Exploring the limits of liberalism

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/23/exploring-the-limits-of-liberalism

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"Choice is the only moral currency they [liberals] acknowledge," says Giles Fraser (Loose canon: No, I am not a liberal, 21 July). This is about as accurate a characterisation of liberalism as it would be to say "Socialists don't want people to have any possessions" or "Christians care about nothing but getting people into church".

If Fraser wants to learn something about liberalism, he might start with the foundation texts and discover John Locke asserting that the needy have a natural right to the "overplus" of others, and John Stuart Mill exploring the proper bounds of individual freedom, arguing that freedom from compulsion is necessary to the public good, and deriving from liberty a type of workplace association that has co-operative and even socialist resonances.

By contrast with the imaginary liberals he describes, Fraser holds that "the community precedes the individual in so far as the individual is shaped by and responsible to something wider than itself". Neither of these two claims need be denied by liberals. Locke, for instance, held that the individual is bound by moral laws that "will" the peace and preservation of all mankind. To value individual choice is to value choice in all individuals, and that commits one not only to a consideration of what constitutes genuine choice but also to consideration of the impact of one person's choices on another's, thus opening the way to the social dimension and responsibilities to others.

Finally, granting that a moral system that values nothing but choice is a bad thing, it would not follow that choice is in all or even most situations a bad thing, and it would not follow that it is all right for communities to cut bits off the bodies of people who have not expressed a choice in the matter. Paul Brownsey Glasgow University

• Giles Fraser sees the essence of liberalism as a "belief that individual freedom and personal autonomy are the fundamental moral goods", and contrasts that with the "fairer, more redistributive society" of socialism, which he links to Christianity. For me, a key element of liberalism is tolerance, and that does not preclude a desire for a fairer society. He concludes liberalism "is a philosophy that has demonstrably failed". Have socialism or Christianity demonstrably succeeded? Or does Fraser think that his personal, autonomous interpretation of the latter redeems its appalling history of brutality? Jeremy Barlow London

• I agree with Giles. Barbara Trimblett London

• While Giles Fraser's earlier defence of child circumcision was whimsical, sentimental and philosophically insubstantial (Circumcision identifies me, 18 July), his more recent piece sets up a blatantly false comparison, and doesn't even pretend to address the objections to the practice.

The German court didn't question child circumcision because it opposes "communitarian" values, or insists on the absolute primacy of individual choice. It was just saying, in substance, that the same moral and legal questions that are posed by the ritual mutilation of girls apply, equally, for boys. The importance of family, group and religious coherence, stressed by Fraser, is not in question.

Fraser has generally been a very brave critic of the entrenched attitudes and practices of the established religious and social order. He acknowledges his experiential attachment to his own upbringing, which included his own infant circumcision. But will he tell us, explicitly, why he believes that child circumcision should be immune from criticism? Bob Mountain Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

• As many as one-third of males in the world are circumcised. In America, a great proportion of male children have this procedure, and, without recourse to demographics, one can safely conclude that very few of them are either Jewish or Muslim. Circumcision offers protection against STDs, and notably prevents the spread of HIV infection from women to men by as much as 68%. The WHO has recommended that this practice be implemented in areas where Aids is endemic such as sub-Saharan Africa.

It is striking therefore that this debate seems to be playing out in these pages (Letters, 20 July) without noting that circumcision is not a practice solely of "us primitives", the Jews and Muslims. If the debate is genuinely about consent, then it needs to be widened out considerably, rather than serving as a vehicle for an attack on religious practice. Hannah Kanter London

• I confess I am slightly mystified by the rather hysterical reaction of some of your correspondents on the subject of circumcision. I was circumcised as a boy, apparently as a result of my parents eccentricity, rather than through any religious affiliation. I did not suffer and have never considered myself mutilated. The issue should certainly never be mentioned in the same context as the horrible mutilation caused by female circumcision. Tim Matthews Luton, Bedfordshire

• How good to hear that Giles Fraser is a socialist, and also that he backs the bishop of Durham, Justin Welby – Eton, Cambridge, oil business, club in Pall Mall – to be the next archbishop of Canterbury (Bankers beware!, 21 July). Just what we need, a man like that to join Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, Clegg, Miliband and the rest of the elite on an equal footing! David Geall London

• How very sad to read of the bishop of Durham saying "I don't believe in good human beings". I can't be the only person who could show him a few. Re Giles Fraser's definition of "liberal": I think that in a religious context it means love before law, or the spirit before the letter. Rev Peter B Godfrey Stonehouse, Gloucestershire

• I was very disappointed with Giles Fraser's piece (Loose canon, 21 July). Of course he is not a liberal, with his definition of the philosophy, which is not mine. Of course liberalism, quite rightly, is a belief in freedom and personal autonomy, but there are two aspects to freedom – freedom to live one's life as one desires (subject to limiting or impinging on other people's freedoms, cf JS Mill) and freedom from social conditions which limit this (cf Beveridge's Five Giants).

