BOOK REVIEW ‒ In his latest book, the legendary initiator of the methodological turn of the history of political thought aims to reevaluate the two historical concepts of freedom.
Quentin Skinner is the iconic figure of the great turn that can be defined as the methodological awakening of the history of political thought. One of the most important workshops of this turn was in Cambridge ‒ see my edited volume The Cambridge View of Modern Political Thought (1997). Of course, in many respects, the Cambridge scholars themselves have subsequently transcended their own earlier methodological rigour, and in one way or another have ventured into the realm of political theory. Most of them, as the majority in the Western academic world, opted for a left-wing approach to political values, the conservative approach being most characteristic of the recently deceased John G.A. Pocock ‒ a figure to be reckoned with by anyone who approaches questions of the history of ideas from the perspective of conservative political values. However, I am convinced that the researcher of conservatism need to follow the work of those authors of the history of political thought, too, who have turned to the left as political theorists.
The more so as while the right has developed a post-liberal discourse,[1] the left is dealing with pre-liberalism and the critique and reformulation of the liberal narrative with renewed vigour. Quentin Skinner himself or Maurizio Viroli could be an example for the research on pre-liberalism.[2] In addition, for an internal self-examination of liberalism, we can mention authors such as Rosenblatt, Kahan, Moyn or Lefebvre.[3]
The present volume is a return to and provides some further reflections on Skinner’s Liberty before Liberalism. More specifically, it builds on a volume from 2022 entitled Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism, in which Skinner’s disciples and critics contributed and the author himself answered the questions raised by his interpreters. One of the editors of the volume was Annelien De Dijn, who also organised the conference on which it was based, back in 2017, and whose book Freedom: an Unruly History (2020) Skinner refers to as having in many ways led him to rethink his own position. He was further fuelled in this rethinking by his three PhD students Lorenzo Sabbadini, Evangelos Sakkas and Max Skjönsberg. Of course, he was also influenced by the other towering key figure in the recent republican Renaissance, namely Philip Pettit, who “helped to develop (his) argument” (3). It seems that much of the criticism against Skinner’s earlier position came from a younger generation of leftist thinkers, and if I am right in my perception, his work to answer this criticism has moved Skinner himself to the left, still criticising extreme positions coming from that direction. Several times in the volume, he protests against the criticism that his conception of freedom, the concept of liberty as independence, is “inherently conservative and elitist”. He is confident that this is indeed an exaggerated sort of concern.
But let’s see what the mature Skinner has to say about the changing concept of early modern freedom! The book argues that one concept of freedom was replaced by another one in the modern British history of ideas. The first is the idea of freedom as independence, the second is the idea of freedom from interference. The narrative links the first concept to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, claiming that it was “promised to the people as the cornerstone of a new constitution”. (9.) The original source of it is, of course, the Roman and neo-Roman republican model of liberty, as already used by an earlier generation of English authors, including Milton and Harrington. The volume’s narrative begins with William of Orange’s Declaration of 1688, which argues that his intervention was necessary because James II ruled over the people “with a despotic and arbitrary power”. James’s subjects could not be free, that is, could not enjoy the fruits of their “rights and liberties”, since they were wholly dependent on his “good will and pleasure, that is, and (were) entirely subject to him.” (13.)
Although, according to Skinner, Hobbes did not share this view even at this time, the Whig regimes of the 18th century based their politics on this promise. However, the long 18th century saw a gradual transformation of the meaning of the term, resulting of its slow marginalisation in the times of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley.
The other major meaning attributed to the concept is liberalism’s own interpretation of liberty, which from the late 18th century criticised the understanding of liberty based on independence. The explanation for this is that the American and French revolutions had caused considerable worries among the British elites, and legal writers sought to make a strong case for the view that subjects are indeed obliged to submit to the sovereignty of the state in order to preserve peace and security. Skinner considers it their invention that freedom is nothing more than the freedom to act even when we are shaped and restrained by a sovereign power ‒ since this power is itself ultimately limited by law.
Skinner traces the development of this novel (or modern?) concept of freedom back to the 18th century German natural law scholars and thinkers who were revisited by the Cambridge (inspired) scholars (István Hont, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Hunter etc.): Pufendorf, Thomasius, Heineccius, Barbeyrac and Burlamaqui. These authors, whose legalistic thinking he considers important to highlight in this narrative, are portrayed as followers of Grotius and Hobbes. Skinner stresses that their works were translated into English very early on, and that their reception was therefore continuous. Among the English-language exponents of the new concept of liberty are authors such as Abraham Tucker, described as a conservative, the writer Laurence Sterne, and Thomas Bever, the Oxford don who went on to become a judge. Close to this line of lawyers are John Brown and the renowned common law lawyer William Blackstone. The latter’s influence was then very broad, especially confronting the political challenges of the American independence movement and the French Revolution. Skinner interprets the understanding of the term, which emerges in this political context the following way: this is a conception of freedom, which pragmatically also pays particular attention to the interests of the state, order and security, and which is, therefore, limited to the absence of restriction and does not make independence a necessary condition.
