Core Ideas and Principles

• Change to Conserve


  The idea that society should adapt to changing circumstances by introducing moderate reforms, rather than refuse change and risk revolution.
• Tradition


  The institutions, customs and practices of a society that have developed over time. These contain the wisdom of the past and provide a strong sense of identity.
• Human Imperfection


  The traditional conservative belief that humans are flawed in a number of ways, which makes them incapable of making good decisions for themselves.
• Atomism


  The idea that society is made up of self-interested and self sufficient individuals (also known as egotistical individualism).
• Pragmatism


  A key value of conservatism often associated with Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott. Pragmatism focuses on past experience and what has previously worked.
• Hierarchy


  The conservative belief that society is naturally organised in fixed and unequal tiers, where one's position is not based on individual ability.
• Authority


  For conservatives, this is the idea that people in higher positions in society are best able to make decisions in the interests of the whole society; authority thus comes naturally from above and rests on an accepted obligation form below to obey.
• Organic Society


  Society is viewed as a living organism, with all its parts working together. This links with ideas of hierarchy, where each individual has their own place and

  role and rests on inequality/social rank.
• Paternalism


  Government should be by those who are best equipped to lead by virtue of birth, inheritance and upbringing, those who 'know what is best' for the rest of society.
• Noblesse Oblige


  The duty of the wealthy and privileged to look after those less fortunate.
• Laissez Faire


  A preference towards minimal government intervention in business and the state.
• Empiriscm


  The idea that knowledge comes from real experience and not from abstract theories.
• Anti-Permissiveness


  A rejection of permissiveness, which is the belief that people should make their own moral choices, suggesting there is no objective right and wrong.
• Libertarianism


  Political philosophy that emphasises the rights of individuals by having only minimal state intervention in their lives (promoting a free market economy).

  This is often most associated with the New Right or neo-liberalism) .It provides a rival conservative core value to paternalism.