LIBERALISM AND REPUBLICANISM

Republicanism and liberalism are depicted here, under some ideal-typing of the traditions, as philosophies of liberty-negative liberty-that take opposite sides on broad issues: 1) whether the law is necessarily a partial assault on people's liberty-an assault that may be for the good overall-or something that is constitutive, at least in part, of whatever liberty citizens enjoy; 2) whether or not citizens and politicians can and should be expected-perhaps under institutionally designed pressures-to be public-spirited; and 3) whether the ideal of liberty invites state intervention of the sort that is designed to empower individuals or whether it is essentially tied to a minimalist image of government. Republicanism sees liberty as the social status of a citizen who is recognised and empowered, equally with others, before a suitable rule of law; it sees liberty as a status that is secure only so far as the republic is peopled and run by individuals who display civic virtue, whether spontaneously or under well designed institutional pressures; and, finally, it sees the dispensation of liberty as something that may in principle require a large state presence in areas like education, medicine, and social security. Liberalism, at least in its pure form, presents liberty as a condition ideally enjoyed, out of society, when there is no one else around; it holds that, given the possibility of invisible hand mechanisms, citizens and politicians need not be public-spirited for liberty to thrive; and it interprets the demands of liberty in a way that supports a minimalist assumption about how government ought to behave.