With his characteristic thoroughness, and not just focusing on the great authors, but looking for a general trend, Skinner draws on a very wide range of contemporary sources. It is not possible to reconstruct his findings with its nuances here and now. Yet the tenor of his argument is that the concept of freedom, understood as freedom from restriction, had become established by the early 19th century. It was, in his view, conservative in its character and lost much of the emancipatory force offered by the earlier concept. This is why, in the normative conclusion of the volume, he clearly commits himself to the earlier interpretation of the concept. In his view, only that freedom which 1.) provides full guarantees that we enjoy our fundamental rights and 2.) which, through appropriate representational procedures, enables us all to have a voice in political matters at all times, is a guarantee against the arbitrary use of power and makes us free citizens.
Although the later concept of freedom also meets the first, it cannot fulfil the second condition. This one reflects an activist approach that requires participation in political affairs, or at least the possibility of expressing an opinion on political matters, as a necessary attribute of freedom. Remarkably, in the conclusion of the volume, the author extends this conception of freedom to the relations between states: in his view, only a system of international relations that allows the concept of freedom understood as independence to prevail can be considered just. This means, that as he understands it, no smaller state should be obliged to accept the will imposed on it by a larger state. This idea, which he does not fully elaborate here, seems to be close to Kant’s concept of perpetual peace ‒ which, however, also indicates the limits of its political applicability.
In summary, Skinner’s new book offers a further reflection on and elaboration of his earlier neo-Romanesque Republican concept of liberty, clarifying when and how it became dominant in the British context and then gave way to another, less demanding concept of liberty. The volume attempts to respond to, and in part makes concessions to present day critiques of the radical left. This way the book turns out to be a contribution to the debate not only of the historical origins of, but to that of the actual philosophical content of the liberal notion of liberty.
For conservatism studies, there are two lessons to draw from the story here outlined: from the point of view of a conservative, urban republicanism, the republican ideal of freedom is also very important. It is another matter that with the emergence of the modern state, most European urban communities and republics have learned the lesson to give up much of their own autonomy, and their demand for complete independence. Yet they were also clever enough to preserve much room for manoeuvre in politics, economy and internal and external security, within their respective states or empires, and without forgetting their important task of providing a framework for the freedom of their citizens. In these communities, however, it was always obvious that the freedom of the individual depends on the freedom of the community and on the common good. These latter priorities could overshadow, or perhaps even allow for the proportionate restriction of individual freedom.
Skinner’s explanation of the justification of fundamental rights is also important for a conservative perspective. According to him, we should not start out from natural rights as defined by natural law, but imagine individual rights as legally grounded freedoms that have emerged in a given society over history, in search of the constitutional arrangements that provide the greatest guarantee that citizens’ freedom can be protected against the excesses of arbitrary power. This is the ideology of the common law, and it is on this basis that Burke built his own conservative doctrine, part of which was that the freedoms thus crystallised are the results of a long-established legal and parliamentary system. To be sure, some strands of conservatism see no contradiction between natural and legal freedoms, on the contrary, they believe that there should be a sort of continuity between the two.
Skinner’s volume is therefore instructive not only for the important contribution that it makes to the history of political thought, but also because it uncovers the relevance of intellectual history for our present day discussions in political theory and philosophy. It is also an example of how instructive it can be for the researcher of a particular political perspective to look at the current research findings of other perspectives.
Ferenc Hörcher
research professor, head of research institute
Ludovika University of Public Service
Eötvös József Research Centre
Research Institute for Politics and Government
[1] On Post-Liberalism, see my co-authors Daniel Pitt ‒ Phillip Blond (eds.): The Post-Liberal Turn and the Future of Conservatism, Ludovika University Press, Budapest, 2024.
[2] Quentin Skinner: Liberty before Liberalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998; Hannah Dawson ‒ Annelien de Dijn (eds.): Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022; Maurizio Viroli: Redeeming The Prince: The Meaning of Machiavelli’s Masterpiece, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2013; Maurizio Viroli: Republicanism (tr. Anthony Shugaar), Farrar Straus and Giroux, New York, 2002.
[3] Helena Rosenblatt: The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2018; Samuel Moyn: Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2023; Alan S. Kahan: Freedom from Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2023; Alexandre Lefebvre: Liberalism as a Way of Life, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2024. All of these authors were guest of our research seminar series earlier.