analytically useful. Part of the logic of the argument depends on being able to
strip away the particular details of an individual’s life and position, and treat
them simply as a member of ‘the public’. So legislation to protect the
environment might be claimed to be in the public interest even though there
are some, the shareholders in a factory, perhaps, who will lose money by having
to pay for pollution controls. The argument is that X may lose money as a
shareholder, but as an ordinary member of the public walking down a street
and having to breathe, will gain equally with all other oxygen breathers.
Public and Private Spheres
The distinction between the public and private spheres of life has for some time
been overtly important in political theory, although of course the distinction
has always been in existence and has had latent implications for political theory
since its inception. That being said, it does not follow that the distinction has
always been seen as legitimate or relevant to state action. At its simplest, the
private sphere can be defined negatively as those areas of life in which the state
either does not or should not take an interest. The private sphere is the area of
social life not constrained by formal rules and regulations, the area within
which individuals make up their own rules and patterns of interaction. The
private sphere is maximized inliberalthought and minimized inconserva-
tiveandsocialistthought, although for different reasons.
For a liberal, minimum governmental interference with individual freedom
is highly prized, so the greatest possible amount of decision making should be
left to individuals in their arrangements and agreements. For a conservative,
the state may have few duties, but it has an inevitable right to legislate for
morality. On the one hand, the state cannot be neutral over any matter if
individual decisions in that area may weaken it. Simultaneously the state may
well see itself as the moral guardian of the people, following a tradition as old as
Plato and Aristotle. In either case, and they are likely to be inseparable in
practice, the state may well intervene in very private matters. It might, for
example, ban birth control, both because it is wedded to some theology that is
opposed to artificial contraception, and because it believes that population
growth is necessary for the greatness of the nation. In the opposing case, a
socialist state may interfere just as much because it is committed to building a
new human nature, and it may involve itself in the details of private life to
eradicate, for example, ‘bourgeoisie morality’.
The public/private divide has come to be of interest particularly tofeminist
social scientists who are concerned that one reason women have seldom been
important in politics is that culturally they are seen as more naturally occupied
with the private sphere, whereas the public sphere is seen as a male arena. Such
an analytic usage is descriptive and carries no moral or ideological implications.
Public and Private Spheres