LIBERALISM AND CONSERVATISM

IN THE PHILIPPINES

POLITCAL SCIENCE – 71
PRE-MODERN POLITICAL AND PHILIOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

JAIR GENEROSO J. DE JESUS, III

AB POLITICAL SCIENCE – IV

OCTOBER 12, 2017

 PHILOSOPHY

Liberalism and Conservatism mean different things to different people, places and

periods of time. In the Philippine setting, liberalism exists in the form of liberal democracy –

which is our form of government, the Republican Democracy, the actuality of the multiparty

pluralism and not solely because of liberal parties. Conservatism, on the other hand, also exists in

the Philippines on account that our state historically has a Christian nation. But what really is

meant by liberalism and conservatism?

Liberalism, according the Wikipedia, is an ideology, a philosophical view, and a political

tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political view. Broadly speaking, it emphasizes

individual rights. It seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals,

limitations on power (especially of government and religion), the rule of law, the free exchange

of ideas, a market economy that supports free private enterprise, and a transparent system of

government in which the rights of all citizens are protected. In modern society, liberals favor a

liberal democracy with open and fair elections where all citizens have equal rights by law and

equal opportunity to succeed.

Many new liberals advocate a greater degree of government interference in the free

market, often in the form of anti-discrimination laws, civil service examinations, universal

education, and progress taxation. This philosophy extends to a belief that the government should

provide for a degree of general welfare, including benefits for the unemployed, housing for the

homeless, and medical care for the sick. Such publicly-funded initiatives and interferences in the

market are rejected by modern advocates of classical liberalism, which emphasized free private
enterprise, individual property right and freedom of contract; classical liberals hold that

economic inequality, as arising naturally from competition in the free market, does not justify the

violation of private property rights.

Liberalism rejected many foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier

theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established

religion. Fundamental human rights that all liberals support include the right to life, liberty, and

property. Liberal ideology heavily relies on the notion that human beings are rational individuals

who are capable of living freely by reason. Although self-interested and competitive among one

another, it is within proper bounds that humans are able to control passions and desires.

Liberalism aims for equality in the sense opportunity in the means of competition, success and

liberty.

Both modern and classical liberals may refer to the theory of a social contract to justify

either their emphasis on the free realm of the individual or the fostering of those conditions

liberals in general deem necessary for human flourishing. Classical liberals derive their theory of

the social contract initially from Thomas Hobbes’s model (in Leviathan) in which individuals in

a state of nature would come together to form a society. Liberals of both variations have never

believed such a contract ever took place, but use the model to assess the present status of society

according to criteria they believe the contract should include. Hobbes leaned towards a more

authoritarian version of the contract in which individuals give up all political rights (except that

of self-preservation which he sees as a natural, inalienable right) to the sovereign political body

whose primary duty is to ensure the peace; John Locke leaned towards a more limited

government (but one that could justly take the alienable life of an aggressor); Rousseau sought a

thoroughly democratic vision of the social contract; and more recently Rawls has entertained
what rights and entitlements a social contract committee would allot themselves if they had no

knowledge and hence prejudices of each other.

Both classical and modern liberals agree that the government has a strict duty towards

impartiality and hence to treating people equally, and that it should also be neutral in its

evaluation of what the good life is. This neutrality is criticized by non-liberals who claim that the

assumed neutrality is in fact a reflection of a specific vision of human nature or progress, and

although critics disagree what that vision may entail, their claim prompts liberals to justify the

underlying assumption that promotes them to accept such issues as: equal treatment by the law

and by the state; liberty to pursue one’s life as one sees fit; the right to private property, and so

on.

Nonetheless, broad liberalism accepts and emphasizes that people ought to be tolerant

towards their fellow men and women. The modern importance of toleration stems from the

Renaissance and post-Reformation reactions to the division in the Church and the ensuing

persecutions against heterodoxy. Freedom in religious belief extends to other realms of human

activity that do not negatively affect neighbors, for example in sexual or romantic activities, the

consumption of narcotics, and the perusal of pornography. But what is philosophically more

important is that the liberal doctrine of toleration permits the acceptance of errors – that in

pursuing the ethical good life and hence the appropriate political life, people may make mistakes

and should be permitted to learn and adapt as they see fit; or, alternatively, that people have a

right to live in ignorance or to pursue knowledge as they think best. This is held in common with

political conservatives who are somewhat more pessimistic and skeptical of our abilities than

most liberals. Classical and modern liberals do unite in expressing a skepticism towards experts

knowing what is in the best interest of others, and thus liberals tend to reject any interference in
people’s lives as unjustifiable and, from utilitarian point of view, counter-productive. Life, for

the liberal, should be led from the inside (self-oriented) rather than outside (other- imposed); but

modern liberals add that individuals ought to be provided with the resources to ensure that they

can live the good life as they see fit. The classical liberal retort is who will provide those

resources and to what age should people be deemed incapable of learning or striving by

themselves?

