著者

竹口 隼人

出版者

経済社会学会

雑誌

経済社会学会年報 (ISSN:09183116)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, pp.89-100, 2021 (Released:2022-11-27)

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This paper examines the social reform thought of Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882), a nineteenth-century British philosopher and a representative of British idealism. Based on Green's theories of freedom and the state, I examine his justification for government interference in social affairs in the latter half of the nineteenth century and its basis, and clarify the relationship between freedom and interference in Green's social reform thought. In Green, freedom means the capacity to achieve what is worth doing. What is worthy is the perfection of the person, which is also the common good worthy of all others. As a means of this freedom, in the sense of having the capacity to realize such perfection of the person, various freedoms such as freedom of contract are positioned. Each person also has rights by virtue of being recognized by others as capable of contributing to the common good, which is recognized by all. This allows everyone the capacity to achieve perfect, the capacity in freedom. Since all people must be able to be free, the state has a role to realize freedom in the sense of having the capacity to realize what is worth. Since the perfection of the person is a moral duty of each individual, it is not the role of the state to enforce it. The role of the state is to maintain the conditions for human freedom by removing the obstacles that prevent each person from realizing and shaping his or her capacity to do something worthy. Hence, in the interference of the state, the question becomes what and how is an obstacle to the perfection of the personality. In the sense that the role of the state is limited to the removal of obstacles to freedom and the maintenance of the conditions of freedom, it takes the form of a prior intervention, an interference with the conditions under which each person is able to perform, and these are the role of the state.