Logic Of Political Liberalism Development From Locke And Mill To Berlin And Rawls

This dissertation is characterized by the logic of political liberalism from the four typical thinkers' thoughts on the basis of historical and logical ties. The main topic from the beginning to the end of the dissertation is the origin and its development of universalism and pluralism of political liberalism, different alternatives which solve the contradiction,and the developing process of its concepts and category The dissertation describes the liberalism into four stages, the first is the founding of liberal political system and its liberalism theory in the 17th century typical of John Locke; the second is the completion of liberal political system, how to revise the liberalism theory and how to prove by reason, this is typical of John Stuart Mill; the third is the reconsideration and contemplation of traditional liberalism on account of the analysis and critique of the 20th totalitarianism of Germany Nazi and the former Soviet Union, this is typical of Isaiah Berlin; the fourth is a new comprehension of liberalism on the basis of two principles of justice, especially in order to coordinate universalism and pluralism of political liberalism, a new comprehension of over-lapping consensus on the basis of reasonable pluralism is reached, this is typical of John Rawls. This dissertation regards John Locke as the founder of liberalism since his thoughts set up a universalism scheme of liberalism, which includes personal right, state institution, government ruled by laws, people's sovereignty, etc.. This theory is considered as the best and the most perfect scheme to all societies and all liberalists believe in the scheme. The best , the most early and the most complete of the scheme is generally characterized by John Locke, and this dissertation describes the liberalism of this stage from Locke's thought, even though some other thinkers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbs, the French Enlightenment thinkers and German thinkers etc. express the same ideas. Additionally, at the book "Four Letters concerning Toleration " Locke expresses the toleration between government and religion and pluralism, but his thoughts don't include the toleration and pluralism among different person's thoughts, characters and different conceptions of values and cultures because of his historical limits. As the most famous liberalist in the 19th century, and defender of Utilitarianism, Mill's liberalism based on utilitarianism, his account of representative government, these doubtlessly represent the 19th liberalist perfect scheme of the Enlightenment Movement, this scheme represents the perfect and universal scheme of human society development which is promoted by the Enlightenment Movement, and his description and proof are more fine and more reasonable. Therefore he is thought of as the typical person of the second stage even though other thinkers at this stage express this same universal scheme. In the meanwhile, Mill's thoughts are compromise, pluralist, and swaying, he doubts at the liberalist universalism, and sets forth thoughts freedom, characters freedom, at the representative government the minor representative especially the minor elite persons have more opportunity of expression and the majority opinion can't restrict the minority opinion of expression, this will cause the vulgar majority and the tyranny of the majority or the tyrant-society collectively, This doubtlessly represents another stage of liberalist toleration and pluralism development. If Locke's pluralism is toleration and pluralism between government and religion, Mill's thought is toleration and pluralism among expressions, thoughts, characters, this is a development of Locke's thought of toleration. Isaiah Berlin experienced the two world wars of the 20th century, saw the terrible outcome of the two world wars, and was shocked by the tragedy of the two world wars which originated in the western liberalism tradition and couldn't avoid the tragedy. Berlin divides the freedom into positive and negative freedom, and believes that the rationali...