Despite such differences over policy, liberals – of both the social democratic and classical

strain – predominantly hold an optimistic view of human nature. In modern philosophy the

position is derived from Locke’s psychological theory from An Essay on Human

Understanding that people are born without innate ideas and hence his environment, upbringing,

and experiences fashion him: for classical liberals this implies a thorough rejection of inherited

elitism and hence of supposed natural political hierarchies in which power resided with

dynasties; for modern liberals this implies the potential for forging appropriate conditions for any

individual to gain a proper education and opportunities.

Liberals applaud those institutions that reason sustains as being conducive to human

freedoms: classical liberals emphasizing those institutions that protect the negative freedoms

(rights against aggression and theft) and social democratic liberals the positive freedoms (rights

to a certain standard of living). If an institution is lacking according to a critical and rational

analysis – failing in its duty to uphold a certain liberal value – then it is to be reorganized for the

empowerment of humanity. At this juncture, liberals also divide between deontological (Rawls)

and utilitarian theorists (Mill). Most classical liberals ascribe to a general form of utilitarianism

in which social institutions are to be reorganized along lines of benefiting the greatest number.

This attracts criticism from conservatives and deontologists – according to what ends? –
according to whose analysis? – comprising which people? and so on. Deontologists are not

precluded from supporting liberalism (Immanuel Kant is the most influential thinker in that

regard), for they hold that the proper society and hence political institutions should generate

those rules and institutions that are right in themselves, regardless of the particular presumed

ends we are seeking (for example, happiness).

Modern liberals lean towards a more interventionist government, and as such they place

more emphasis on the ability of the state to produce the right political sphere for humanity and

thusly emphasize reform projects more than classical liberals or conservatives. Peace, to choose

one example, could be brought to warring peoples or natives if only they admit to the clearly

defined and rational proposals of the liberal creed – that is, they should release themselves from

parochial prejudices and superstitions and submit to the cosmopolitanism of liberal toleration and

peace. The variants here – as in the host of applied subjects – are broad ranging: some liberals

espouse the need to secure peace through the provision of a healthy standard of living (effected

by appropriate redistribution policies from rich countries to poor); others promote the free

market as a necessary condition for the growth of the so-called "soft morals" of commerce; while

others emphasize the need for dialogue and mutual understanding through multi-cultural

educational programs. These kind of programs, the modern liberals argue, ideally should be

implemented by the world community through international bodies such as the UN rather than

unilaterally which could arouse complaints against imperialist motives; however, once the

beneficial classical or modern liberal framework is created, the state and political institutions

ought to remain ethically neutral and impartial: the state is to be separated from imposing itself

on or subsidizing any belief system, cultural rites, forms of behavior or consumption (so long as

they do not interfere in the lives of others). The liberal seeks the best form of government which
will permit the individual to pursue life as he or she sees fit within a neutral framework, and it is

the possibility of a neutral framework that critics challenge the liberal ideal.

Conservatism, on the other hand, is a political philosophy that usually favors traditional

values and strong foreign defense. The term derives from to conserve; from Latin conservare, “to

keep, guard, observe”. Since different cultures have different established values, conservatives in

different cultures have different goals. Some conservatives seek to preserve the status quo, while

others seek to return to the values of an earlier time, the status quo ante.

There are schools of conservatism namely cultural conservatism, a philosophy that

supports preservation of the heritage of a nation or culture; Religious Conservatism, which

purpose is to seek to preserve the teachings of some particular religion, sometimes by

proclaiming the value of those teachings, at other times seeking to hasve those teachings given

the force of law; and Fiscal conservatism, the economic philiosophy of prudence in government

spending and debt. In other words, a government does not have the right to run up large debts

and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers’ right not to be taxed oppressively takes

precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.

Conservatives typically possess a pessimistic vision of human nature, drawing on the

modern tradition, on Hobbes’s belief, that were it not for strong institutions, men would be at

each others’ throats and would constantly view one another with deep suspicion. (Their emphasis

is thus not on the ensuing hypothetical pacifying social contract but on the prevalence of fear in

human society). Conservatives are highly skeptical of power and man’s desire to use it, for they

believe that in time it corrupts even the most freedom loving wielders: hence, the potential

accession to any position of supreme power over others, whether in the guise of a national or
international chamber, is to be rejected as being just as dangerous a state as Hobbes’s vision of

the anarchic state of nature.

Conservatives thus applaud those institutions that check the propensity for the stronger or

the megalomaniacal to command power: conservatives magnify the suspicion one may hold of

one’s neighbor. Critics – for example, of an anarchist or socialist strain – claim that such fears

are a product of the presiding social environment and its concomitant values and are not the

product of human nature or social intercourse per se. Such opponents emphasize the need to

reform society to release people from a life of fear, which conservatives in turn consider a

utopian pipe dream unbefitting a realistic political philosophy.

