Is cultural backlash a major determinant of political outcomes in the liberal democracies?

 

In recent years, a major transformation has occurred in the politics of many of the liberal democracies as major political parties have increasingly been challenged, or taken over, by populists. What has brought this about? Can it be attributed to some kind of cultural backlash?

My starting point in this essay is the analysis of Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in their book, Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism (2019). I then consider some problems associated with this analysis, focusing particularly on the authors’ definition of authoritarian values and some critical comments by Armin Schäfer. In the following sections, I consider the relevance of Yasha Mounk’s explanation of Tne Identity Trap, the nature of the backlash to changing economic circumstances, and John Burn-Murdoch’s outline of differences between conservatives in the U.S. and Europe in values and attitudes regarding international cooperation.

The Norris-Inglehart analysis

The book by Norris and Inglehart seemed like a good place to begin considering cultural backlash theory because Ronald Inglehart deserves to be remembered with great respect for his efforts in creating a cultural model which explains a great deal about the reasons why people from different parts of the world often hold widely different views on social and political issues. Inglehart’s cultural model has two dimensions: secular rational values versus traditional values; and self-expression values versus survival values. He documented a shift from materialist values, which emphasize safety and security, to post-materialist values, involving increasing emphasis on individual freedom, occurring as a consequence of ongoing economic growth.

Norris and Inglehart argue that the spread of post-materialist values has induced a backlash among cultural conservatives. The authors do not dismiss explanations of growing support for authoritarian populism which emphasize economic grievances associated with economic globalization, immigration, stagnant real incomes, and perceptions of growing inequality. They find that populist attitudes are strongly influenced by personal experience of economic insecurity and perceptions of the national economy’s performance. However, according to their definition, “authoritarian values” are more common among old people than young people, and are more strongly linked with the respondent’s birth cohort than with economic indicators.

The authors found that anti-immigration attitudes were more strongly linked with authoritarian and populist values than with protecting economic interests. And, even after controlling for a range of attitudes toward immigrants and economic conditions, the respondent’s birth cohort remains the most important predictor of authoritarian values.

Norris and Inglehart believe that “the combination of authoritarian values disguised by populist rhetoric” is “potentially the most dangerous threat to liberal democracy.”

To assess the threat to liberal democracy that may be posed by those values and attitudes it is important to consider how the authors define authoritarian values.

Have authoritarian values been measured correctly?

 The authors conceptualize “authoritarian” values “as a cluster of three related components, emphasizing the importance of (i) conformity (strict adherence to group conventions and traditional customs); (ii) security (safety and protection of the group against risks, justifying strict enforcement and aggression toward outsiders who threaten the security or the accepted group norms); and (iii) loyalty (supporting the group and its leaders).” They view populism “as a style of rhetoric reflecting first-order principles about who should rule, claiming that legitimate power rests with ‘the people’ not the elites.”

The main problem I have with the Norris-Inglehart definition of authoritarian values is that many of the people I know who emphasize conformity to group conventions, group security, and loyalty to the group and its leaders, would be more appropriately labelled as conservatives than as authoritarians. The conventions they seek to uphold are concerned with civility rather than oppression. They emphasize national security because they see it as necessary to avoid becoming the victims of oppression. They display loyalty to the group and elected leaders because they identify as citizens of the nation in which they live.

It seems to me that a more appropriate measure of authoritarian values is implicit in Christian Welzel’s work on emancipative values. The people who hold authoritarian values are those whose values are on the lower end of the scale of emancipative values. Welzel developed the concept of emancipate values to measure the beliefs that people hold about such matters as the importance of personal autonomy, respect for the choices people make in their personal lives, having a say in community decisions, and equality of opportunity. More information about Welzel’s research on emancipative values can be found here.

My understanding is that people who have an authoritarian personality are attracted to the possibility of oppressing others. That is the view of Hans Eysenck, who undertook some pathbreaking work on the personality predictors of political extremism. An important implication of that view is that authoritarian values are not the preserve of either the conservative or progressive side of politics.

That line of reasoning might suggest that the Norris-Inglehart analysis is more relevant to understanding a conservative backlash than the emergence of authoritarian tendencies that might threaten democracies. Nevertheless, as discussed later, there is some evidence that people who identify with the right wing of U.S. politics now have values more akin to Russians and Turks than to the supporters of right wing parties in western Europe.

How much do cultural attitudes vary by age?

In an article entitled “Cultural Backlash? How (Not) to Explain the Rise of Authoritarian Populism”, published in 2021, Armin Schäfer found that, on most issues, people in different age groups have similar cultural attitudes. His analysis suggests that older cohorts are slightly more likely to vote for authoritarian (right wing) parties but less likely to vote for populist ones. His conclusion is that generational replacement is unlikely to attenuate the rise of authoritarian (right wing) populism.

Schäfer does not dismiss cultural explanations of populism. He agrees with Norris and Inglehart that opposition to immigration is linked systematically to authoritarian (conservative) values and a lack of trust in politics.

A backlash to the illiberalism of progressives

 It is common for the spread of post-materialist values to be accompanied by conservative resistance, but much of that resistance seems to dissipate over time. Many cultural conservatives now seem to have accepted, however reluctantly, some of the social changes that they strongly opposed a few decades ago e.g. divorce, pre-marital sex and legalization of homosexuality, and they now also seem to be going through the process of accepting other social changes, such as same sex marriage.

In my view, it is the authoritarian tendencies of many progressives that has promoted a voter backlash, rather than the spread of post-materialist values. The best discussion I have read about the authoritarian tendencies of progressives has been provided by Yascha Mounk in his book, The Identity Trap, published in 2023. Mounk does not refer explicitly to “authoritarian tendencies” but the illiberalism that he discusses amounts to the same thing in my view.

