Liberalism: The Value Of Personality And Individuality

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Liberalism is a philosophical tradition that “is thought of as focusing on the rights of the individual” (Pike, 2008, p. 94), the value of personal freedom or autonomy, and the idea that every human being is of equal moral value, regardless of gender, ethnicity, cultural beliefs or religion. Liberals believe that laws and public organisations should support individuals in living an autonomous way of life. The term 'Liberalism' is a historical tradition and originates from the seventeenth century, in which time it was used as a reaction to early traditions related to the natural hierarchy of human beings, and was also used as an oppositional defiance towards varied forms of discrimination (Pike, 2008, p. 93).
PARA 1 – WIDER DEBATE (0 OF 200 WORDS)

PARA 2 – IN FAVOUR 1 WIDER DEBATE (454 of 200 WORDS)
Supporting cultural exemption and promoting autonomy is vital. It gives the right to people to express their unique individuality. The United Kingdom is a nation that provides homes to an amount of people with different ethnicities, beliefs and cultures from all around the world. In these circumstances, it’s important to fulfil the demand of the ethnical minorities as long as it doesn’t create problems for the wider population. So that individuals are able to feel free and autonomic, they have to be able to conduct their cultural believes, as long as these cultural believes are not breaking the law. All individuals are unique because of their distinctive identity and belief, if you take that identity away then autonomy will cease to exist. Liberal philosophers support cultural exemptions and promote autonomy because it’s freedom to practice what an individual believes. By supporting cultural exemption and promoting autonomy, they woul...

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...ng to go pray in a mosque. “but if this is going to put his pupils, his colleagues, the school at a very considerable disadvantage and no alternative arrangement is possible, for what ever reason […] then there must be other ways for this man to offer his Friday prayer”. (Bikhu Parekh, speaking in ‘Discussing Cultural Exemption-Cultural Encounter’ 2008, track 5), this has an effect on the wider population and is fair to do so. Barry comments about adoption policy for single sex couples stating that he did not agree that the Roman Catholic adoption agencies should be forced to accept single sex couples. His reason to this is that although this exemption does not affect the safety of others he believes it was unrequired to enforce this as there are other agencies that accept single sex adoptions and by using these alternative organisations it would avoid affecting the

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