What Freedom Asks of You
Philosophy for Serious Times
Our thoughts on right and wrong are changing rapidly. When philosopher Jurriën Hamer was growing up in the 1990s, long-haul holiday flights were a status symbol, office workers cracked non-PC jokes without a second thought, and the meat on his plate was a matter of course. Today, we’ve started paying the price for our carelessness. But just when we are realising how much a free society demands of us, demagogues are trying to undermine it.
In this ardent plea for liberalism, Hamer nevertheless puts his finger on the sore spot. The current liberalism, where everyone can think and do what they want inside their own homes, provided they don’t harm others, asks little of individuals in exchange for their rights. Hamer explains political philosopher John Rawls’ classical liberalism and demonstrates why this is doomed to fail. He contrasts this with a servile liberalism, drawing on nineteenth-century thinker John Stuart Mill, but also Aristotle’s ethics of virtue. If we want to preserve our fundamental freedoms, we will have to give up smaller freedoms such as commercial flights and eating meat, and actively work to ensure equal rights for citizens and a more equitable distribution of wealth. The failure of the democratic institutions to enforce equity has led to the illiberalism of today’s autocrats.
Anything but pedantic, Hamer argues for moral ambition but also for lenient judgement of others. The solution is to bear together the duties that come with our rights.
Jurriën Hamer (b. 1988) is a philosopher and jurist. He obtained his doctorate from Utrecht University and has done research at the London School of Economics. 'Why Bad Guys Have Bad Luck' (2022) is his debut.