In writing about what he refers to the “identity synthesis”, Mounk recognizes that its advocates are seeking to remedy serious injustices affecting marginalized groups that have historically suffered “terrible forms of discrimination”.  The identity synthesis is concerned with many different kinds of groups including those related to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and disability.  The distinguishing feature of the identity thesis is that its advocates reject neutral rules like equal opportunity and free speech in favour of action to promote the interests of particular groups. According to this thesis, the way the state treats each citizen – and how citizens treat each other – should depend on the identity group to which they belong.

Mounk’s main point is that the identity synthesis will ultimately prove counterproductive: 

“Despite the good intentions of its proponents, it undermines progress toward genuine equality between members of different groups. In the process, it also subverts other goals we all have reasons to care about, like the stability of diverse democracies.”

The identity synthesis subverts the stability of democracies because it makes it harder for people to broaden their allegiances beyond a particular identity. It is a political trap because it makes it harder to sustain diverse societies whose citizens trust and respect each other. It “pits rigid identity groups against each other in a zero-sum battle for resources and recognition.”

Much of Mounk’s book is devoted to a philosophical discussion of how the identity synthesis evolved. The story he tells is of a short march through the institutions, associated with postmodernism, rather than the long march of cultural Marxism. He suggests that since the identity synthesis is inherently about ongoing tension between different identity groups it lacks Marxism’s utopian promise of eventually abolishing all class distinctions.

There has also been a backlash to the authoritarian tendencies within the environmental movement. Although environmental activism is not part of the identity synthesis discussed by Mounk, he makes the interesting observation that in embracing “intersectionality” many voluntary organisations have broadened their missions in line with the idea that all forms of oppression are connected. He gives the Sierra Club as an example.

What about the economy?

The analysis in the preceding essay on this blog leads me to suspect that the longer-term slowdown in economic growth in the liberal democracies might be more important in generating support for populist policies than are grievances that can be related directly to import competition or immigration. Import competition and immigration may just be convenient scapegoats.

The preceding essay shows:

• The perception of having a lower standard of living than parents at a comparable age has a substantial adverse impact on life satisfaction ratings.
• Perceptions of standard of living relative to parents are positively related to past economic growth experience of the countries in which people live.
• In the high-income countries, low growth has a greater adverse impact on young peoples’ perceptions of their standard of living relative to parents than on the corresponding perceptions of old people.

A backlash to internationalism?

John Burn-Murdoch, a researcher who works for the Financial Times, recently made an international comparison of the values of people associated with different political parties in article entitled ‘Why the Maga mindset is different’ (March 7, 2025). His analysis, using data from the World Values Survey, suggests that in many respects (including attitudes to international cooperation) the values of people who identify with the U.S. right wing are closer to the values of people in Turkey, Russia, and China than to those who identify with right wing parties in Europe, or with the U.S. left. His analysis also suggests, however, that “the US Republicans of 20 years ago were no keener on autocracy than the average Canadian or Western European – and just as supportive of international co-operation.”

Perhaps that change of attitudes reflects a cultural backlash that can be partly attributed to 9/11 and the outcomes of the Iraq and Afghan wars. It may also be partly attributable to increasing dissatisfaction with the performance of international organisations, and a perception that U.S. taxpayers have been making excessive contributions to those organisations.

It is important to note that even where a substantial proportion of the population of a country endorses authoritarian values, that does not necessarily result in authoritarian political institutions. That finding emerges from some analysis published on my blog in 2023 in an essay entitled:  “To what extent do international differences in personal freedom reflect people’s values?”  The analysis uses Christian Welzel’s emancipative values data from the World Values Survey and personal freedom data from Cato. It indicates that international differences in personal freedom do broadly reflect the prevalence of emancipative values (the opposite of authoritarian values). However, there are many outliers. For example, personal freedom in China and Iran is lower than might be predicted solely on the basis of the prevalence of emancipative values, whereas personal freedom in Armenia, Georgia, Cyprus and Taiwan is higher than might be predicted on that basis.

Personal freedom in the U.S. seems broadly consistent with the overall prevalence of emancipative values in that country (including both the left and right wings). The current U.S. government is clearly seeking to implement a major change in the direction of many government policies. I am not yet persuaded, however, that its actions will have a substantial adverse impact on the institutions of liberal democracy. 

Conclusions

Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart argue that the spread of post-materialist values has induced a cultural backlash among cultural conservatives. On that basis they suggest that the combination of authoritarianism and populist rhetoric is a threat to liberal democracy.

In my view, Norris and Inglehart were mistaken in attributing cultural backlash to the spread of post-materialist values. It would be more correct to attribute cultural backlash to the illiberalism of progressives who have been advocating what Yascha Mounk has described as the identity synthesis. The identity synthesis has provoked a backlash because it rejects neutral rules like equal opportunity and free speech in favour of action to promote the interests of particular groups that have suffered from discrimination in the past.

Economic grievances play an important role in encouraging people to support policy remedies proposed by populists. My previous research has highlighted the adverse impact that slower economic growth may have on life satisfaction. I suspect that the longer-term slowdown in economic growth in the liberal democracies might be more important in generating support for populist policies than are grievances that can be related directly to the impact of import competition or immigration.

Some recent research has suggested that over the last 20 years the values held by people who identify with the right wing of U.S. politics has moved closer to the values of people in Turkey, Russia and China than to people who identify with the right wing of politics in Europe. It remains to be seen what impact, if any, this apparent retreat from classical liberal values will have on the institutions of liberal democracy in the United States.

What Contribution did David L. Norton Make to our Understanding of Ethical Individualism?

 

The purpose of this post is to publish a review essay by Edward W. Younkins, author of among other things a wonderful trilogy of books on freedom and flourishing: Capitalism and Commerce, Champions of a Free Society, and Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society. (I have written a review of Ed’s trilogy, which was published on The Savvy Street last year. I published an earlier essay on Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society on this blog in 2019.)

