Jordan Peterson’s recent keynote at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in Sydney [last month] laid bare a critical divide within classical liberalism. Peterson champions individual responsibility and free markets. But he insists liberal institutions can only survive when grounded in religious belief. Modern societies, Peterson argues, require submission to what he calls “transcendent unity.” This is a hierarchical order, running from family through community to state, all under divine authority. Peterson insists his path is the only alternative to what he calls ‘fractionated liberalism.’
My critique in The Australian argued Peterson’s vision would undermine rather than strengthen liberal democracy. While Peterson wraps his message in the language of voluntarism and responsibility, his insistence that there is ‘nothing better to do’ than submit to hierarchical order reveals a more troubling vision. In doing so, he denies the possibility of genuine choice. This insistence on religious foundations as the only road to meaning represents a fundamental challenge to classical liberalism’s core insight: that human flourishing requires the freedom to discover and pursue individual conceptions of the good life.
Rohan McHugh responded in The Australian in defence of Peterson’s claims. McHugh argued that liberalism’s “inadequate staying power” stems from its secular nature. Like many religious conservatives, McHugh sees the decline of traditional faith as inevitably leading to moral relativism and social fragmentation. Only by returning to religious foundations, he argues, can liberal democracy survive the challenges of modernity.
This exchange raises a question that goes to the heart of classical liberalism’s future: Must liberal institutions rest on religious foundations to survive and flourish? The answer has profound implications. And not just for political theory. It is central to the very real challenges facing liberal democracies today.
This question has gained urgency as liberal democracy faces twin challenges. Over the last two decades, democracy has declined worldwide, with many democratic governments adopting increasingly authoritarian tactics. Even established democracies show worrying signs of decay. Hungary, for example, has steadily dismantled democratic checks and balances since 2010. At the same time, established authoritarian regimes like Russia and China have become more brazen. More than two-thirds of the world's population now live in backsliding democracies or autocratic regimes.
Peterson’s claim also taps into his followers’ deep anxieties about social cohesion. Many fear that without religious foundations, liberal societies fragment into competing identity groups pursuing their own interests at the expense of the common good. The rise of identity politics and the weakening of traditional institutions doubtless confirm these concerns. Group loyalties increasingly trump individual liberty. Meanwhile, political discourse focuses more and more on group grievances rather than universal rights. On what divides us rather than the common humanity that unites us.
To answer Peterson’s challenge, we must look beyond abstract claims about religious belief. We need to examine real evidence. How do different institutional arrangements actually affect human flourishing? And what impact do they have on social cohesion?
The historical record offers intriguing complexities that both support and challenge Peterson’s thesis. Tom Holland’s “Dominion” (2019) makes a compelling case for Christianity’s role in developing liberal values. Many core liberal concepts – human dignity, individual conscience, and the separation of religious and political authority – emerged from Christian thought. The medieval church insisted on its autonomy from secular power. This helped birth the concept of limited government. The idea became central to classical liberalism.
But acknowledging these historical origins differs crucially from claiming religious belief remains necessary for liberal institutions to function. Indeed, history tells us the opposite. Liberal institutions did not emerge merely as an extension of Christian thought. They appeared because religious authority itself had failed. It could not maintain social order and prevent group conflict.
Indeed, the evidence tells us that attempts to impose unified frameworks of meaning often backfire. Whether religious or ideological, these attempts typically weaken the social fabric they claim to protect.
The earliest insights emerged from Europe’s bitter experience with imposed religious unity. The Wars of Religion (1524-1648) devastated Europe as Catholic and Protestant powers tried to enforce religious conformity. The Thirty Years’ War alone killed up to a fifth of the population in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire. In Switzerland, the Wars of Kappel showed how attempts to impose religious uniformity produced not unity but devastating social division. These wars taught a clear lesson. Attempts to enforce religious conformity failed. They brought only surface-level compliance. Worse still, they deepened social divisions.
John Locke crystallised this understanding in his “Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689). Rather than seeing religious diversity as a threat to social stability, he argued that true stability comes through protecting freedom of conscience. This radical insight – that social order is better served by protecting individual liberty than by imposing uniformity – opened the door to a deeper investigation of how moral and social order naturally emerge.
