together, for individual freedom can conflict with democracy, which in a mass society
often takes the form of preference aggregation.
Finally, several arguments make reference to ‘motivations’: prostitutes should be
‘motivated’ to exit their way of life and male motives should be ‘questioned’. In
addition, Sweden had ‘given notice to the world’ that it regarded prostitution as a
form of oppression, with the implication that it sought to change attitudes in other
countries. The Swedish state is using its coercive power to motivate people and
change attitudes, and thus to bring about a ‘good’ state of affairs. For a rights-
based, Kantian, liberal this is an illegitimate extension of state power, and indeed
a contradiction in terms, for you cannot coerce people into acting for the right
reasons. It is important to distinguish the motivation argument from the harm
argument. A defender of rights-based liberalism might accept that prostitutes cannot
consent, and so buying their services is a form of harm and should be illegal. But
‘motivating’ people – that is, changing their attitudes – even if it were successful,
would be incompatible with moral autonomy.
In the Netherlands, by contrast, prostitution is accepted as a fact and the task
is to manage it in order to avoid its worst consequence. Although toleration of
prostitution may seem a long way from religious toleration the Dutch policy
implicitly draws on a tradition that has deep roots in the Netherlands: modus vivendi
liberalism. Although they have broken down, until relatively recently Dutch society
was characterised by ‘pillarisation’ (verzuiling) whereby social institutions were
vertically divided between Protestants, Catholics and ‘social-democrats’ (embracing
the ‘secular’). That meant Catholics had their own political parties, schools,
universities, newspapers, TV stations and trade unions. And this was, likewise, the
case for the other two pillars. Whether this constituted a pure modus vivendi, or
whether there were moral and political values underlying all pillars and guaranteeing
social stability is a matter of debate. Nonetheless, in contrast to Sweden – with its
powerful social democratic and egalitarian ethos – the Netherlands has always been
more willing to toleratemoral, religious and political difference.Summary
At the heart of liberalism is the belief that people are naturally free and equal. That
does not mean that there are no limitations on freedom, or that people must be
equal, or treated equally, in all respects. Rather, we are presumed to be free and
equal, and departures from freedom and equality require justification. Viewed
historically, liberalism developed out of the settlement of the Wars of Religion, with
the emphasis on toleration of religious difference. Such toleration was gradually
extended beyond the sphere of religion to other aspects of belief and lifestyle. Several
strands of liberalism emerged after the seventeenth century, and we identified three:
contractarianism, rights-based liberalism (and libertarianism) and utilitarianism.
Although there are significant philosophical differences between them, they are all
clearly part of the ‘liberal family’. Much of the left–right debate in contemporary
politics operates around different interpretations of liberalism. For example, both
Rawls and Nozick can be described as ‘liberal’, but they come to quite different
conclusions about the role of the state.190 Part 2 Classical ideologies