David L. Norton, whose books are the subject of Ed’s review essay was an American philosopher who made an important contribution to the modern understanding of human flourishing. I read his book, Personal Destinies, last year, and wrote a couple of posts on this blog (here and here) on issues that were of particular interest to me.

Norton’s major books deserve a more comprehensive review. I am pleased to have the opportunity to publish on Freedom and Flourishing the following review essay by Ed Younkins.

A Review Essay of David L. Norton’s Books on Ethical Individualism

By

Edward W. Younkins

 

The purpose of this review essay is to introduce and evaluate the essential ideas that appear in David L. Norton’s two major books: his 1976 Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (PD) and his 1991 Democracy and Moral Development: A Politics of Virtue (DMD). PD is a thorough, philosophically astute, visionary, and enduring contribution to contemporary moral philosophy in the tradition of classical Greek thinkers in which Norton offers a compelling view of human flourishing grounded in the idea that ethical life is rooted in the realization of unique personal potentialities. Norton’s philosophy will resonate with those seeking to reconcile individual freedom with moral responsibility. Then in DMD Norton attempts to extend his ethical individualism into the realm of political philosophy. In this work he advances politics that embraces ethical education. Although thought-provoking and ambitious, DMD falls short of meeting his goal and of having the impact of PD. In addition, its expanded role of the state and communitarian leanings are problematic, in tension with, and in opposition to, the individual freedom advocated in PD.

Personal Destinies

In this book Norton explains that for each person there is a particular unique way of living (his daimon) and there is a foundational ethical imperative to live in that manner. Each individual is morally obligated to know and live the truth according to his daimon, thus progressively actualizing an excellence that is innately and potentially his. His ethical responsibility and priority is to bring this inner self to outward actuality. Each of us is a unique irreplaceable being who has his own destiny in need of discovery and actualization.

What is the source of one’s daimon? Norton explains that the immediate source of one’s genetic inheritance is the person’s parents and that, as human beings, they represent the same category of being as the individual himself. This involves the consideration of both human nature and the specific unique identity of each individual.

The conclusion to be drawn is that each individual is the heir of the unrestricted humanity of which his parents are in his particular case the agents. Heteronomy does not obtain here because the individual is humanity in a particular instance. And genetic inheritance is fully capable of accounting for the individuation of daimons… (PD p.25)

Norton links the ancient concept of eudaimonia to Abraham Maslow’s idea of self-actualization. He also interchangeably uses the terms eudaimonism, perfectionism, self-actualization ethics, and normative individualism which stresses the quality of life of the agent. In addition, he distinguishes between self-actualization and self-realization because the inward self is real even if it is not actualized,

The eudaimonic individual experiences the whole of his life in every act, and he experiences parts and wholes together as necessary such that he can will that nothing be changed. But the necessity introduced here is moral necessity, deriving from his choice. Hence, we may say of him interchangeably, “He is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do,” or “He is where he wants to be, doing what he must do.” (PD p.222)  

According to Norton, eudaimonia is both a feeling and a condition dependent upon right desire and is an objective value that is not imputed but recognized. It is the condition of living in truth to one’s daimon. The prerequisite of eudaimonia is the unique irreplaceable worth of each individual. Eudaimonia involves wholehearted commitment to one’s flourishing as a human being.

According to Norton, one’s aim is not to imitate the “worthy man” but to emulate him:

To emulate a worthy man is not to re-live his individual life, but to utilize the principle of worthy living, exemplified by him, toward the qualitative improvement of our individual life. (PD, p.13)

Norton informs us that it is Plato, rather than Aristotle, who supplies the underpinning support for individualistic metaphysics via his principle of the self-differentiation of the Forms and his idea of ultimate reality as a system of interrelated and intercommunicating Forms.  Because there are fewer Forms than existing things they serve as principles of intelligibility regarding the actual world.

Norton then builds on Leibniz’s principle of incompossibility that recognizes that not all possibilities are capable of co-existence. Stripping away Leibniz’s theology that states that actualization of pure possibilities is solely the work of God, Norton explains that distinct from actuality are infinite possibilities that are possible actualities and that, under certain conditions, these alternatives become available to existing beings. Between actuality and free possibility only total exchange can occur. Alternative worlds cannot exist simultaneously but can exist as possible worlds via the agency of world exchange. Whatever exists is susceptible to lapsing into the status of unactualized possibility.

Norton devotes three chapters to criticizing recent eudaimonisms from existentialist thinkers from Kierkgaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre none of whom has an unswerving commitment to reason. Norton dismisses Sartre’s characterization of freedom as freedom to do whatever one freely wants to do and criticizes Sartre’s denial of human nature in his efforts to affirm individuality.

Each person has his own irreplaceable and unique potential worth and innate distinct particularity which is his self. Norton’s notion of humankind is as “perfectible finitude”. Each unique person faces possibilities from which to choose. One’s unique flourishing can be progressively approached by living in truth to one’s daimon. Through an individual’s self-knowledge, self-discovery, and efforts he can progressively actualize the particularities that comprise his own essential identity. Human beings possess volition, can initiate action, and can make responsible decisions in accordance with who and what one is.

Norton maintains that each person is a universal particular and that the universal humanity that subsists within each person makes the possibility of a broad range of alternatives a component of every individual’s existence. Of course, this does not mean that every option is equally appropriate for each person. It only means that choices from among alternatives are those to be made correctly or incorrectly.

Confine your aspirations to the possibilities of your own nature; to desire to be more than a human being is to become less, for extra-human aims betray humankind and produce blindness to the values human life affords…. Extra-human happiness and desires are impediments to the appreciation and participation in human worth. (PD p.357)

The virtue of integrity is Norton’s fundamental principle of the life of a mature human being. Living one’s own truth comprises integrity, the primary virtue. Norton explains that flourishing is inextricably tied to the actuality of an integrated self. He speaks of “personal truth” and makes clear that the great threat to integrity is not falsehood, but rather the attractiveness of foreign truths—the truths that belong to others.

