Freedom and survival: Liberalism vs environmentalism

Liberalism has been the focus of political philosophers since a revival of political philosophy in the later half of the 20th century. Most in-depth discussions of justice can be linked to the genre-defining works of Rawls and Nozick.

These modern political theories imagine a sort of rational, self-directing, and self-sufficient agent at the core of justice. Although we may come to radically different conclusions, how we treat this thing, as a society and as individuals, is how we determine if we live in a moral civilization.

I don't believe that liberalism or any of its children can be meaningfully separated from this view of humans as these free beings. And in the modern world, this sense of freedom is hard to separate from our freedom to purchase and consume whatever we can afford.

I hope the above is clear, and you can relate somewhat to it. (Many discussions of liberalism leave me wondering who these mysterious liberals are. If you can imagine a flesh-and-blood liberal, my introduction has succeeded.)

I took a course a few years back, and because I put a lot of effort into it, I thought I must have some bizarre defect that made me fail at Contemporary Political Philosophy. How could I know all the material and still not pass? Some discussions today with a friend have convinced me that my poor grade was simply a reflection of the fact that I didn't parrot the teacher's opinions on essays.

To whit, my defect is nothing other than this: I am an environmentalist.

My thought was, and still is, that someone concerned with the fate of the environment cannot accept liberalism, as I've described it. Personal freedom cannot be guaranteed in this world if we want to keep it hospitable to human life.

By extrapolation, this may be part of why certain groups consider environmentalists to be nothing more than alarmists. To accept responsibility for the destruction of our habitat is a demand that requires they radically alter their attitudes about how free they can realistically be.

So, I'll get off my soapbox, and turn this over to my audience. Can we be caretakers of this planet's ecosystem and simultaneously sanctify (some would say glorify) human freedom of choice?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/on9iRA487kc/viewtopic.php

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