Chapter 12 - Consequentialist cosmopolitanism

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In Liberalism (1902), Herbert Samuel wrote with John Stuart Mill surely in mind:

Liberals hold that the ultimate purpose of politics is nothing narrower than to help men to advance towards the best type. No people can reach the goal, indeed, unless they have liberty: but there may be stages in the march when unrestrained liberty is rather a hindrance to them than a help. A barbarian race may prosper best if for a period, even for a long period, it surrenders the right of self-government in exchange for the teachings of civilization. Because we think freedom better than control, we do not count it a kindness to let a child do whatever he likes, or a sick man eat whatever he fancies: and because we hold that democracy is good for the Englishman and the Frenchman, we need not pedantically pretend that it must always be good for the Indian or the African as well.

Other new liberals followed Samuel in echoing Mill's prejudices as much as what they took to be his liberalism's core principles. And while their prejudices were certainly not uniquely utilitarian, their core principles certainly were, although the received view of new liberals has continued to suggest otherwise. But unlike earlier utilitarian liberals, they also borrowed generously from Kant, Hegel and Darwin, transforming late Victorian and early twentieth-century utilitarianism rather significantly, including utilitarian international politics.