Our consideration of “personal truth” reveals that the great enemy of integrity is not falsehood but—ironically—the attractiveness of foreign truths, the truths that belong to others. (PD p.9)

One excellent chapter is devoted to the stages of life—childhood (dependence), adolescence (creative exploration of potentialities), maturation (adulthood), and old age. There are distinguishing incommensurable principles of behavior that pertain to each stage. Norton calls the passage between these stages “world exchange”. There is a succession of stages of which normativity exacts its modes of actualization. The author then devotes a follow-up chapter titled “Eudaimonia: The Quality of Moral Life in the Stage of Maturation”.

Norton views the self as a self of a particular kind (i.e., the self of a human being). He explains that a human being becomes conscious of himself as a self only in social interaction with others. A person’s knowledge of his selfhood thus develops concurrently with the knowledge of others as selves.

Each individual has continuous access to minds different from his own. Norton explains that the presence of another human being is an invitation to enter a perspectival world different from our own. Through a process of participatory enactment each of us can recognize a world of possibilities in ourselves, only one of which is made real in our own existence. This range of possibilities permits us to see those possibilities within other people that are being actualized or that can potentially be actualized.

From the individuation of possibilities it follows that the goal of the human individual is the perfection of his own unique finitude, and the goal of humanity is the community of complementary, perfected individuals. (PD pp. 142-43)

Norton discusses the inherent sociality of human beings based on mutual appreciation rather than on conflict when he speaks of “the complementarity of the excellences” or what Plato termed “congeniality of the excellences”. Through social interaction one’s knowledge of his own selfhood emerges concurrently with the knowledge of others as selves. In addition, these contacts enable individuals to recognize and affirm values different from their own. Through specialization people benefit from what others create by fulfilling their innate destinies. This personal interdependence is manifested in love, labor, and justice.

For Norton, a self-actualizing individual takes an interest in the self-actualization of others and an ideal society is one of complementary perfected individuals. His idea of “consequent sociality” thus emphasizes the individualist significance of human community life and politics. Norton’s eudaimonism clearly recognizes that a human being is not an isolated entity.

Regarding justice as the paramount virtue of society, Norton states that:

…the foundation of justice is the presupposition of the unique, irreplaceable, potential worth of every person, and forms of sociality that neglect or contradict this presupposition…deal justice a mortal wound at the outset. (PD p.310)

Norton views justice as a type of entitlement in which an individual is only entitled to possess as much of anything as he can use in actualizing himself. His theory holds that at the lower limit (or floor) each person is entitled to what is necessary for self-actualization including food, shelter, and decent treatment by others. Then at the upper limit (or ceiling) a person is entitled to the commensurate goods whose potential worth he can maximally actualize in accordance with his destiny, his meaningful work. The point of this upper limit is that not everything is appropriate with what one is. A person is only entitled to those goods that are right and proper to his self-development.  In Norton’s view, how a person acquires something to which he is “entitled” in order to actualize himself is irrelevant. The door is opened to the notion of distributive justice in a society that disregards the manner in which a person acquires what he is ‘entitled” to.

The unfortunate designation “entitlement” is used by Norton in connection with what individuals should do in a social context. He discusses what a person is morally entitled to and deserves in virtue of his own distinctive potential achievements. He contends that not every person is entitled to all goods, but that every person is entitled to those goods that will help them with their self-actualization. The knowledge of other people’s entitlements leads him to entertain the idea of distributive justice.

Norton thinks that his eudaimonism can be employed to demonstrate which distribution of goods is just and which is not. He begins by saying that it is each individual who will decide whether a good is or is not commensurate with the pursuit of his self-actualization. However, he qualifies his answer by stating that others can specify what one is entitled to if the person has not yet reached a stage of true individuation. His theory of entitlement leaves room for a theory of rights that would inspire political control in the realm of social justice.

Under normative individualism the final ground of the distinction between true and false desires is the nature of the individual himself, and he himself is the final authority. But by the emergent nature of individualism the exercise of this final authority by the individual is deferred until true individuation is attained, and meanwhile others must share with him the responsibility for the determination of his true interests. (PD pp.323-24)

Norton declares that public corroboration of claims of entitlement is needed because self-love and the knowledge it provides are imperfect. Although he suggests others who know and love the person, and thereafter, acquaintances as corroborators with respect to which goods are consistent with person’s unique calling, there remains the possibility that a political authority would step in when peer pressure and persuasion are insufficient. He has opened the door for huge amounts of control, and this unfortunately comes to fruition in his later book, Democracy and Moral Development.

 

Democracy and Moral Development

This 1991 book can be viewed as an extension of Norton’s earlier work, Personal Destinies. In it he aims to philosophically connect ideas from democratic theory, virtue (or character) ethics, moral development, and social and political justice. Norton praises democratic thinkers like Mill and Dewey for teaching that democratic institutions advance individuals pursuit of their chosen way of life. Holding a developmental notion of the individual, he makes a case for a greater than a minimal role for government in the life of each individual human being.

Norton explains the need to disclaim the closed teleology of Plato and Aristotle for an open-ended teleology. He views eudaimonia as an inclusive end that permits a multiplicity of types of self-actualizing lives aimed at a multiplicity of ends.

Arguing for an expanded notion of self-interest that includes the interests of others, Norton states that, because eudaimonia is of objective worth, one individual’s self-actualization is of value to another individual, and vice-versa. He claims that his eudaimonistic perspective transcends the altruist-egoist bifurcation.

Arguing that eudaimonism is not a form of egoism, he explains that:

The worth that is aspired to is objective worth, which is to say, it is of worth, not solely or primarily to the individual who actualizes it, but also to (some) other persons--specifically to such others as can recognize, appreciate, and utilize the distinctive kind of worth that the given individual manifests. (DMD p.7)

Norton explains that human beings are alike in seeking values but individuated by the differences of the types of values that they desire. It follows that his contention that one person’s actualization is of value to another person may be problematic because objective value for one person is not the same for every individual. Unlike Ayn Rand, he fails to realize that it is important to describe for whom and for what purpose something is of value.

