Rights, welfare and morality: Re-appraising L.T. Hobhouse’s theoretical contribution to the British New Liberalism

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how L.T. Hobhouse (1864-1929) theoretically contributed to the British New Liberalism, focusing particularly on the issue of social reform in turn-of-the-century Britain.

Design/methodology/approach

The question is approached in two ways: by exploring the theoretical structure of Hobhouse’s ethical theory (which can be termed an “ethics of harmony”) through a textual analysis of his rights theory and distributive theory; and by comparing that ethical theory with that of J.S. Mill, T.H. Green and J.A. Hobson so as to identify their commonalities and differences.

Findings

It is found that Hobhouse’s contribution to the New Liberalism was twofold, both of which grew out of his staunchly moralistic perspective. Hobhouse showed in his rights theory a direction towards which the morality of individuals should be developed; and provided a guideline based on a notion of justice for wealth redistribution by the state which he saw as a necessary external condition for realizing such development.

Originality/value

Existing literature on the British New Liberalism has paid less attention to Hobhouse than it has to T.H. Green and J.A. Hobson. Hobhouse has been relatively neglected due to a wide-spread view that his role was mainly in his expressing a typical but not necessarily original direction for the transformation of British Liberalism at the turn of the century. Against this received view, this paper demonstrates that Hobhouse made a significant contribution to the socio-political thinking of the New Liberalism by providing a distinctive ethical theory of harmony, which enabled New Liberal protagonists to address the important issue of the conceptual place of individual morality within a programme of collectivist social reform.

Citation

Terao, H. (2016), "Rights, welfare and morality: Re-appraising L.T. Hobhouse’s theoretical contribution to the British New Liberalism", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 43 No. 9, pp. 904-916. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-03-2016-0088