Pluralism and Liberal Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Species of Pluralism in Political Philosophy
The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021
The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have different things in mind when using the term. Whereas ‘reasonable pluralism’ refers to the fact of moral diversity among citizens of a liberal democracy, ‘value pluralism’ is a metaethical view about the structure of moral practical reasoning. In this paper, I argue that value pluralism is part of the best explanation for reasonable pluralism. However, I also argue that embracing this explanation is compatible with political liberalism’s commitment to avoiding controversial premises. According value pluralism an explanatory role does not entail according it a justificatory one. What’s more, explaining reasonable disagreement in terms of reasonable disagreement about value weights opens up space for direct appeal to substantive values within political liberalism. In particular, promoting a substantive political value when doing so does not conflict with other values is unproblematic. Full text available at: https://rdcu.be/b5vWv
Taking Reasonable Pluralism Seriously: An Internal Critique of Political Liberalism
2011
The later Rawls attempts to offer a non-comprehensive, but nonetheless moral justification in political philosophy. Many critics of political liberalism doubt that this is successful, but Rawlsians often complain that such criticisms rely on the unwarranted assumption that one cannot offer a moral justification other than by taking a philosophically comprehensive route. In this paper, I internally criticise the justification strategy employed by the later Rawls. I show that he cannot offer us good grounds for the rational hope that citizens will assign political values priority over non-political values in cases of conflict about political matters. I also suggest an alternative approach to justification in political philosophy -a weak realist, Williams-inspired account -that respects better the later Rawls' concern with non-comprehensiveness and pluralism than either his own view or more comprehensive approaches. Thus, if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, then we should adopt what Shklar aptly called 'liberalism of fear'.
To Infer Liberalism from Value Pluralism
Ethical Perspectives, 2016
Robert Talisse charges as doomed the Berlinian effort to infer liberal politics from value pluralism, based on the observation that it unavoidably vio-lates Hume’s law and that the two in fact clash in their basic logic. In arriving at this diagnosis, however, Talisse relies on several problematic assumptions about practical reasoning as well as about value pluralism and liberalism. As a result, he fails to appreciate the practical nature of practical reasoning and also fails to see the negative aspects of value pluralism and of liberalism. Once these misconceptions get straightened out there is an increased opportunity for the Berlinian inference to succeed.
Value Pluralism and Liberalism: A Conflictual or a Supportive Connection Between Them
Social Studies, 2023
One of the most fascinating debates in the field of political theory has been the one about the relationship between value pluralism and liberalism. Based on their different conceptions and definitions, various theorists have often theorized a tension in the relationship between pluralism and liberalism. On the one hand, liberal authors who believe in the universality of liberal values that have to do with the safeguard of freedom (conceived at least to some extent as "negative freedom"), in the expressions and the free choices that individuals within a society or group can make, tolerance, in their individuality, in the equality of opportunities for everyone, etc., and on the other hand, the pluralists, who emphasize that different values, beliefs and human goods (the diversity) in society are essentially incompatible with one another, and as such, also incommensurable. Against the positions of some various authors who theorize an inherent conflict between these two ideas, in this paper, we argue that in practice, but also theoretically justified, there is a connection and a mutual support relationship existing between pluralism and liberalism. Therefore, the main principles that pluralism protects, such as pluralism of value, incommensurability between multiple conceptions of the goods, etc., can find themselves best in the context of a liberal society.
Ingrid Salvatore and Volker Kaul (eds), Pluralism, London, Routledge, 2019
Both Max Weber and Isaiah Berlin saw pluralism as the defining feature of a disenchanted liberal world. But this was not simply for them a historical fact. They argued that the liberal age revealed the ‘true’ nature of human beliefs, that, in the end, these are mere subjective preferences and that the main argument for liberal toleration was then value-pluralism and some form of relativism and scepticism. However, there is another way of understanding liberal pluralism. Instead of seeing pluralism as “an unfortunate condition of human life”, John Rawls suggests that we take into account two facts. First, that not all disagreements and conflicts are the upshot of self- and class interests or of irrational preferences, but that conflicting views, in particular religious views can be seen as reasonable in the sense that they can offer reasons for disagreements. Second, that the reasons offered in the public sphere are distinct from the beliefs and values shared in the non-public domain. The possibility of a limited political consensus based on public reasons is thus real. I will argue that such a view rests on a central epistemic distinction between the diversity of goods or values and the diversity of moral and religious doctrines. Value-pluralism is a first-order pluralism that exists among goods or values. Liberal pluralism, because of its reflective nature, is a second-order pluralism that concerns the various conceptions of the good and their reasons. Political liberalism aims at an overlapping consensus among second-order beliefs systems.