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Individualism can be regarded as many interrelated aspects at the same time: First, it is a way of life for people living in modern societies; second, a principle of order in liberal democracies, and also among other things, it is a learnt skill, a product of culture, of nurture, and not of nature. To scholars who were not born in the developed world and also to sociologists, the latter aspect of individualism is quite obvious. However, what I have called Western liberalism, which is also known as abstract liberalism, centers its attention mostly on the second aspect of individualism referred to earlier: individuality as a principle of political order. Western or abstract liberalism subscribes to considering individuality as a universal characteristic of humanity defined in terms of freedom and reason. In this spirit, a liberal society is an association of rational and free individuals, each working the best they can within fair rules to further their own interests. There has been much debate as to what exactly it is to be free, but in liberalism, this basically boils down to assuming that the individual has agency, autonomy, and reason, the latter being the source of her principled morality.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230111424_3

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