I believe that Milton does use Civic Humanist techniques to deliver his liberal message, now does that make him a bad liberal? I don't think so. I don't think that just because you refer to history does not make you a bad liberal, on the other hend, following history blindly does. I am always more impressed with those who are not afraid of diluting themselves by diluting themselves.(I'm not sure if that makes sense or if it's just post 12hr shift babble) What I'm trying to say is that in order to be a good rugby player should I only play rugby and nothing else or can I play soccer as well and if so, does playing soccer keep me from being a good rugby player?

Whether Milton violates the liberal cause depends on what we emphasize as central: the end result (harm-principle based protections on liberty) or the means (only rational argument, harm-principle). We all seem to agree that what he is arguing for is quite liberal. However, a good liberal will argue for liberal ideals as ends in themselves, as the basis of what they believe to be the best system of political protection. Milton, at least in this address to Parliament, presents the unlicensed freedom of press as a means toward Christian values, which may be politically expedient but perhaps against the rules. Locke drew a clear division between his liberal and religious arguments, leaving the latter as an aside to private morality (thus allowing him to stray from liberal rules on public issues). Milton advocates free press because it strengthens good Christians. He mentions the presbyter who reads heretical books to fortify his views against them (p.308). He embraces the liberal notion of individual freedom of thought -- but says it's given by God, who wanted us to find a right life through reason rather than remaining in perpetual childhood (p.309). He thinks that those who can explore and understand vice but resist it are true Christians (p.311) and on this basis asks Parliament to open up the press. We wondered if Mill secretly intended that the Christian private morality would eventually prevail; Milton paints liberal values as merely means to this end. His major criticism of censorship (the negative argument, as opposed to the previous "positive" reason for allowing heretical material) is that evil won't spread without guides, and that what is derived from books has more to do with one's abilities (foolish or wise) than the actual material. Furthermore, censoring one form of expression means that to truly fulfill whatever principle this is based on, the state must also censor everything from dancing to drinking. Imagining a society with such a legislated imposition of "virtue" makes the restrictions on press seem less reasonable. But these arguments exempted, I think Milton is skewing his presentation to cheat, and present his point of view as something in line with the presupposed traditional view of the Parliament.

This is a tough subject for me. As I kept scrolling down, and people would make different arguments, I found myself agreeing with both sides. On the one hand he IS arguing for a major liberal principle, and any furthing of that ideal even if you're catering to your audience (although, possibly arguing in bad faith) could be seen as being, not a great liberal, but a liberal nonetheless. He DOES however, present a largely civic humanist method of argument by appealing to tradition and history. So, I would go with... he may be a liberal, but he's not really a good one. I agree with chrstine, I feel like we're kind of going back to the discussion we started on Tuesday about the short and long term effects of allowing moral arguments to enter the picture to further the cause.
amy_lee

I dont neccesarily think that Milton was hurting the liberal cause because the liberal cause would give people like Milton a chance to say these things. However, I do think that Milton does not make a very good liberal. When he talks about Athens and Rome in his argument for unlicensed censorship, he is definitely going back to Civic Humanist principles. The idea of unlicensed censorship is a liberal idea but it seems like a good liberal would somehow make this argument without appealing to Civic Humanist ideas. I'll have to admit though that JerryLynn makes a good point that he could just be doing all of this to appeal more to the Parliament.

Does a liberal argument couched in civic humanist argumentation hurt the liberal cause?

Survey says: Potentially.
Mill stresses that if you're going to argue for something, you have to know why you're arguing for it, otherwise you fall prey to accepting and repeating implicit biases. Does the Christian religion come with implicit biases? Of course it does. How about history? Sure. Therefore Milton violates the liberal tradition of originality, despite his argument for free speech--we have to keep distinct the concept for which he is arguing (freedom of speech...liberalism) and how he argues for it (by invoking history, religion, etc.)

I agree with Jerrylynn, inasmuch as getting all sides of the debate is a Civic Humanist tradition. It's also a liberal one--Mill kind of makes that argument when he says that good/truthful ideas will eventually stick because they can't be shot down forever. But then he has to go and say stuff like "it worked for the romans so it will work for us," which is blatantly NOT liberal since it's not original. It's...really hard to be an iconoclast when you defer to icons.

I think Mill would give this guy the dunce cap.

I expected Milton to form an argument appealing to rational principles as have Locke and Mill: something like, “each person should enjoy maximum liberty, consistent with the like liberty of others". But following the harm principle, like when it comes to free speech, or which party Judge Judy should rule in favor of - where to draw the line becomes a complicated matter. That guarding against one kind of speech (i.e. political cartoons that depict mohammed) might make it easy to prohibit too many kinds (all political cartoons. Relying solely on the harm principle, we become very limited, especially considering what a book is worth or how much harm/good can it cause. We are left, as the Supreme Court is accustomed, to make at least some appeal to precedent – the way it’s been done up till now.

So while it is essential to the argument and central to the classical liberal tradition, the harm principle is definitely helped by an outside appeal in this case and that’s why Milton makes such a strong appeal to tradition. Milton refers to the history of Athens and Rome to warn of the danger of censorship. The question of course is does that violate his liberal values? While it helps strengthen his argument in the Areopagitica, his resort to tradition is not rational in that it steps completely outside the liberal harm principle. He is arguing for freedom of the press, and I don't disagree with him, but the way he forms his arguement is contradictory.

