Pluralism

Peter Lassman

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780745616186, 9780745616179
• eBook ISBN: 9780745637242
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The problem of value pluralism permeates modern political philosophy. Its presence can be felt even when it is not explicitly the central topic under investigation. Political thinkers such as Max Weber, Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire derive pessimistic, sometimes tragic, conclusions from their reflections upon pluralism. On the other hand, there is a more optimistic view represented by John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas that sees value pluralism as a problem that is easier to live with. This book presents the first accessible overview for both post- and undergraduate students of the way in which this problem has been understood and responded to by modern political thinkers.

1

Pluralism

1 The Problem

The problem of value pluralism is a central topic in modern political theory. Its presence is discernible even when, at first sight, its significance is not immediately apparent. There are two important questions here. The first is to ask what kind of problem it is. The second is to inquire why it is that political theorists have come to think of it as a problem. In answering these questions, we have to recognize that there is some ambiguity regarding the way in which the term ‘value pluralism’ has come to be used. Pluralism can be understood either as a description of one aspect of the social condition of modern western societies or as a controversial philosophical thesis about the nature of value. If it is defined as the latter it is a philosophical theory that does, many would argue, have political implications. It is also a fact, as Bernard Williams has pointed out, that the modern world has become particularly conscious of value pluralism in both senses.¹

The idea of ‘pluralism’ has become so pervasive that, for example, according to Richard Flathman, almost every modern political theorist seems to be a pluralist. He sees the core of pluralism in a broad sense as ‘the recognition of a multiplicity of persons and groups … A commitment to pluralism, however transitory or transitional, as a descriptive/analytic theory involves the belief that, here and now, such a multiplicity cannot be explained away’.² In his discussion of pluralism, Flathman admits that although most are pluralists to some degree, for others it is a superficial and trivial idea that conceals the deeper truth of its opposite, monism. Of course, there are many different things other than values about which one can take a pluralist attitude.

Although the concept of pluralism can be used in this rather general manner, the most significant and puzzling form of pluralism that concerns modern political theorists is the version generally known as ‘value pluralism’. The debate about value pluralism has become increasingly complex. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of clarity both about the claims made and their implications. First, it is not always clear what philosophers and political theorists mean when they talk about ‘values’. For example, one could point to a distinction that is frequently made in discussions of the pluralism of moral values, between a view that sees value as residing in goods or ends, while others see value in terms of rules and principles.³ However, despite what is often a lack of conceptual clarity in the political literature, the point of these discussions is usually fairly clear. Most discussions of value pluralism among political theorists take a view of value in terms of the realization of public goods, such as liberty, equality, or justice.

Not everyone is happy with the kind of talk about values that pervades much modern political thought. For instance, some theorists working within a broadly Aristotelian tradition argue that its generally accepted vocabulary – in which concepts of rights, autonomy, and value pluralism play a central role – is deeply deficient. They argue that the modern language of ‘values’ and, therefore, of value pluralism is itself ‘a pathological feature of modern moral experience’. All talk of ‘values’ is regarded as unnecessarily subjective. The language of plural values underwritten by a fear of a monism of values, it is argued, functions to rule out any constructive consideration of the question of a strong sense of the human good that is a presupposition of all political theories.⁴ It is true that much neo-Aristotelian theory does present an important and powerful antidote to many of the assumptions of the predominantly liberal forms of modern Anglo-American theory. It is also true that not all who work within a broadly conceived Aristotelian tradition are completely hostile to the idea of value pluralism. Although they accept the truth of value pluralism, they do not accept the conclusions that are drawn from it by liberal political philosophers often inspired by Kant.⁵ However, for the moment, it is probably sufficient to agree that in ordinary usage, for better or worse, the language of values used is generally intelligible without it necessarily having the pathological and subjective implications for which it has been charged.⁶

