Philosophical Traditions: Liberalism Versus Autonomy

Liberalism is a philosophical tradition that gives all people their rights, the value of personal freedom or autonomy, and the idea that every human being is of equal moral worth. So Liberalism is a historical tradition and belongs to a particular time and place, it also arose in the seventeenth century as a reaction to an earlier tradition. As we defined liberalism in general we are going to talk in particular about Different Blind Liberalism, which it is a set of ideas about the way in which government and other public institutions should treat different groups of people. In this essay I’m going to talk about difference-blind liberalism implies that justice is a matter of treating everyone equally, regardless of their cultural identity.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So as we defined above liberalism is that all human beings are born free and equal to each other, and also because all the people me and you are born with rights which for example the right to be free or the right to learn, simply we have these rights because we are humans. For sure these simple rights are universal (held by everyone) and inalienable which forever these rights will continue to exist regardless of whether or not governments recognize them.

Discrimination is treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people because of their skin color, sex, sexuality, etc, For example until 1986 most companies would not even allow women to take the exams, but such discrimination is now disappearing. Liberalism justify discrimination as if it was over age, religion, sex it is unfair and unjust, but on the other hand they justify their action for example when the teacher gives all the students grades based on their work which it may be high or low grade there will not be discrimination in it because it was based on their work. It is also unfair and unjust to discriminate the refugees and migrants in other countries based on their culture and background, for example, the Mexican people in the USA they treated differently because of their nationality and their cultural and this is unjust and unfair because they did not choose their country.

The role of the rule and exemption approach to citizens demands for different treatments that the goal of it to combining respect for general legal obligations and attention to specific minority issues, it also made some differences in some cultures in Europe and USA it was highly been used in the religiose cases and it also was supported by many liberals. For example in the UK, there have been exemptions for the Sikh religiose (Indian culture) their religiose require to wear turbans, they needed exemption in the case of wearing motorcycle helmets. The rule and exemptions were supported by many citizens and liberals but so many cases were not approved on in some countries which somehow it did not give some religious cultures their rights, so many of human rights thought that the role and exemption did not care about the human cultural and religious background. As it is the same for the migrants and refugees this role did not care about their background such as the Mexican people in the USA. But in other countries such as Europe, the refugees and migrants have their right to live with their families in a private house and other rights like learning and having job this role gave them their rights. All in all different blind liberalism reject this role because in some countries they do not gave the human being all of his rights.

The autonomy argument is self-rule and basically another word for liberty. So self-rule is that we are able to make our own choices and decisions. Autonomy is all about thinking for yourself and acting on your own desires while living in a free society whose laws give you the liberty to make your own decisions. There are two basic autonomy which are individual and collective autonomy. Individual autonomy talks about how each person should live their life and be free, this autonomy is the most popular one. The second one is collective autonomy which it belongs to a group of people in cities or in families and it have so many goals and the important one is that the group can make their own decisions and what is the best for their group. The autonomy argument goes like this every human being is free and they have all the rights to do whatever they want like for example for the Sikh people they have their rights if they do not want to wear a helmet because at the end its their head !! and they have the all right of their bod, So autonomy argument is as we said self-rule.

The unequal impact is the rejection of the rule exemption approach because this approach did not care about the people’s cultures and their religious background. But this does not take into account that things affect people in different ways. For example, there is an unequal argument that goes like this :

Premise 1: if a law or policy does not have the same impact on everybody, it is not just.

Premise 2: the blanket prohibition of cannabis does not have the same impact on everybody.

Conclusion: the blanket prohibition of cannabis is not just.

And this argument goes on everything like this, to make them under premises and conclusion.

Argument by analogy is a very useful tool in philosophy. Argument by analogy is one that compares two cases. Like for example case A and case B, we want to decide something about case B, we know that case A is just like case B, so by analogy, we can conclude that something that is true of case A is likely to be true for case B.

The two philosophers Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz are liberal but they reject different blind liberalism. They argue that cultural groups should live with their on principles, they call this self-determination. they argue that there is a connection between self-determination and cultural exemption.

To sum up, all people are born free and have the right to live equally as the others for example to have the right to learn, have a home and job. Liberalism gave all the people their rights like refugees and migrants and the underrepresented groups, they all deserve to live equal the others depsides their skin color, religious, cultural backgrounds and their nationality.