Freedom For The Common Good: A Research On T.H.Green's Liberal-Democratic Thought

Thomas Hill Green marks a controversial image in the intellectual history. Some think his ideas seeded the peril of totalitarianism by advocating positive freedom and governmental intervention. Some others, however, argue that Green made defenses for individual freedom of bourgeois and free market of capitalism, which barely satisfied the aspirations for democracy and matched a theory of common good. This dissertation probes Green's thoughts around the interrelations between freedom and the common good. The research retraces the core conception of Green's thoughts into its essence by diluting the ideological fog in the existing studies. The two aspects, freedom and the common good, made the core of Green's thoughts and mattered because of their theoretical importance in his age and of a knot to be dissolved in social activities. By decoding this, the essence of Green's thoughts and its connection with the historical background will be easier to understand, and hence the interaction between thoughts and social campaigns. Otherwise, the relation of the two aspects is also a hot topic in the western thoughts, including liberalism. A review on it will make a better trace of western thoughts and herewith its position. This dissertation based its arguments on Green's works, correspondences and lectures to comb and illustrate his thoughts. This study tries to place them in the network of the intellectual history with an evasion from the stereotyped partial study and an emphasis of historical intention in research of thoughts.The dissertation is composed of introduction, five chapters and conclusion.The introduction reexamines briefly Green's life and works. There is also an academic review on the studies of his thoughts. The flashes of his life highlight the thread of his experiences and thoughts. By reviewing the existing researches, it is fair to say that a study based on freedom and the common good hinges on the tendency of de-ideology. There are no academic outputs from this angle, which this dissertation intends to complete.For a better understanding of Green's thoughts, the first chapter discusses the British liberal and democratic reforms in 19th century and reveals all the classes in practice and their theories. The Green's thoughts, influenced greatly by the campaign, ranged with them as a typical one. This campaign combined individual freedom and the common good.Green laid the foundation of freedom and the common good on a brand-new humanities. He criticize the theory of economic man of the former liberalism and raised a theory of self-realized moral man. This theory argued that human is a being in society with self-consciousness. The satisfied desire and pursuit of happiness never made all and demands an optimum situation. One can not disconnect his true good from others' when he pursuits true good and freedom, which in essence is a common good. The relationships between individual and society are mutual precondition and promotion. Individual has to foster his personality in society and the development of society should better the individual personality.The following third chapter focuses on the theories of liberal conception. Green bridged the freedom and its moral concerns, the common social welfare, namely, by distinction of negative freedom from positive freedom. He underlined the interaction of the freedom and equality and insisted that everyone should be empowered the capability of self-realization. All are ends instead of means. For that purpose, the freedom should be forbidden which can imperil the whole society. Green hence defended for the constitutional reforms in UK. The society should protect the rights, which preconditions the individual capability of achieving freedom. These will be covered in the fourth chapter. Green negated the right as an endowed anti-society one beyond society, which was different from what utilitarianism had defined. He thought the rights were the presumptions for succeeding in common welfare and self-moralization. The rights came from social system and contributed to common welfare, which could be defined as social rights. It was consisted with two overlapped parts: individual claim and social recognition. The rights persist to individual and origin from society. That is not contradictory but two sides of one coin. He examined the meanings of private right, property right and franchise, and argued that those rights should be empowered to individual to promote the common welfare. This position justifies the rightness of the rights on the base of social common welfare.Defense of individual rights and freedom entails state's involvement. The fifth chapter reviews Green's theory of governmental foundations and intervention. He criticized the position of state based on individual concession and equalizing force to nature of state. He regarded the state as an institution enhancing the common good, whose base is general will. The state can interfere into individual freedom which endangers common welfare. He researched the examples of state intervention and insisted the personal worth as the ultimate standard of worth to protect individual freedom. He considered the state should follow rules when interfering individual. That is intervention should limited in outer activities necessary to protecting rights without damaging individual moral decision. At the same time, individual can participate in national establishment as citizen and true patriot and become master of himself and social life. Green's state theory demonstrates mutual compelling relations between state and individual with a combination of freedom and the common good in the level of political institution.The conclusion explores the positive influence of Green's liberal-democratic thoughts by retracing the history of welfare state. Green's thoughts lay the theoretical foundation of welfare state practice. Green's theory of freedom and the common good provide thinking resources for contemporary debate between liberalism and communitarianism. In some degree, those theories also benefit our social reforms nowdays.