Rights, welfare and morality

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.