The core of liberalism lies not in freedom, but in justice

Freedom matures only when it is subject to the discipline of publicness imposed by the concept of justice—when it transforms from "freedom from others," that is, a self-empowering liberty driven by a desire to dominate, assimilate, or exclude others if domination fails, into "freedom toward others," that is, a liberty that welcomes critique and disruptive influences from others as catalysts for self-transformation that expands and reorganizes one's own mental horizon. The freedom recognized by liberalism is not "freedom from others" as a capacity prior to justice, but rather "freedom toward others," which is made possible by justice. In this sense, to say that the foundational principle of liberalism is not freedom but justice means exactly this.

—Tatsuo Inoue, “Why Question Liberalism? — Preface to the Korean Edition of Freedom Toward the Other,” Soubun No. 519 (May 2009), p. 6.

Hmm, quite difficult. I feel it means something like this: the freedom of mutual criticism is an opportunity for each person's human development, and such mutual interference through criticism is permissible only when each individual abides by the discipline of publicness called justice. Well then, let’s just say — I’ll try again another day.

※This article is an English translation of the following blog post.
リベラリズムの核心は、自由ではなく正義である