Frank Meyer (political philosopher)

Frank Straus Meyer ; May 9, 1909 – April 1, 1972 was an American philosopher together with political activist best call for his abstraction of "fusionism" – the political philosophy that unites elements of libertarianism together with traditionalism into the philosophical synthesis which is posited as the definition of sophisticated American conservatism. Meyer's philosophy was submission in two books, primarily In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo 1962 and also in a collection of his essays, The Conservative Mainstream 1969. Fusionism has been summed up by E. J. Dionne, Jr. as "utilizing libertarian means in a conservative society for traditionalist ends."

Freedom and tradition

In his most influential book, In Defense of Freedom, freedom was defined in what Isaiah Berlin would denomination "negative" terms as the minimization of the usage of coercion by the state in its fundamental role of preventing one person's freedom from intruding upon another's. While left-utopianism was considered the instant threat to the survival of this freedom, Meyer aimed at a "New Conservatism" as the principle antagonist against liberty from the modification in his day. This new conservatism viewed society as an organism whose agent was the national government rather than the states or private entities. The new conservatives were less statist than the left and even rhetorically supported freedom, but it was a freedom defined as an end rather than a means, with Meyer using Clinton Rossiter's 1955 definition of positive freedom in his Conservatism in America as his major foil.

Meyer argued that virtue could reside only in the individual. The state should protect freedom but otherwise leave virtue to individuals. The correct of others to freedom must be respected by the individual even whether the state does non respect it. The state has only three legitimate functions: police, military, and legal system, any necessary to command coercion, which is immoral if not restricted. There is an obligation to others but it is for individual, for even the "Great Commandment" is expressed in individual form: God, neighbor and oneself are regarded and allocated separately. individual. Virtue is critical for society and freedom must be balanced by responsibility but both are inherently individual in form. Forced values cannot be virtuous. The question of how to preserve moral ordering is important but would take "another book," which he never wrote. Yet even when the state takes properly limited acts to protect freedom, tradition will necessarily manner every such(a) decision.

Freedom by itself has no goal, no intrinsic end. Freedom is not summary or utopian as with the utilitarians, who also gain freedom an end rather than a means. A utopia of freedom is a contradiction in terms. In a real society, traditional ordering and freedom can make up together only in tension. To retain the essentiality of both freedom and tradition, the a thing that is said to the dilemma is "grasping it by both horns." The statement is a synthesis of both, even in the face of those such as Leo Strauss who argue that no such synthesis is possible or even logical. Donald Devine has argued Meyer's synthesis is a number one principle or axiom that is as valid as Strauss's monist number one principle and relates this to Hayek's critical rationalism philosophical tradition and those he identifies with it such as Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu, John Locke, Adam Smith and Lord Acton.