Goodness, State And Freedom - Green Politics

Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) is a philosopher, political philosopher and the most important leading member of British Idealist Movement. For his absorbing German Idealism Philosophy and reproducing a new philosophy, he is usually called "Neo-Hegelianism" philosopher. There has always been a place for Green in the niche of British political philosophy. The political philosophy Green expatiated (its central theme is common good) is British idealism political philosophy, and now it becomes the most important resource to reconciling liberty and community in contemporary Western neo-liberalism philosophy. In the perspective of contemporary Western political philosophy, Green’s theory contains a comprehensive argument that individual right and common good harmoniously co-exist. The controversy between "Politics of Right"(mainly from Kant’s political philosophy in contemporary debate) and "Politics of the Common-good"(emphasizing a good life, claiming Hegel and Aristotle as their intellectual resources) presented itself in an internal intensity of Green’s political philosophy, but finally resolved in his political conceptual frame. This resolution reconciled the conflict between liberty and community in the liberty tradition, and then restored the vigor of the liberal. The most important aspect of this article tries to point out that the common-good conception is for each person and every person sustains a tension and meaningful conception.This dissertation takes efforts to explore Green’s philosophical texts, instead of focusing on contemporary political debate. The most important is how did Green deal with the political theme with his conceptual frame. Then it pays attention to the contemporary debates which Green revolved.Political philosophy, as a normative discipline, is a branch of practical philosophy, differential with positive politics in the meaning of science of experience. The fundamental problem in Victoria era was the conflict between science and religion. The developments in geology and evolutionary theory, as well as the impact of Higher Criticism, led many mid-Nineteenth Century’s Christians to question the doctrinal authority of the Church of England, and the moral views and allegiances which it was purported to justify. Green tried to resolve the problem on a new philosophical basis.Green absorbed German Idealism Philosophy, using the key conception "self-consciousness" to build his metaphysics and moral philosophy. In this philosophical system, individual’s self perfection could be realized in the eternal good. The premise of full realization is the mutual recognition in social relations. We pursue and fulfill the real good in such a political society; and the true good is always presented as a "common good" which we should master in specific historical context. This absolute good (eternal consciousness, the ultimate guarantee) is the target of man’s moral perfection, and then the state and institution could be the media or tool of moral perfection. In other words, the common-good we pursue is in the direction of the true good. It is a process we try to realize personal good and perfection under the determinate political frame in society. The good is necessarily a common-good, and common good is everyone’s good, so there is a formal meaning of the common good, which also obtains its reality.Yet there remains a fundamental tension between individual freedom and the necessity for political structures which must be faced by any philosophical doctrine. Green just used his philosophy which is call common-good political philosophy to solve the problem.Green held that the state should foster and protect the social, political and economic environments in which individuals would have the best opportunity to act in accordance with their moral development. So in Green’s political philosophy, individual’s right is in the first place.Then, Green’s right theory differentiated itself with other political philosophy. He thought that a right was a power of which the exercise by the individual was recognized by a society either as essential to a common good by itself or as conferred by an authority of which the maintenance was recognized as most essential.In Green’s political conceptual frame, the function of state was emphasized, but individual’s good got its priority, and individual’s freedom was essentially important. In Green’s freedom theory there was a dialectics between positive freedom and negative freedom. According to Green’s general notions, negative freedom is the premise of positive freedom. The realization of common-good should protect the individual’s right and freedom as the premise.Above all, these is the main theme of Green’s political philosophy, a distinguished demonstrated mode or conceptual frame. The political philosophy model has influence on his students, Bosanquet and Bradley:they did much refinement on Greens’s thoughts and extended his principles to the circumstances of a new epoch. Then L. T. Hobhouse, who was the critic of Bosanquet, said that himself was the real successor of Green. Then who is the real successor of Green? It thinks Hobhouse mostly is, but this problem is surely open to us, especially in contemporary political discussion.