Like Plato, Norton argues that self-love does not inhibit the love of others, but rather is the precondition of it:

…love is not exclusively or primarily interpersonal; it is first of all the right relationship of each person with himself or herself. The self to which love is the first instance directed is the ideal self that is aspired to and by which random change is transformed into the directed development we term growth, When the ideal of the individual is rightly chosen, it realizes objective values that subsisted within the individual as innate possibilities, thereby achieving in the individual as innate possibilities the self-identity that is termed “integrity” and that constitutes the foundation of other virtues. (DMD p.40)

According to Norton, there exists a kind of positive right to what every individual requires in order to exercise the central moral responsibility to discern and develop his personal potential moral excellence. He argues that a person is only entitled to what is commensurate with what is needed for his own self-development. Therefore, a worthy individual who has self-knowledge and lives by it, recognizes goods to which he is not entitled as distractions from the proper course of his life. Such a person manifests justice by not claiming goods that he cannot utilize and by actively willing them to those who can employ them toward their personal flourishing. A worthy person’s aspirations do not exceed the parameters of his own finitude. Recognizing these boundaries permits the potential augmentation of the finite excellences of qualitatively differentiated others.

According to Norton:

…no life can be said to be fulfilled whose worth is not recognized and utilized by (some) other person in their own self-actualizing enterprise. Correspondingly every well-lived life must utilize values produced by (some) other well-lived lives. And this is to say that within a society, every person has a legitimate interest in the essential personhood of every other. (DMD p.124)

Norton contends the switch from “some others” to “every other” is legitimated because all those upon you and I rely have need of values produced by others, who, in turn, have need of values produced by others, and so on. He states that this is the foundation for a “community of true individuals”.

Norton attempts to distinguish his views from those of contemporary communitarians. He does this by differentiating between “received” community and tradition and “chosen” community and tradition. He emphasizes choosing the right community and tradition as necessary to individuality as conceived of eudaimonistically. In the end, however, his worldview comes close to the communitarian worldview from which he wants to distinguish himself.

Norton argues that rights must be derived from responsibilities (not vice-versa}, that rights are not inherently adversarial, and that rights should be founded upon what a person requires in order to develop properly. He thus emphasizes responsibilities, the value of other people’s flourishing in one’s own self-interest, and the necessity of developing one’s latent powers.

Norton’s idea of a just society is “obligations primitive” rather than “rights primitive”. For him, rights are derived from the primary moral obligation of individuals to discern and actualize their innate potential excellences. This moral obligation produces both negative and positive rights that government will protect and help to implement.

Norton failed to understand that rights are an ethical concept that is not directly concerned with attaining the self-perfection of individuals but rather, as explained by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, are metanorms that establish the conditions for protecting the possibility of the pursuit of a person’s interests but not the achievement of flourishing itself. His philosophical individualism could have been improved if he had realized that ethics are not all at the same level. A two-level ethical system consists of metanorms (i.e., political norms) and personal ethical norms. Whereas metanorms are both legally and morally binding, personal ethical norms are only morally binding. Metanorms establish the conditions for the exercise of personal moral norms. [1]

Norton explicitly rejects moral minimalism and suggests a role for government in moral development. Taking a rather communitarian view of a person’s view of society, Norton contends that government should focus on helping people to realize their potential. For Norton, a just society is one in which an individual would be able to actualize his potential personal excellences. From his revisionist Platonist perspective, government should supply the preconditions for self-development that the individual is unable to supply and to which he is morally entitled. Among these necessary conditions are guaranteed subsistence, basic healthcare, and provision of appropriate education for children and adolescents in a variety of life-forming situations. An integrated self-actualized life requires both formal education and life-forming experiences that permit individuals the opportunity to explore life’s possibilities. The life choices one makes are founded on self-knowledge attained through exploration and experimentation as an adolescent in non-academic situations in a variety of youth service programs including apprenticeships, work study, community service programs, and a National Youth Service. Like Dewey, Norton suggests restructuring education by alternating academic courses and practical experiences and supporting youth public service.

As Norton puts it:

…the paramount function of government is to provide the necessary but non-self-suppliable conditions for optimizing opportunities for individual self-discovery and self-development. (DMD p.80)

Norton considers some implications of Plato’s The Republic for contemporary government and organizational management. One is that managers are distinct class of individuals including politicians whose vocation it is to manage. Others are that to be a good manager requires that a person know the good of the social organization as a whole that one manages and that he identifies his own good with the good of the whole organization. The result of the natural division of labor by individual excellences produces a type of management class who would be trustees of the public interest. Of course, this class would be the result of autonomous choices made during the progression of self-development through education especially at the stage of adolescence.

Norton argues that:

If we term both social engineering and the welfare state “maximal government” and the night-watchman state “minimal government”, then good government, eudaimonistically conceived, lies intermediate between them, as conducive government. (DMD p.166)   

Conclusion

Whereas PD explored the ethical and psychological dimensions of individual flourishing, DMD examined how political and social institutions and practices can support or impede the cultivation of moral virtues in individuals. DMD expands Norton’s analysis to include the role of the state and community in fostering moral development. It builds on the ideas introduced in PD but moves toward the view that political systems have a moral purpose beyond the protection of an individual’s negative rights and toward the notion that the state should be an active participant in moral education, shaping the conditions under which a person can develop virtues. DMD’s more communitarian focus is in tension with the ethical individualism of PD. PD offers a profound, original, and nearly flawless contribution to ethical thought by developing a solid foundation for understanding personal moral development and flourishing. However, Norton’s flawed theory of entitlement in PD leads him to go far off-track in DMD.

