.
  • But I will have identified the real difference: perhaps we dispute a fact, perhaps we assign different importance to a risk, or perhaps we defend incompatible values.
  • Each disagreement requires a different conversation.

In Chapter III of On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859, pp. 109–110 in the linked edition),

  • individuality is linked to the development of the faculties of the person who chooses a way of life.
  • His argument helps clarify this defense of autonomy: exercising judgment is part of learning how to live.
  • Delegating it permanently may save me immediate effort, but it deprives me of practicing a capacity that I will later need.
  • Acknowledging that someone else knows more about a subject does not require handing that person control over my life.

Answering for what I do

Responsibility gives substance to my defense of liberty. If I make a commitment, I must fulfill it or answer for failing to do so. If I cause harm, I must face the appropriate remedy. If I risk my resources, I must accept that I may lose them. It seems inconsistent to claim autonomy for deciding and then systematically shift the cost of my decisions to people who did not take part in them.

We should specify which decisions we mean.

  • A person does not choose the family into which they are born, a disability, or every blow of fortune. Nor do people fully control the outcome of their effort.
  • Responsibility requires distinguishing what was within someone's control from what could not be avoided.
  • Attributing every difficulty to a lack of will simplifies reality and weakens the argument I intend to defend.

Consider two situations. One person breaks an agreement because they deliberately used the committed resources for another purpose. Another wants to comply, but an illness prevents it. In both cases, there is a problem to solve and another party is affected. My judgment of the conduct will be different. The solutions should consider the obligations assumed, the circumstances, and the possibilities for repair. Invoking responsibility should require us to examine the case, not save us that work.

I also understand that asking for help can be a responsible decision. Recognizing a limit sometimes prevents greater harm.

  • What matters to me is that help addresses the difficulty and, when possible, allows autonomy to be recovered.
  • Some permanent dependencies require lasting responses.

My preference for individual responsibility must coexist with that reality and explain how to protect someone who cannot protect themselves.

Belonging while keeping one's own voice

Individual life includes relationships we choose and obligations that arise from them. Friendship, a family, or a shared project may require time, effort, and sacrifice. Accepting those demands makes sense when we recognize their value and assume the commitment. I want to preserve the possibility of taking part in a community without allowing that belonging to absorb everything I am or dictate each of my opinions.

My objection to Collectivism begins when the group claims a "Higher Authority" over the person merely because it includes that person. It may do so in the name of the nation, class, religion, or any other identity.

  • I am concerned when someone's origin determines what they should think, whom they may associate with, or which rights they deserve.
  • I reject imposed uniformity and defend the expression of differences without allowing them to become titles of dominion over others.

A community should be judged by the liberty it leaves its members to dissent. The possibility of leaving matters, but we should examine what leaving means in practice.

  • Leaving an association may be simple; separating from an environment on which one's income and all personal ties depend may be much harder.
  • That difficulty does not by itself determine which intervention would be legitimate. It does require taking seriously the conditions under which a person gives consent.

The same demand applies to my own preferences.

  • If I defend religious liberty, I must recognize it for beliefs I do not share.
  • If I defend expression, I must tolerate criticism that makes me uncomfortable.

I can answer, argue, and choose my relationships. What I must justify with particular rigor is a claim to prevent someone else from acting. Personal disapproval, however intense, needs additional reasons before it becomes a prohibition.

Explaining myself beyond a ballot

From this starting point, I may approach different liberal traditions, but a label always leaves questions unanswered.

  • I want to know which specific liberty a person defends, which responsibilities they accept, and which exceptions they allow.
  • I also want to know which institutions they propose for resolving conflicts.
  • Words acquire content when they require us to take a position on a problem and explain the cost of the chosen solution.

That is why I prefer discussing principles to assigning people to blocs.

  • A voter may agree with me on freedom of expression and disagree about economic intervention.
  • Another person may defend property and accept cultural restrictions that I reject.
  • Those differences allow a more useful conversation than attributing to anyone the entire program of the party they voted for.
  • I do not want a ballot to replace what I must explain for myself either.

This is my "Starting Point":

  • to preserve the capacity to direct my life,
  • to recognize that same capacity in others, and
  • to answer for the obligations I assume.

Difficult conflicts remain because lives intersect and decisions affect third parties. The next step is to specify which rules I consider legitimate for living together: what protects property, when a contract is binding, and what power I would grant the State. That is where I will have to test how far my principles reach.