Of course there will be conflicts between some of these freedoms (eg should freedom of speech extend to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre?) and politics will be concerned with balancing these and finding compromises. However, these are still the aims I support, and social liberals will thoroughly support his proposition that the state should tax and legislate as necessary to fight these Giants (as, presumably, the great Liberal Beveridge also thought).

To sneer at liberals by misrepresenting them is surely below his normal level of argument and discussion, which hitherto I have generally liked and enjoyed. For example, I also favour a "fairer, more distributive" society. (I don't think this is because I neither eat lentils nor wear pinstripes.)

I fiercely deny that "choice is the only moral currency I acknowledge". I have long thought that the obsession with excessive choice (by Labour as much as the Conservatives) was misconceived. Yes, some freedom to choose should be available, but the first priority is to ensure that everyone's local schools and hospitals be good enough that, in general, no one will want to choose another. More misrepresentations: a neoliberal is not a liberal at all, in my definition; no liberal I have ever heard of agrees that "there is no such thing as society"; his idea of the liberal's view of community is one no liberal I know would have.

I have qualms about putting the community before the individual – taken too far this leads to totalitarianism (which I am sure is far from Giles Fraser's position), and, of course, taken too far liberalism might become anarchy. This shows that a suitable balance between these needs must be found, but to misrepresent one philosophy to support another is not very enlightening. I could misrepresent too much support for "community" by quoting some of the evils of the Soviet Union, or communist controlled eastern Europe – but I won't. David Brandwood Alderholt, Dorset

• Liberal and ungodly Guardian readers may find some difficulty in recognising themselves or their views in Dr Giles Fraser's description of them. His remarks hardly merit serious criticism; but I was struck by his honest admission that he does not take the Bible literally.This can only imply that he does not believe in the New Testament accounts, which are the foundation of Christianity. Hence he can hardly claim to be more than a Theist, and now that the demon genie Reason has been released we may perhaps find him well on the way to renouncing Religious faith and joining the Rationalist Press Association, whose basic position is that Reason is the final arbiter in judging what is truth. Francis Westoby Hitchin, Hertordshire

• Richard Gilyead's comments on so-called female circumcision (Guardian Letters, Friday, 20 July) show an alarming misunderstanding of what female genital mutilation actually means. Unlike male circumcision, it is not the cutting of a tiny piece of skin, performed on a newborn baby. It usually takes the form of the cutting away of all the exterior sex organs of a young girl, aged between six and puberty, and the stitching up of the vulva, leaving a small opening to allow the passage of urine and menstrual blood.

The operation itself often leaves the child in pain and may cause permanent mobility and health problems. When the time comes for the young woman to give birth, surgery is necessary to allow the baby to emerge.

There is an alternative form of "circumcision" where a small gash is made in the clitoris in order to sever the nerves; the object of this allegedly more benign form of mutilation is to ensure that the girl will never experience the pleasure of sex and will, therefore, be less likely to stray and easier for her parents and husband to control.

I do not understand Mr Gilyead's comments about "monotheistic traditions". Male circumcision (and I am not getting into an argument about the rights and wrongs of that) is a religious requirement of Jews and Muslims. It has also been common among Christians and others in the west on the grounds (questionable, perhaps) of health or hygiene. Female circumcision is not, and never has been, a religious requirement of any faith. It is common among some groups of Muslims, especially in some parts of Africa, but it occurs in those places among non-Muslims, too, and is cultural rather than religious. It is recorded among European Christians in the middle ages, both as a punishment for sexual misbehaviour and as a method of controlling wives in their husbands' absence. The invention of the chastity belt must have been seen as a great leap forward in Women's Lib.

Female mutilation is illegal in most western countries. Egypt led the way in Africa by legislating against it in 1992, and we must hope and pray that this legislation continues in place under the new Egyptian regime. Maeve Middleton Liverpool

• The circumcision of male babies in the name of religion is certainly a morally doubtful practice, but at least Orthodox Judaism prohibits the castration of either humans or animals – whereas from the late 16th to the beginning of the 20th century Catholic churchmen approved the castration of small boys for the sake of the ensuing quality of their singing voices. Which is worse? Jim Hynes Mold, Flintshire