His entitlement theory opened the door for recurrent intrusion in people’s lives. Norton argues in DMD for people’s rights to things that cannot be self-provided. These are essentially claims to the positive performance of others. People have positive rights only at the expense of someone else’s negative rights. No political or social system can replace a person’s own responsibility for the character of his life. Norton’s view of the state as a moral educator risks imposing a state-sanctioned notion of virtue that could infringe on individual autonomy. This could be seen as paternalistic and undermining of the very autonomy that he seeks to promote in PD. Freedom is a prerequisite for the development of virtue. Any expansion of the role of the state beyond minimal government is undesirable. Norton’s case that both negative and positive rights must be derived from responsibilities is untenable.

Despite the above flaws, Norton’s work, primarily in PD, advances a metaphysics of authentic possibilities and an ethical individualism that is applicable to each person’s personal and social circumstances. His eudaimonistic view of the moral life in terms of perfecting one’s nature thereby attaining a state of flourishing provokes serious thought. His ideas deserve to be studied along with the ideas of contemporary thinkers writing from a neo-Aristotelian perspective including, but not limited to, Ayn Rand, Henry B. Veatch, Tibor R. Machan, Fred D. Miller, Lester Hunt, Douglas B. Rasmussen, and Douglas J. Den Uyl.

 

Note

{1} See Rasmussen and Den Uyl, Norms of Liberty, pp. 257-264.

Works Cited

Norton, David L. 1976. Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

______. 1991. Democracy and Moral Development: A Politics of Virtue. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. University Park. PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

…….

A shorter version of this essay, focusing on Personal Destinies, has been published on The Savvy Street.

 

 

How important is resilience to individual flourishing?

 

Everyone knows that resilience is important in coping with misfortune. However, it may be more important than I had thought.

My attention was grabbed recently by a newspaper article discussing a study suggesting that people with higher levels of resilience may live up to 10 years longer. The study was discussed in an article (possibly gated) by Lucy Dean in the Australian Financial Review (8 Sept, 2024) which also draws on an interview with Justine Gatt, director of the Centre for Wellbeing, Resilience and Recovery at UNSW and Neuroscience Research Australia.

The Longevity Study

The findings of the study by Aijie Zhang et al were published in an article entitled ‘Association between psychological resilience and all-cause mortality in the Health and Retirement Study’, in BMJ Mental Health (2024;27:e301064).

The study was based on the experience of 10,569 U.S. adults aged ≥50 (mean chronological age  67 years ) in the Health and Retirement Study (2006–2008). Mortality outcomes were determined using records up to May 2021.  During that period, 3,489 all-cause deaths were recorded.

The questionnaire used to measure resilience covered qualities such as perseverance, calmness, a sense of purpose, self-reliance and the recognition that certain experiences must be faced alone.

After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the researchers observed a decrease in the risk of death by 38% in the quartile with higher psychological resilience scores, compared with the group with the lowest scores.

The authors note that their findings are consistent with studies that have shown a significant positive correlation between life goals and self-rated health, with life goals moderating the relationship between self-rated health and mortality. Maintaining a positive self-perception of ageing has a positive effect on functional health, and optimism independently protects against all-cause mortality. Other studies demonstrate that individuals with poor social relationships have an increased risk of death.

The Compass Wellbeing Scale

Justine Gatt leads a project which aims to identify the underlying markers of wellbeing and to improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms that contribute towards resilience to stress and adversity.

In this project, mental wellbeing is measured using the 26-item COMPAS‑W Wellbeing Scale which provides a ​“composite” measure of wellbeing; that is, a measure of both subjective (hedonia) and psychological wellbeing.

The COMPAS‑W scale encompasses measures of composure, own-worth, mastery, positivity, achievement and satisfaction. The existence of a relationship between the Compass scale and resilience is based on the view that factors associated with resilience, include:

• The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out
• A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities
• Skills in communication and problem solving
• The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses
• A feeling that you are a master of your environment and in control
• A general positive outlook on your life and satisfaction with everything you have achieved

Justine Gatt argues these are skills that people can learn and develop for themselves. 

The research on resilience is ongoing, but the qualities encompassed in the Compass scale are obviously worth fostering.

Why do I consider myself to be a neo-Aristotelian classical liberal?

 

I pondered the above question as I read Fred D Miller’s book, Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics (published in 1995). Although some of Aristotle’s politics is challenging to classical liberals, Miller mounts a strong case that it is not anachronistic to attribute to Aristotle a concept of individual rights and support for a moderate degree of individualism.

Neo-Aristotelian classical liberals are not overly interested in defending Aristotle’s politics. They seek to have their own ideas assessed on their merits rather than in terms of the extent to which they agree with Aristotle's writings. Nevertheless, they have good reasons to label themselves as neo-Aristotelian – they draw inspiration from Aristotle.

Neo-Aristotelian classical liberals certainly appreciate Aristotle’s recognition of reality and his approach of attempting to understand the nature of the world in which we live. However, it is not necessary to be any kind of Aristotelian to follow Aristotle in that regard. In an earlier essay I argued that John Sellars had adopted an excessively broad view of what it means to be an Aristotelian by suggesting that all who join Aristotle in attempting to understand the nature of the world are Aristotelians. I argued that Aristotelians seek guidance from Aristotle’s ethics.

In my view it is Aristotle’s views on the nature of humans and individual flourishing that offer greatest inspiration for classical liberals. I think neo-Aristotelian classical liberals obtain inspiration from Aristotle mainly because they perceive him to have embraced an important role for individual self-direction. In what follows I draw upon Fred Miller’s book to explain why that is justified.

Aristotle’s account of individual flourishing

Aristotle identifies human flourishing with actualization of the potential of individuals. Miller suggests:

“Aristotle’s theory is perfectionist in the sense that it presupposes a theory of human nature and identifies the good with the fullest possible development of this nature.”

