General Introduction

• Thomas Hill Green (1836-82) was an English philosopher, profound scholar, and social reformer.

• Born in Yorkshire, England; his father was a rector.

• Descendant of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Lord Protector of England.

• Educated at Balliol College, Oxford; became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1878 until his death.

• Major contribution: transformed liberalism by establishing its moral foundations.

• Deeply influenced by the idealist tradition from Plato, Aristotle, revived by Rousseau, and developed by Kant and Hegel.

• Critiqued existing British liberalism based on individual self-interest calculation as hollow; argued it needed to be sustained on moral grounds.

• Advocated expansion of franchise, public instruction, and social legislation, justified philosophically.

• Recognized as a pioneer of the modern welfare state in the liberal tradition.

• His restatement of liberal philosophy, alongside John Stuart Mill, redirected liberalism from laissez-faire to social welfare.

• Green’s political philosophy influenced university education and public policy in Great Britain (circa 1880-1920).

• Important posthumous works: Prolegomena to Ethics (1883) and Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1885).

• Sought to interlink metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy.

• Argued that the state cannot make man moral but can create conditions conducive to moral uplift.

• Desired the state to remove obstacles hindering man’s moral life.

Liberalism

Liberalism refers to a principle of politics which regards ‘liberty’ or freedom of individual as the first and foremost principle of public policy. Early liberalism (which broadly flourished in eighteenth-century Europe) subscribed to the principle of laissez-faire which implied the policy of non-intervention of the state in economic activities of individuals. It held that individual is the best judge of his own interest, and that each individual pursuing his self-interest, tends to promote the common interest which represents the aggregate of the self-interest of all members of society. However, later version of liberalism (which was broadly developed in late nineteenth-century England) subscribed to the principle of Welfare State.

Welfare State

Welfare state refers to a state that safeguards liberty of its citizens and also provides various types of social services for them, e.g. social security (financial assistance in the case of loss of job or any other source of income, death of the breadwinner, prolonged illness or physical disability or any other calamity), free education, public health, poor relief, supply of essential goods and services like foodgrains, milk, fuel and transport to the needy at subsidized rates. It makes use of public resources and taxation of the relatively rich to provide for a vast network of social services and social security.