The failure of liberal morality

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2005 by Joseph B. Tamney

WHAT IS LIBERAL MORALITY

Morality means principles defining right and wrong conduct. Liberal morality is a form of modern morality. During the Axial Period there occurred a profound change in the nature of morality. In traditional or "folk-religious" ethics, to use Gustav Mensching's (1973:84) term, values "are related to the welfare and security of the folk," and "they have validity only within the domain of the particular folk." Good and evil are what "is valuable or harmful for the welfare and survival of the folk" (Mensching 1973:85). In contrast, the new moral codes were universal: They applied equally to all of humanity and this was true because they were not based on the survival of the group but on preserving the dignity of the individual. Modern morality is founded on individualism, as Durkheim used the term, i.e., on the belief in the inherent value of the individual person.

There are several versions of modern morality. The first to appear in the West was libertarianism. In this morality, the dominant value is freedom, which is defined as the absence of interference by other people with what one wants or is able to do. From this principle, libertarians "derive a number of more specific requirements, in particular a right to life, a right to freedom of speech, press and assembly, and a right to private property" (Sterba 2001:9). Libertarianism is sometimes referred to as "liberal morality." However this form of morality is not my concern in this talk. Therefore to distinguish what is my focus, hereafter I shall refer to "leftist morality."

While leftists accept that there is much of value in libertarian morality, they are also critical of it. In practice, libertarianism is what Marx called "bourgeois freedom," which means the freedom of civil society, but especially of the economy, from interference by the state. Such freedom is, wrote Marx, "the liberty of capital freely to oppress the worker" (quoted in Walicki 1983:51).

The foundational idea of leftist morality is positive freedom, that is, the idea that society should be organized to achieve the maximum development of all its citizens.

Initially leftist ideas about freedom were linked with socialism. Because all societies tend to experience the increasing concentration of power in the hands of an elite, the task of socialism is to counter this tendency with policies to achieve greater equality. The socialist recognizes that individual freedom depends on having economic and political power. In his last State of the Union address, Franklin Roosevelt called for a "second Bill of Rights." The president's basic point was that, in his words: "True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence" (Quoted in Press 2000:14). Thus by creating equality, socialists seek to achieve "the maximum degree of freedom for all" (Gould 1985:12).

While equality remains an ideal, in practice leftists settle for working to create a more just society. They seek to eliminate entrenched privileges that favor a group, be it a class or a gender or a race or some other group. Privileges include access to education, power, wealth, and prestige. For instance, if wealthier people "are encouraged to see their good fortune as a badge of superiority and the poorer ones to see their comparative lack of wealth as a social stigma," then these attitudes must change (Deigh 2001:163). Thus leftists are concerned with increasing equality and justice for the poor, as in the case of socialism, but also for all minorities, including what can be considered minority countries in the world society (Giddens 1991:212).

The leftist meaning of freedom was broadened during the 1960s. Relatively new ideas were entering popular leftist culture, most significantly the rejection of the puritan ethic. Self-development took on new meaning. During the 1970s, there were a number of research projects to explore how to measure the quality of people's lives. They were attempts to answer the question: "What is the good life?" (e.g., Liu 1975; Elgin, Thomas, Logothetti and Cox 1974). The research was indicative of the need for new guidelines about how to live. Americans were now affluent. There was a need for new norms, for what I have called an "affluence ethic." Among leftists, morality was not equated with self-restraint and self-sacrifice. The affluence ethic values stimulating work, a happy marriage, a life without undue stress, and so forth. The good life is understood as including happiness, pleasure, beauty, as well as non-dominating relationships (Tamney 1992a:80).

In sum, leftist morality refers to principles about creating a society in which each person has the maximum opportunity to develop fully. More specifically, this morality is about equality, justice, and a non-puritanical version of the good life.

Needless to say, leftist morality does not guide the formation of public policies in the United States.

Since the end of the last recession in 2001 through 2003, the workers' share of the increase in national income was the lowest on record. According to a study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, since 1945 the percent of income growth going to corporate profits after a recession never exceeded the percent of the growth going to labor compensation, until now. The columnist, Bob Herbert, commented: "This is extraordinary, but very few people are talking about it, which tells you something about the hold that corporate interests have on the national conversation" (Herbert 2004:A25). I believe the explanation is more complicated, but the fact that this seeming injustice goes unnoticed is evidence of the failure of leftist morality to influence American society.