It is also worth mentioning how strange it is that the language of ‘values’ has slipped so easily into modern philosophy and political theory. It seems that ‘value’ as a philosophical concept was initially borrowed from the language of political economy in Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century. The turning point, it is generally recognized, was Nietzsche’s idea of ‘the revaluation of values’. It must be noted, too, that Nietzsche’s account of values is deeply sceptical of the ‘metaphysical faith’ in the existence of ‘antithetical values’.⁷ Nevertheless, the concept of ‘value’ was further developed in debates in the early twentieth century concerning the nature of the differences between the natural and the human sciences. Max Weber, Wilhelm Dilthey, Heinrich Rickert and other neo-Kantian philosophers were prominent figures in these debates. All were deeply worried by the problem of the objectivity of value, the plurality of values, and the relationship between ‘fact’ and ‘value’. Never far away in all of these debates is the question of nihilism raised so dramatically by Nietzsche.⁸ Of course, not everyone during this period was happy with the idea of a philosophy of value. Notably, Heidegger objected to what he saw as its triviality, while Carl Schmitt, with similar concerns, felt the need to condemn what he regarded as ‘the tyranny of values’.⁹ In a similar vein, Hannah Arendt interpreted the modern obsession with values as a symptom of the intellectual and political confusion brought about by the overturning of the western political and philosophical tradition that, in her view, began with Plato and ended with Marx.¹⁰

Discussion of the question of value pluralism and the related question of disagreement has become prominent for many reasons. Among them is the enduring search for an adequate understanding of the nature of politics and of political knowledge. This alone places the problem of pluralism at the centre of political theory. It has been argued that, as value pluralism is a philosophical thesis, ‘it does more than record the fact that choice often involves conflicts, moral and other, and that choosing can be a difficult and sometimes appalling thing to do’.¹¹ The claims made on behalf of value pluralism are meant to be more challenging. For example, one of the central arguments made by strong value pluralists is the view that values are not simply plural. The key point for the political theorist is that they are often in conflict. Furthermore, the worry here is that cases of value conflict are often strongly resistant to clear-cut or rational resolution. Linked to this is the idea that situations of value conflict sometimes present us with dilemmas where regret will be the result of whatever outcome we choose. Clearly, if this is so, then the implications for the practice of politics are great and wide-ranging.

There are clearly two aspects that have to be distinguished. Value pluralism can be seen as an empirical fact about the world that refers, for example, to the reality of cultural difference and diversity. However, more interestingly and controversially, value pluralism can be seen as a theory about the nature of value. Of course, if the theory of value pluralism is true, it is stating a significant fact about the world. Furthermore, the theory of pluralism cannot itself escape from being an object of controversy and disagreement – the theory is open to a plurality of conflicting interpretations. If pluralism is correct as a theory about value, then we ought to expect pluralism about pluralism. The theory of value pluralism is a complex philosophical idea and our attitude to it can have important implications for the way in which we think we are able or ought to understand the political world.

Political philosophers who put forward the idea of value pluralism generally tend to think of it primarily in either epistemic or metaphysical terms. For instance, if value pluralism implies the intractability of disagreements in moral and political affairs, then taken from an epistemic point of view these disagreements imply that they are a product of the limitations of human reason. This, it can be argued, is simply a fact that we just have to accept and learn to live with. Given the complexity of many of the moral and political problems we face, it is often argued that human reason is unable to provide a clear decision procedure when confronted with the reality of choices between what are often equally valid alternatives. On the other hand, a more metaphysical or ontological account of value pluralism argues that it is not so much the weakness or limitations of human reason that constitute the problem. We have to recognize it just is a fact that it is the values themselves that are plural and that they often are in conflict with each other. One politically relevant implication of this view is that, if the universe is structured in this way, then there is no optimal way in which all goods can be either ranked or realized equally. One of the political implications of this message is often taken to be a warning against what are deemed to be the dangers that are bound to result from utopian and, by implication, impossible attempts to create a harmony of values on earth.¹²

