Wheat from the Chaff

Human society is the medium through which human capacities are developed.

The late Canadian philosopher, C.B. Macpherson, provides one of my favourite passages:

Human society is the medium through which human capacities are developed. *

His proposition has several profound implications.

To begin with, it is a direct attack on the idea that the individual (as a psychological, moral and economic being) is disconnected from and opposed to society. According to Macpherson, a man or woman is not some atomistic entity whose existence is attributable to self-generated, autogenic powers. Individuals are social phenomena, and the most individualistic, independent people are those who come from societies that provide the "necessary conditions [for] the development of individual capacities" (ibid). In other words, autonomous human beings - the moral goal of liberalism - can only develop within the nurturing confines of those societies that promote and venerate autonomy. Individualism, it should be noted, is not a genetic condition; it is a social doctrine that is ironically found in many societies which believe "society" is subordinate to the "individual".

Macpherson's argument also underlines the ideological nature of the "free will vs. determinism" debate. This debate, a staple of philosophy classes throughout the western world, can only make sense if we accept a central liberal tenet: human beings are free and autonomous to the extent that they avoid the determinism of society and culture. Leaving aside the elements of inherited physical traits (which Macpherson would say are still just potentialities), the determinism of society is, in the liberal view, necessarily negative. It is a fetter to human existence, and any concerted communal enterprise, like government, is a "necessary evil" (in the words of Thomas Paine). But Macpherson responds that the debate is all wrong. Instead of asking how can humans be free from society, we should be asking which type of society makes a human truly free. Rather than rehashing a false dichotomy that, in its uncritical manner, reinforces ideological doctrine, we should examine the sorts of conditions in society that allow for individuals to be free of fear, ignorance and want.

From Macpherson's perspective, a liberal capitalist society is not the place to nurture an autonomous human being who aspires to be "self-governing and self-directed, in control of his (or her) own will and not subject to irresistable phobias, addictions, or passions". ** Liberalism is committed to economic freedom, where equality of opportunity must eventually give way to an inequality of fortune. In such a society, success can only be measured in a very limited way: the material accumulation of money and stuff. Liberalism is also an ideology without a sense of time. It faces severe logical difficulties between, on one hand, its appeal to equality of opportunity, and, on the other hand, the accumulation of unequal wealth over time. To the degree that such accumulated, asymmetrical wealth is opposed to a "level playing field", then liberal capitalism cannot offer the necessary conditions for the free development of all individuals and their particular potentialities. Freedom and equality are universal terms, meant to apply to the human condition, so when freedom is unequal, it's no freedom at all.

For Macpherson, it is socialism - ironically, to a liberal mind - that in fact provides the necessary pre-condition for autonomy. Only in a society committed to equality and extensive democracy can human beings, all human beings, reach their true potential. Such autonomy is not beholden to the lonely and alienating passions of material accumulation. It is the product of a free people working together and sharing their communal responsibilities, and developing themselves rather than selling themselves.

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* C.B. Macpherson, "Problems of a Non-market Theory of Democracy." in Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1984) p. 57.

** Susan Mendes, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, (Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1989) p. 53.