Milton joins his two appeals to reason and theology in attempt to augment the liberal argument, but I think that it is ultimately compromised. Milton says: ‘God gave Adam reason…’, “he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing” (319). I like the part where he says “God therefore let him free and set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes”; this sounds a lot like the genteel society we talked about Tuesday wherein we expect people just to ‘be nice’ – So we are left to trust the press, letting them to censor their written works containing controversial ideas for care of people that might be offended. This appeals to reason, but he later refines this analogy to the fact that God presents man with temptations so that man might choose God. The problem I have is that here, the ultimate motivator that is personal belief and public policy become blurred. I don’t think religious beliefs can be used as a basis for the harm principle. You don't hit someone in the face because you don't want them to hit you in the face. versus - You choose God because God is Good, not because God would choose you. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but the simple fact that not everyone in our society ascribes to that same set of morals takes away motivation to ‘be nice’…

I think Milton does hurt the liberal cause. The liberals require their citizens to be rational to be a part of the state. Milton may be rational but the manner in which he writes is (partially do to the translation or lack thereof from middle English) hard to understand and he drags his points out well beyond what is required to make them. I guess I cannot require a rational being to be a good writer, however after the excellent examples of Mill and Locke I cannot help but be disappointed with Milton. The treatise is supposed to be against licensing (the requirement by the state that an author obtain a license before they can be published). Eventually he does make the point that no ‘well endowed nation or state’ has ever required licensing. However I thought that that his history was a little misinterpreted. He uses the example of the Roman empire – I though they were one of the great world empires that had ever been (they did conquer the whole known world) but yet they did have some form of licensing or censor on which books could be read by their citizens. I think this is a flaw in his argument which could have been easily avoided if he had not made a historical argument and had stuck with the harm principle. Another reason why I don’t think Milton such a good liberal is that in invoking the culture arguments (to allow licensing is to weaken the very pillars and bonds of society, that if we allow this then learning both religious and civil will cease) he has digressed from the key point of individualism. As we read in Mill – the liberals are all about individualism – Mill’s kind of obsessed with the idea of genius. Milton is ignoring the perfectly good argument based on the harm principle: the state cannot allow licensing because it inhibits my ability to be a well informed and well learned citizen which then hurts the state because I wont be able to work as hard get as good a job take care of my family or live in the manner that I desire. The state’s job is to protect me (keep me from harm) not write laws which would cause me harm (that’s standing the harm principle on its head and no rational subject would stand for it) toward the end of his text Milton begins to redeem himself around page 23 – he begins to invoke a sort of harm principle (but he applies it truth – truth will be harmed if she is not exercised) He also begins to align his text with Mill’s when he says that it is more harmful for a heretic to preach from house to house than to have his works or ideas published where they may be subjugated to public scrutiny. His section on how truth has been scatter to the ends of the earth could be tied to Mill’s idea that we can only ever know or hold half truths. Over all I would say that Milton does not do what Locke did – Locke cleared things us through concise language about specific examples. Milton tries but does not succeed.

I had mixed feelings about this topic. I was originally going to argue that Milton wasn’t being a good liberal since he wasn’t arguing his cause the way most liberals normally would, but then realized that would be incorrect since the cause itself is a very liberal cause. I admit that Milton argued his claim in some ways that are similar to that of a civic humanist, but some arguments are bound to share and coexist with more than one political view. Milton argued for the liberty of unlicensed printing, and that view itself IS a liberal view. Though previous liberal authors, such as Mill, have said that tradition can be problematic, they do not deny that tradition has some sort of value and importance. Mill admits, “Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience” (55). Liberals do not think that tradition itself is bad; they believe that tradition should be broken if it causes harm and denies freedom and rights to people. Liberals do not think that tradition should be kept for the sake of it being a tradition, but that “it is for [us] to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to [our own] circumstances and character” (55).
Accordingly, I don’t think that people who build an argument for liberal principles on appeals that civic humanists champion are hurting the liberal cause. The liberal cause is one that desires individual freedom to pursue happiness, and if someone is pursuing this cause in a way that civic humanists agree with, it does not make the cause any less liberal. Additionally, Milton might be making his argument by appealing to history, tradition and theology in order to appeal more to Parliament. Using the harm principle might make it clearer to us that the argument for unlicensed printing is a liberal view, but it might not be the best approach after considering one’s audience.
I find this very similar to Locke using Christianity to support his liberal claims. In our discussion on Tuesday, most of us agreed that Locke was still being a good liberal; he was merely trying to relate to his Christian audience through Christian beliefs and ethics. What might make it easier for us to support Locke over Milton, however, is that in the beginning Locke addressed the importance of separating church from civil society. Milton, however, has no need to make a similar statement in his speech. His argument is not about liberalism itself, it is about unlicensed printing. In the end, no matter how the argument is made, the fact remains that the argument is a liberal claim, and therefore, Milton IS being a good liberal.
This discussion topic, in a sense, also reminds me of the discussion we had regarding Roger Mahony. Even though Mahony’s argument in based on Christian ethics and beliefs, his view goes hand in hand with that of a good liberal.