The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers would soon demonstrate through careful empirical observation exactly how this process works. David Hume’s revolutionary “Treatise of Human Nature” (1739) showed how moral judgments arise naturally. They come from our capacity for sympathy and our experience of living together. In “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759), his contemporary Adam Smith explained how our innate moral sentiments create the foundation for ethical behaviour without requiring divine command. These thinkers showed how social institutions actually emerge. They don’t need top-down design. They develop naturally through human interaction and voluntary cooperation.
This empirical understanding received its fullest philosophical development in John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” (1859). Mill showed why freedom of choice matters. It is essential not just for social stability but for genuine moral development. Character and understanding are only strengthened through active questioning and choice. People who merely inherit beliefs without examining them – whether religious or secular – never develop true moral understanding. Even correct opinions, when held without comprehension of their grounds, become mere prejudices incapable of guiding authentic moral choice.
The twentieth century’s experience with totalitarianism provided further crucial insights into these questions. Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (1945) demonstrated why attempts to impose any unified framework of meaning – religious or secular – inevitably suppress human flourishing. His critique of what he called “historicism” revealed how beliefs in inevitable historical patterns or divinely ordained social orders can serve to justify authoritarian control.
Friedrich Hayek later expanded on these themes in “The Constitution of Liberty” (1960). He explained why no central authority – whether claiming divine guidance or historical necessity – can possess the wisdom needed to direct millions of lives. Instead of imposed frameworks, liberal institutions enable what Hayek termed “spontaneous order.” Patterns of cooperation emerge naturally when people can choose freely. The principle reaches beyond economics. It shapes how we develop morally and culturally. Religious and secular communities can flourish side by side. Each finds its own path to meaning through cooperation, not coercion.
Contemporary evidence strongly supports these theoretical insights. Modern scholars like Steven Pinker (“Enlightenment Now,” 2018) have documented a clear pattern. Societies that protect individual liberty and enable voluntary cooperation produce stronger social bonds than those relying on imposed frameworks of meaning. Their commitments also prove more authentic. Deidre McCloskey’s “The Bourgeois Virtues” (2006) also tells an important story. The liberal tradition of voluntary association and free choice delivers results. It generates material prosperity. But it also creates moral and social progress.
The global rise in authoritarianism provides another reason to be sceptical of Peterson's prescription. Many authoritarian regimes justify their power through appeals to transcendent authority and collective unity. Yet this is the very framework Peterson proposes. The evidence suggests that protecting individual liberty, not imposing unified frameworks of meaning, offers the best defence against authoritarian drift.
Modern democracies validate this insight. Countries like Sweden and Denmark show how cultural traditions thrive through voluntary participation. In Sweden, while only 3% attend church regularly, people maintain strong cultural connections through freely chosen participation in life events. Switzerland’s federal system shows how this works. Different cultural and language groups maintain their distinct identities. Yet, they build shared civic commitments through direct democracy. Even in highly diverse societies like Australia and New Zealand, shared civic values and social cohesion emerge through voluntary association rather than imposed frameworks.
This evidence challenges Peterson’s basic assumption. Religious foundations are not necessary for social cohesion. The opposite is true. Cultural traditions prove most resilient not where they are imposed but where people can examine, adapt, and commit to them freely.
Peterson rightly identifies threats to liberal democracy from identity politics and social fragmentation. But his prescription of religious foundations as the antidote misdiagnoses the solution. Liberal institutions already provide better answers by enabling authentic community while protecting individual choice.
Classical liberalism’s rich tradition offers a sophisticated consequentialist vision that recognises many paths to fulfilment. People find profound meaning through scientific discovery, artistic creation, entrepreneurial innovation, religious devotion, and service to others. A truly liberal society enables all these paths while mandating none.
Liberal institutions do more than just allow moral development – they actively foster it. They create opportunities to exercise moral judgment, learn from experience, and build authentic communities around shared values. Their markets reward cooperation across differences. Their democratic processes require engaging with diverse viewpoints.
The future of liberal democracy depends on recovering this understanding – that freedom works not despite its secular nature but because of it. A free society offers something more valuable than imposed meaning: the opportunity to discover purpose while building genuine communities with others who share our values.
This is the story classical liberals should tell at forums like the ARC conference. The task before us is not to seek new foundations. It is to rediscover and defend the sophisticated moral vision inherent in classical liberalism itself.
To read the full article on the Quadrant website, click here.