Aristotle identifies the good as “that for which everyone strives” but is not a perfectionist in the sense of insisting that anything short of perfection is unacceptable. For Aristotle, perfection provides an objective standard against which we can judge which of the things we might wish for are more choice-worthy. The good is both desirable and choice-worthy.

Aristotle maintains that rationality is the essential function of a human. He sees this function as stemming from the nature of human beings as a particular kind of organism. He argues that it is good for individuals to promote this function.

Miller notes Aristotle’s claims that virtuous acts must be chosen by the agent for their own sakes, that true self-love is embodied in persons who act according to their own judgement, and that the exercise of reason, in contrast to perception, is voluntary and up to the agent. He summarises:

“Those claims together seem to imply that rationality, virtue, and happiness are essentially free and voluntary”.

Miller also notes that Aristotle “relegated liberty to the status of a mere external good” and “prescribed frequent intrusions on individual freedom of choice in the pursuit of liberty”. However, he observes:

“None the less, it has been argued that Aristotle provided the theoretical basis for a more central role for self-directedness or autonomy”.

The references he cites of authors taking that position include some works by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl. With the benefit of advances in knowledge, it seems to me that the foundations for Aristotle’s views supporting individual self-direction are much stronger than the foundations for his views supporting slavery, a subordinate role for women, and a role for the state in moral development of adult citizens.  

Neo-Aristotelian classical liberalism

 In The Perfectionist Turn (2016) Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl write:

“Succinctly stated, human flourishing is understood by us to mean the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom.”

They argue that “human flourishing and the goods and virtues that constitute it” cannot “be adequately understood apart from the actualization of human nature”. They assert that “holding that human flourishing is the ultimate end and good for human beings is compatible with there being many diverse forms of human flourishing and with self-direction being vital to the very actuality of human flourishing”.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl state that they “seek to advance a neo-Aristotelian account of human flourishing”.

My views on human flourishing have been strongly influenced by Rasmussen and Den Uyl, as well as Aristotle. The following passage is from my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing:

“Wise and well-informed self-direction is integral to the process of human flourishing. The nature of humans is such that when individuals mature, they normally have potential to exercise the practical wisdom and integrity required to direct their own flourishing in accordance with goals they choose and values they endorse. Individuals cannot fully flourish if they are unable to exercise their potential for self-direction.”

The views presented in that passage were inspired by my reading of Aristotle.    

What makes a narrative good?

 

I asked myself the question posed above as I was reading Michèle Lamont’s book, Seeing Others, How to Redefine Worth in a Divided World. The passage quoted below seems central to Michèle Lamont’s book:

“The hegemony of the American dream manifests in the emphasis Americans put on neoliberal virtues of material success, self-reliance, individualism, entrepreneurialism, and competitiveness. These criteria of worth have gained more and more influence as “models of ideal selves,” and encourage many to internalize blame for the increasing precarity of their lives. This model can also lead people to seek out a scapegoat group to blame.” (p 31)

Those sentences seem to suggest that neoliberalism encourages people to either internalize blame for misfortune or to seek scapegoat groups to blame.

Internalizing blame

The author doesn’t explain why she believes neoliberalism can cause people to “internalize blame for the increasing precarity of their lives”, but she lists several references in the notes section which may support her claims. The one which seems likely to be most relevant is an article by Glen Adams, Sara Estrada-Villalta, Daniel Sullivan, and Hazel Rose Markus entitled ‘The Psychology of Neoliberalism and the Neoliberalism of Psychology’, Journal of Social Issues 75 (1), 2019.

Adams et al use the term ‘neoliberalism’ to refer to an economic and political movement that came to prominence in the late 1970s, advocating “deregulation of markets and free movement of capital with an emphasis on fluidity and globalization”. Such usage of ‘neoliberalism’ to refer to advocacy of free markets is now common, even though the term was once generally understood to refer to advocacy of left-leaning policies, e.g. a ‘social market economy’, rather than free markets. Like most advocates of free markets, I would prefer to be referred to as a classical liberal or libertarian, but I can usually assume that I am among good company when I am labelled as a neoliberal.

The authors argue that neoliberalism encourages “an entrepreneurial approach to self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for individual growth and personal fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect regulation”. I don’t object to that characterisation. It describes some aspects of the approach to human flourishing in Part III my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.

However, the authors suggest that neoliberalism also supports psychological “responsibilization” - an ugly word for an ugly concept. The claim they make is that neoliberals advocate that individuals should not only accept personal responsibility for problems which it may be possible to ameliorate through behaviour change (such as obesity and substance abuse) but also to accept responsibility for misfortune more generally.

Neoliberals argue that free markets tend to reward individual effort, but that doesn’t mean that they believe that economic misfortune is always attributable to lack of individual effort. In fact, one of the characteristics of neoliberalism is recognition that social problems of poverty, unemployment etc. are often attributable to foolish government economic policies that are opposed to economic freedom.

I don’t know any neoliberal who would suggest that individuals should “internalize blame” for any disruption of their lives associated with innovation and competition. Neoliberals are more likely to suggest that people who lose jobs or other remuneration because of the disruptive impact of innovation and competition should view such setbacks as beyond their control. The potential for such setbacks is a price that previous generations have willingly paid to enable to enable their descendants to enjoy the benefits of economic growth. Deirdre McCloskey – a prominent classical liberal – has coined the term, ‘bourgeois deal’, to refer to the willingness of people to accept the potential for their lives to be disrupted by innovation and competition in exchange for ongoing expansion of economic opportunities. (See Bourgeois Equality.)

I doubt that many psychologists would suggest that their clients should “internalize” blame for all the bad things that happen to them. When psychologists suggest that individuals should take responsibility for their lives, I am sure that the vast majority would mean that individuals should focus on taking personal responsibility for problems that are within their locus of control.

