INDIVIDUAL AND FREEDOM OF LIBERALISM

Distinction and specificity of liberalism is individual freedom, which is a universal value appreciated and defended by all progressive lines of thought. And humanist side of liberalism is expressed by Kant's ethical principle that human is an end in itself.

However, the objections and criticisms center around the limited meaning and context attributed to this value and principle by liberalism itself.

First, liberalism is defined in terms of "individual" and "human", who is not only a "political animal" as Aristotle said and but also a "class animal" as Marx would add.

Individual freedom and ethical principle as such see society, community and state as external forces that may support or weaken individual but not  as its constitutive sides.

Second, society is neither the totality of individuals nor external over or internal force within an individual. Instead, individual is always a part of social relations, community, a member of a state as well as of a class.

Third, individual can be defined only in a relational context which does not allow the existence of any singularity, loneliness, isolation as long as a "political animal" is considered.

Forth, individual and society  are neither opposed to each other, or posited as the poles of a duality.  Individual means "particular" and "local" and is philosophically opposed to "regional", "universal" " or more correctly "totality". Thus, individual can be opposed against totality and universality rather than against "society", "state" or "community".

Fifth, freedom is more than its negative and positive conceptions regarding natural or legal rights, but a communist regulation of things instead of humans who are freely associated over their common affairs.

Sixth, freedom is self-discipline, self-government and self-consciousness and hence confronts discipline, government and consciousness exerted from above.

Society as long as seen as the totality of individual is a pure fiction without a foundation. It is nothing but the totality of "social relations", "organizations", "networks", "webs", "structures", "modes of thinking", which all are seen in the forms such as "struggles", "conflicts", "communication", "interaction", "compromises", "alliances", "groupings" and "divisions of labour".

Individual can be defined in relation to individuals, who are born in, grow through classes.

Political animal becomes a class animal who is simultaneously an ideological animal.

Therefore, individual is one who occupies a particular position and mind within the totality of class based political and ideological relations which cannot be reduced to "individual".

As for Kant's ethical principle, we can suggest that the division between "end" and "means" he saw is nothing but the instrumentalization of government of humans by humans and can not be interpreted as a duality between "individual" and "society". Rather, it is a division between ruling and ruled classes.