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State University of New York Press - Steven F. Pittz

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144 pages

English

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Liberalism is often castigated for being spiritually empty and unable to provide meaning for individuals. Is it true that there simply is no spiritual side to liberalism? In Recovering the Liberal Spirit, Steven F. Pittz develops a novel conception of spiritual freedom. Drawing from Nietzsche and his figure of the "free spirit," as well as from thinkers as varied as Mill, Emerson, Goethe, Hesse, C. S. Lewis, and Tocqueville, Pittz examines a tradition of individual freedom best described as spiritual. Spiritual freedom is an often overlooked category of liberal freedom, and it provides a path to meaning without a return to communal or traditional life. While carefully considering Progressive and Communitarian counterarguments Pittz argues for both the possibility and the desirability of a free-spirited life. Citizens who are "free spirits" deliver great benefits to liberal democracies, primarily by combatting dogmatism and fanaticism and the putative authority of public opinion.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Free Spirit

2. A Safe Distance from Politics

3. Free Spirits in Action: Practicing Political Detachment

4. Free Spirits in Liberal Political Society

5. The Possibility of Autonomy: The Progressive Critique

6. The Desirability of Autonomy: The Communitarian Critique

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

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Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	01 septembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781438479798
Langue	English

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Recovering the Liberal Spirit
Recovering the Liberal Spirit
Nietzsche, Individuality, and Spiritual Freedom
STEVEN F. PITTZ
Cover image by Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840); oil on canvas (circa 1818) in public domain (Wikimedia Commons) entitled “Woman before the Rising Sun.”
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Pittz, Steven F., author
Title: Recovering the liberal spirit: Nietzsche, individuality, and spiritual freedom / Steven F. Pittz, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438479774 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438479798 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Joanne Marie Pittz, who, while raising five children, remained a free spirit until the end
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Free Spirit
2. A Safe Distance from Politics
3. Free Spirits in Action: Practicing Political Detachment
4. Free Spirits in Liberal Political Society
5. The Possibility of Autonomy: The Progressive Critique
6. The Desirability of Autonomy: The Communitarian Critique
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
It is no easy task to remember all of the people who helped make this book a reality, but I will do my best to give credit where it is due and to extend my sincere gratitude. First and foremost, I thank my advisors at the University of Texas, Kathleen Higgins and A. P. Martinich. I do not believe I would have completed a PhD, let alone this project, without their guidance. Also from my time in Texas, I thank Jeffrey Tulis, Juliet Hooker, David Edwards, Thomas Pangle, and Devin Stauffer for valuable comments and advice.
Many others have read drafts or portions, and I thank them all for their comments and consideration: Joshua Dunn, Judd Owen, Bill Glod, Bob Irwin, Eric Long, Joe Postell, Allison Postell, Mark Jensen, Justin Dyer, and Francis Pittz. I also thank two anonymous reviewers from SUNY Press and the Political Science Colloquium at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, at the University of Missouri, for helpful criticism.
I am grateful for research assistance from several institutions. The Institute for Humane Studies has been a great supporter of my work from the early stages. I also received support from Emory University’s Program in Democracy and Citizenship and the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at the University of Colorado–Colorado Springs.
Last, but certainly not least, I thank my wife, Bethany Miller, who has been an unwavering support throughout the process (including editorial assistance). I also mention my two young boys, Soren and Arthur, who deserve no credit nor gratitude and who actively attempt to prevent any work being done, but still somehow manage to make all the effort worthwhile.
Introduction
How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws and kings can cause or cure.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.
—Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
The liberal political order is under attack. Such a statement would have appeared hyperbolic only a few years ago, but is today not much of a stretch. Populist movements in Europe and America challenge the liberal order both domestically and internationally. These democratic political challenges are mirrored by challenges from scholars and public intellectuals alike. Recent years have seen the publication of titles such as Why Liberalism Failed , The Retreat of Western Liberalism , Against Democracy , and more. 1 The reasons behind such challenges vary: there is backlash to the uneven distribution of economic globalization, there is a strengthening of identity politics as an alternative to liberalism, and there are calls for a return to the smaller communities that characterized the premodern, preliberal world. Yet, there is a deep and enduring question about liberal political order that underpins these prominent recent challenges. The question is whether the liberal order can provide the spiritual nourishment that human beings require. Few, including critics of liberalism, doubt the material benefits that the modern liberal world has made possible. Despite these benefits, however, liberalism ultimately leads to the spiritual impoverishment of citizens, or so the story goes. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned us forty years ago, Western liberalism began “the dangerous trend of worshiping man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and the accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any higher meaning.” Physical security and material wealth are not enough, for the “human soul longs for things higher, warmer, purer.” 2
Solzhenitsyn’s warning was echoed by critics of liberalism in the years following his famous address, and those echoes have grown louder in recent years. Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed follows the Solzhenitsynian logic, arguing that the spiritual emptiness we see all around us is the achievement of the liberal promise, a promise that placed the individual’s material well-being over all else. 3 The political and economic benefits of the liberal order are no longer enough to produce a society full of steadfast supporters of liberalism. To hear Solzhenitsyn again, “We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we are being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life.” 4 From communitarians to progressives to recent critics of different stripes, liberalism is under attack for its apparent inability to provide spiritual nourishment and meaning to life. If the broad liberal order that has structured the West for nearly half a millennium is to endure, it must be able to answer the question, Is spiritual fulfillment possible for liberal citizens? Put differently, does liberalism enable, or at least not prevent, the spiritual fulfillment of its citizens?
I attempt to answer these questions, in the affirmative, throughout this book. Liberalism is in need of a spiritual defense, and one possible version of such a defense is my goal. Freedom is at the heart of the liberal project, and we need to understand how freedom and spiritual fulfillment might go together. To this end, we will explore what I call spiritual freedom. I suggest that spiritual freedom is a category of liberal freedom, a category that adds to our understanding of what it means to be free in a liberal sense. At the outset, I acknowledge that spiritual freedom eludes precise definition. I do not think there is a determinate answer to what spiritual freedom is, anymore than there is a determinate answer to what justice or moderation are. Nevertheless, political philosophy and the tradition of liberalism can gain from a fuller and richer understanding of spiritual freedom. Moreover, it seems that certain categories of liberty in the Western world get more press; the discourse on liberty is dominated by questions surrounding the categories of political/civil and economic liberty. In the West, concerns about liberty in both political philosophy and practical politics—seen through the prism of our political parties—seem to manifest primarily in debates over institutional form. Classical liberal theorists fight with Rawlsian-type liberals about what the moral aims of liberal democracy should be, and about what institutions best reflect those aims. Classical liberals think of citizens as self-owners, or self-authors, while Rawlsians think of liberal citizens as “free and equal persons.” Classical liberals emphasize ownership and individual autonomy; Rawlsian liberals emphasize cooperation and equality. The two camps advocate institutional forms that reflect their divergent aims. They each try to set up institutions to answer questions such as the following: How do we protect civil liberties? How much economic liberty should individuals have? How will property rights be set up? How will taxes be structured? What are the essential public goods, and how ought we to provide them? Do we have an obligation to provide economic assistance for those who are the least well off in society, and if so, what means should be used to provide such assistance?
These sorts of questions dominate the intraliberal debate, and also take center stage in practical politics more often than not. Western liberal politics are predicated largely on questions of economic and political liberty. The task of balancing economic and political liberties is of great importance, but I believe that something is lost if liberty is discussed only, or at least overwhelmingly, in terms of economic and political free