For conservatives, the value of institutions cannot always be examined according to the

rational analysis of the present generation. This imposes a demand on conservatism to explain or

justify the rationale of supporting historical institutions. Previously, conservatives implicitly or

explicitly reverted to the myths of our human or of a particular culture’s origins to give present

institutions a sacred status - or at least a status worthy of respect; however, evolutionary thinkers

from the Scottish Enlightenment (for example, Adam Ferguson), whose insights noted the trial

and error nature of cultural (and hence moral and institutional) developments generated a more

precise and historically ratifiable examination of institutions and morals – see the work of

Friedrich Hayek especially.

Accordingly, in contrast to many liberals, conservatives decry the notion of a social

contract – or even its possibility in a modern context. Since societies evolve and develop through

time, present generations possess duties and responsibilities whose origins and original reasons

may now be lost to us, but which, for some thinkers, still require our acceptance. Justifying this
is problematic for the conservative: present cultural xenophobia may emanate from past

aggressions against the nation’s territory and may not serve any present purpose in a more

commercial atmosphere; or present racism may emerge from centuries of fearful mythologies or

again violent incursions that no longer are appropriate. But conservatives reply that since

institutions and morals evolve, their weaknesses and defects will become apparent and thereby

will gradually be reformed (or merely dropped) as public pressure against them changes. What

the conservative opposes is the potential absolutist position of either the liberal or the socialist

who considers a form of behavior or an institution to be valid and hence politically binding for

all time.

Conservatives thus do not reject reform but are thoroughly skeptical of any present

generation’s or present person’s ability to understand and hence to reshape the vast edifices of

behavior and institutions that have evolved with the wisdom of thousands of generations. They

are thus skeptical of large scale planning, whether it be constitutional or economical or cultural.

Against socialists who become impatient with present defects, the conservatives counsel

patience: not for its own sake, but because the vast panoply of institutions that are rallied against

– including human nature – cannot be reformed without the most detrimental effects.

Conservatives – following Edmund Burke – thus typically condemn revolutions and coups as

leading to more bloodshed and violence than that which the old regime produced.

Some conservatives argue that a modicum of redistribution is required to ensure a

peaceful non-revolutionary society. Whereas modern liberals justify redistribution on the

grounds of providing an initial basis for human development, conservatives possess a pragmatic

fear of impoverished masses rising up to overthrow the status quo and its hierarchy stems from
the conservative reaction to the French Revolution. The conservative critique by Edmund Burke

was particularly accurate and prescient, yet the Revolution also served to remind the political

hierarchy of its obligations (noblesse oblige) to the potentially violent masses that the revolt had

stirred up. The lesson has not been lost on modern conservative thinkers who claim that the state

has certain obligations to the poor – including perhaps the provision of education and health

facilities, or at least the means to secure them. In contrast to socialists though (with whom some

conservatives may agree with a socialized system of poor relief), conservatives generally prefer

to emphasize local and delegated redistribution schemes (perhaps even of a wholly voluntary

nature) rather than central, state directed schemes.

In affinity with classical liberals, conservatives often emphasize the vital importance of property

rights in social relations. Liberals tend to lean towards the utilitarian benefits that accrue from

property rights (for example, a better distribution of resources than common ownership or a

method of providing incentives for further innovation and production), whereas conservatives

stress the role private property in terms of its ability to check the power of the state or any other

individual who seeks power. Conservatives see private property as a sacred, intrinsically

valuable cornerstone to a free and prosperous society.

The broad distribution of private property rights complements the conservative principle

that individuals and local communities are better assessors of their own needs and problems than

distant bureaucrats. Since conservatives are inherently skeptical of the state, they prefer

alternative social associations to support, direct, and assist the maturation of civilized human

beings, for example, the family, private property, religion, as well as the individual’s freedom to

make his own mistakes.

 Conservatives of the English Whig tradition (Locke, Shaftesbury) have much in common

with classical liberals, whereas conservatives of the English Tory tradition have more in common

with modern liberals, agreeing to some extent with the need for state intervention but on

pragmatic rather than necessary grounds. Those of the Whig tradition accordingly ally

themselves more with individualism and rationalism than Tory conservatives, who emphasize

community and ‘one-nation’ politics and its corresponding duties and responsibilities for the

individual. The two, initially opposing doctrines, merged politically in the late Nineteenth

Century as liberalism shifted its ground to incorporate socialist policies: the two sides of

conservativism enjoyed a particularly visible and vocal clash in the late Twentieth Century in the

political reign of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.

Conservative ideology generally regards liberty as a valuable aspect in life. However,

freedom is only considered substantial under certain circumstances. These circumstances are

aimed to uphold social order by controlling one’s action and thinking to be wise instead of a

result of an immediate passion. Because of fear of sudden chaos, the idea of liberty does not

appeal to conservatives. With the definitions of these two political ideologies, generally, the

Philippines exhibit the marks of a liberal democracy because of the presence of our form of

government and the constitution. But in some ways, our country still remains conservative when

it comes to our culture and religious beliefs. Furthermore, although the separation of the church

and state is declared in our charter, there remain times when the church meddles with the affairs

of our government. And our liberal democratic government still honors the opinion of the

conservative sector.