Liberalism

Abstract

Liberalism is a family of political philosophies, and a set of associated institutions and policies, that give primacy to the protection of basic liberty. The first systematic defense of a politics that gives priority to individual liberty was John Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1690), but not until 1812 was the term ‘liberalism’ actually used in politics (for the Liberales party in Spain). As the influence of liberalism increased throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, different conceptions of liberalism developed, as did controversies between them, and between liberals and their critics. Competing conceptions of liberalism include democratic liberalism, which opposes libertarianism, and political liberalism, which applies its principles only to politics, unlike comprehensive liberalism, which applies to all realms of moral life. These and other liberal conceptions—such as deliberative democracy, feminist and multicultural liberalism—differ in their answers as to what basic liberty is, and what institutions best protect it. Conservative, radical, and communitarian critics also take issue with the priority that liberalism gives to individual liberty. All conceptions of liberalism are committed to defending a set of freedoms—of speech, press, conscience, and association—that support the rights of all parties to carry on these controversies in public.