Liberal Steward

Thomas Hill Green(1836-1882)was a famous philosopher,political thinker,and ethicist in the late nineteenth century.In his era,the traditional British Classical Liberalism reached its peak,but it also brought many problems and urgently needed to improved.For this purpose,Green changed the tradition of British empiricism to the transcendentalism of German philosophy in the liberalism,replaced utilitarianism with the perfectionism of pursuing the “common good”,and treated state intervention as a vital means for individual's true freedom,which steered the ship of liberalism to crossing the rocks.Since Green's thought is significantly different from the predecessors' liberalism,the branch of liberalism represented by him is called New Liberalism in later ages.Green wrote a vast amount of philosophical texts and speech drafts,though most of them did not published before his death.It is necessary to study these texts and drafts in order to clarify the basic content of Green's political philosophy and his study of religion,metaphysics and moral philosophy which are the basics of his political philosophy.Then Green's purpose of reconciling faith and reason as same as individual and state will be expounded,and the far-reaching influence of Green's political philosophy in later ages will be seen.After his death,the academic achievements of foreign research on Green's thoughts are gotten continuously.After an unabiding downturn between the World War I and World War II,the research is becoming more and more heat since the last half of twentieth century.Comparing with foreign research,the domestic research on Green's thoughts is still relatively lack,so the research of Green's thought still has important academic value.The background of Green's time determines the necessity of changing the path of traditional liberalism and establishing new liberalism.In Green's era,John Locke,George Berkeley,and David Hume's empiricism had become the main aspect of British philosophy.Their ideas and the development of natural science seriously challenged the Christian faith as advocacy of self-sacrifice,love and assistance,and caused the crisis of British religion which started in the middle of the nineteenth century.At the same time,represented by John Mill and Jeremy Bentham,the utilitarianism had established a kind of moral philosophy which took the pursuit of‘the greatest happiness of the most people' as the end and impacted the traditionalmoral idea.In the field of politics,the principle of Laissez-faire,which was affected by empiricism and utilitarianism,ruled the state and society's political and economic actions,and brought the huge gap between the rich and poor,such as the Irish famine serious social problem.At the same time,Laissez-faire did not adapt to the state interventionism legislative reforms of British government which had started,so a new kind of political philosophy is urgently needed to solve the above problems.The emphasis on religious faith and moral ideal is the soul of Green's whole thought system.With the effect of the Evangelical thought,Green criticized the faults of the traditional Catholic theology on the one hand,and tried to guide people to establish correct Christian faith and apply the faith to personal morality and social care and emphasized the morality of Christian theology on the other hand,in order to solve the crisis of faith and moral.Green knew that the new moral philosophy must adapt to the trend of attaching importance to the rational analysis,thus he worked hard to draw lessons from the research methods of natural science.He interpreted the nature of human and moral,illuminated the spirit principle of nature and knowledge,and proposed the conception of eternal consciousness and self-consciousness,so as to established the metaphysical foundation of his system of philosophy.The conception of common good is the core of Green's moral philosophy.Green's moral philosophy expounds the process of eternal consciousness showing and developing itself in the individual human and society.He defined moral behavior from two aspects: on the one hand,moral behavior was a kind of behavior which was implied for good will;on the other hand,moral behavior needed to achieve a certain end of moral value.This can be regarded as a cycle in which deontology and teleology mutually driven.Green believed that the perfection of human was the end of moral value and the real good.It involved two aspects of content,on the one hand,it was a person's ability for his/her full realization;on the other hand,it was to pursue the happiness of others.In the end,he composed these two aspects of content as one that the real good is the common good.From the perspective of the individual,the core content of Green's political philosophy is the conception of positive freedom and the right theory of individual attaching himself to society.Green's discussion of freedom widened the conception of freedom in which classical liberalism only emphasizes freedom from restrictions as the negative freedom to the pursuit of the common good and individual's fullself-realization as positive freedom.Green's theory of rights is based on the conception of social recognition.In combination with his moral philosophy,Green's theory of rights embodies the dual identity of human beings,namely,as a person with absolute value,thus becoming the purpose of other person's moral behavior;and as a responsible member of society,thus becoming the agency of moral behavior.From the perspective of society and state,the content of Green's political philosophy is mainly based on his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation.In these lectures,Green introduced the general background of political obligation,reviewed and criticized the main thoughts of representative figures of traditional social contract theory and put forward his own basic theory of rights.Then,Green discussed the relationship between individual and state,illuminated the basic of state as well as the principle of state intervention,discussed the relevant theory of civil disobedience,and expounded the principle of state intervention in the war,punishment,property rights,education,and prohibition against alcoholic drinks,etc.Green steered the ship of liberalism to the New Liberalism and well adapted to the social status of Britain in late Victorian.His thoughts had a broadly impact at the university of Oxford where he taught and the whole Britain.After him,many political thinkers turned to New Liberalism.At that time the New Liberalism became the most important political trend which had greatly influence in Britain and the United States.The most famous political philosophers of his followers were Basanquet and Hobhouse.They inherited Green's ideas,but their thoughts are different more or less.Green philosophy has a character of inclusiveness,which made his thought can be found in the New liberalism,Neo-liberalism and Communitarianism,all of which are current mainstream political philosophy and sharply conflict with each other,so it can provide a channel of communication between these different schools and has an important contemporary value.