Who is responsible for the scapegoat narrative?

It took me some time to work out why Michèle Lamont believes that neoliberalism encourages people to seek out scapegoat groups to blame for misfortune. Her reasoning evidently has more to do with her belief that Donald Trump is a neoliberal than with the beliefs of neoliberals.

On the page following the passage quoted above, Lamont writes: 

“From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, neoliberalism has come to be understood as a precondition for a successful society”.

I believe that free markets help societies to become and remain successful, but it is hard to understand how anyone could perceive Donald Trump to be an advocate of that view. While in office, Trump administered the final blow to the “neoliberal consensus” on international trade that characterised the post-Cold War period, and he currently favors further restrictions on international trade and international movement of labor.  

Lamont’s claim that neoliberalism encourages people to seek out scapegoat groups to blame seems to rest on the behavior of Donald Trump. She observes that in 2015 former president Trump advanced a false narrative in which immigrants from Mexico were rapists and drug dealers. (pp 51-2). During the 2016 campaign Trump appealed to “America’s forgotten workers” by recognizing their plight and “by blaming globalization and immigration for it”. (p 70)

Lamont also suggests that Trump provided “an empowering narrative” for the working class “who are often perceived as “the losers of the system”. (p 165). Early in the book, she notes:

“Instead of depicting ‘everyday Americans’ as ‘deplorables’, as Hillary Clinton was perceived to do in the 2016 presidential campaign, her opponent Donald Trump affirmed their worth in his various electoral speeches, explaining their loss of social status as a result of globalization and immigration.” (p 8)

Lamont’s narrative

The title of Lamont’s book, “seeing others”, refers to “acknowledging people’s existence and positive worth, actively making them visible and valued, reducing their marginalization, and openly integrating them into a group”. (p 6) She suggests that having one’s sense of worth affirmed “is a universal need that is central to our identity as human beings and our quality of life”. (p 7) She urges that we “bridge boundaries with those who are different” via “ordinary universalism”, or “emphasizing similarities over differences”. (p 144)

I don’t object to those sentiments, and I doubt whether many other neoliberals would either. It is certainly appropriate to recognize that ordinary universalism can be “a vital counterweight” to “Nationalist populism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia” which “are on the rise in many countries”. (p 146) As an advocate of ordinary universalism, however, I think it is unfortunate that the author was not sufficiently “inclusive” to recognize that anti-Semitism also belongs on that list.  

I also object to the idea that “individualist approaches” to improving wellbeing “may harm more than they help, since they pull people’s attention away from more meaningful efforts”. (p 48) The author seems to be suggesting that excessive attention is given to approaches that help individuals to improve their assessments of their own worth. Instead, she urges:

“We need to ask ourselves hard questions about how we decide who matters and what we can do to create a more inclusive society.”

It seems to me that people who are lacking in regard for their own worth are unlikely to make a positive contribution to ensuring that the worth of others is appropriately recognized.

Much of the book is devoted to a discussion of how it is possible to change hearts and minds in order to reduce stigmatization of marginalized groups, and thus build a more inclusive society. That discussion is largely beyond the scope of this essay.

In Chapter 7, however, the author discusses the result of a survey of the attitudes of Gen Z students (aged 18 to 23). She seems a little perplexed that Gen Z tend to “embrace some neoliberal ideals – hard work and success” but is pleased that they “combine personal professional aspirations with the promotion of collective well-being”.

The author claims that apart from “the wealthiest of the wealthy” every other group “finds itself reeling from an onslaught of difficulties, disappointments, and anxieties, grasping for dignity and stability”. (p 47) That is implausible and seems at odds with her message about destigmatization of marginalized groups. However, it fits well with another theme of Lamont’s narrative.   

As already mentioned, Lamont suggests that Trump provided “an empowering narrative” for the working class. She suggests that the Democratic party should counter that with “messages of solidarity and dignity”:

“Redirecting working class anger toward the one percent is more likely to sustain fruitful alliances than driving wedges between diverse categories of workers who have so much in common.” (p 159)

Is Lamont’s narrative good?

It seems to me that appropriate criteria to consider whether a narrative is good include whether it encourages ethical behaviour and whether it is factually accurate.

Regarding ethical behaviour, Michèle Lamont seems to be seeking to “mobilize” good narratives when she suggests:

“We engineer our world together by mobilizing narratives that expand recognition of who is worthy.”

Leaving aside engineering, the message she is attempting to convey seems to be that narratives have a role in reinforcing the ethical intuition that we should respect other humans and behave with integrity toward them, irrespective of gender, sexual preference, race, nationality, religion, wealth, social status, political affiliations etc. I am not entirely convinced that she would include ideological opponents among those who are “worthy”, but she does acknowledge that “it is worth trying to understand even people we may strongly disagree with”. (p 159).   

On the question of factual accuracy, Lamont’s narrative, which suggests that the workers have reason to be angry with the wealthy one percent, seems to me to be just as questionable as Donald Trump’s narrative which suggests that the workers have reason to be angry about globalization and immigration. Neither of those narratives promotes an accurate understanding of economic reality.  

Conclusion

In this essay I have examined Michèle Lamont’s narrative that neoliberalism encourages people to either internalize blame for misfortune or to seek scapegoat groups to blame. My conclusion is that her claim that neoliberalism encourages people to internalize blame is baseless. Her claim about seeking to blame scapegoat groups seems to be based on the false belief that Donald Trump is a neoliberal.

Good narratives should encourage ethical behaviour and be factually accurate. One of Lamont’s objectives in this book seems to be to “mobilize” good narratives that reinforce the ethical intuition that we should behave with integrity toward all other humans. However, the factual accuracy of her narrative that workers have reason to be angry with the wealthy one percent is highly questionable. If accepted by governments that approach would encourage unethical redistributions of incomes and further dampen incentives that are essential to the ongoing growth of widespread economic opportunities.