It is sometimes argued that value pluralism is a relatively new idea. According to this account, most of the thinkers who make up the canon of western political thought were monists in their understanding of the nature of values. Isaiah Berlin has been the most influential proponent and, probably, originator, of this view. It appears that monism has gone out of fashion, to a large degree, although there are some notable defenders of the monistic point of view. It is also true to say that in the eyes of many theorists the arguments for pluralism, when subjected to rigorous analysis, become unclear and inconclusive. On close inspection, what has been referred to as a ‘value pluralist movement’ in political philosophy does not refer to the proposition of a clearly defined theory about values but instead to a set of overlapping concerns about the nature of the world of modern politics and the problem of how best to make sense of it. Rather than looking for a conclusive definition of pluralism, drawn from the ways in which it is generally understood by political theorists, it probably makes more sense to regard non-reductive value pluralism as ‘a convenient rubric under which a loose collection of different views about values may be grouped’.¹³ The approach taken here, rather than discussing whether value pluralism as a philosophical theory is true or false, is to ask what the idea means and the purpose that it has served in the work of some of those modern political thinkers who have taken it to be a serious problem.

it is clear that the discussion of pluralism among political theorists reveals a range of overlapping ideas and concerns. It would be a mistake to assume that all who talk about pluralism necessarily share an identical understanding of the nature of the problems that it generates. For example, it would be wrong to deny that there is a common concern in the philosophical literature with the problems of incommensurability and incomparability. However, when these questions have been taken up by political theorists, they have, in turn, seen their theoretical significance to lie more in such problems as the nature and sources of political conflict and disagreement, the question of stability in liberal states, the defence of liberalism under modern conditions, and, ultimately, of our understanding of politics, ‘the political’, and the role of reason in politics, rather than in questions about the nature of value as such. Following a suggestion made by Isaiah Berlin, adapted from Bertrand Russell, it is instructive to bear in mind an idea of ‘the inner citadel’. This term refers to the basic problem or set of problems, often unstated, that lie at the heart of any political philosophy. According to Berlin:

the deepest convictions of philosophers are seldom contained in their formal arguments: fundamental beliefs, comprehensive views of life, are like citadels which must be guarded against the enemy. Philosophers expend their intellectual power in arguments against actual and possible objections to their doctrines, and although the reasons they find, and the logic that they use, may be complex, ingenious and formidable, they are defensive weapons; the inner fortress itself – the vision of life for the sake of which the war is being waged – will, as a rule, turn out to be relatively simple and unsophisticated.¹⁴

For example, in the case of Berlin himself it is clear that whatever the philosophical questions that might have originally sparked his awareness of the problem of pluralism, the enormous importance that he came to attach to it was fuelled by his opposition to totalitarianism, which he regarded as a particularly dangerous form of utopian monism. This, in turn, was an integral part of his defence of liberalism. This is a clear example of the way in which use of the concept of pluralism takes on its meaning and significance in the work of a political philosopher in terms of its relationship to the ‘inner citadel’ of basic worries and concerns.

Nevertheless, it has almost become a commonplace to claim that a ‘value-pluralist movement’ has emerged in modern political theory. This ‘movement’ owes a clear debt to Berlin’s work.¹⁵ The most prominent members of this so-called movement usually include, among others, Bernard Williams, Stuart Hampshire, Joseph Raz, Steven Lukes, Thomas Nagel, Charles Taylor, Charles Larmore and John Gray. Despite the differences between them, it is clear that one thing they do have in common is a belief that recognition of the plurality of values, both as a fact and as a theory about the modern world, presents political thinking with a distinct and new set of problems.

It is generally agreed that the origin of this concern with pluralism in modern Anglo-American political philosophy, at least, is to be found in the work of Isaiah Berlin. All of the philosophers and political theorists mentioned above refer to a greater or lesser degree to Berlin’s work, although they do not always agree about how it is best understood or the conclusions that we ought to draw from it. The renewal of interest in the work of Berlin is itself an interesting, intriguing and controversial development in modern political thought. In fact, the revival of interest in Berlin’s intellectual legacy has to a large extent been bound up with the idea that the problem of pluralism is both a central problem for modern political thought and that it is the unifying theme in his work (or, at least, one of the unifying themes).

The original source of the modern value-pluralist movement for political theorists, it is generally claimed, can be found in Berlin’s famous lecture ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ and, in particular, in its concluding section which has the title of the ‘The One and the Many’.¹⁶ Berlin concluded his reflections on the relative merits of what he famously called ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ liberty by revealing the underlying premises of his argument. It is here that he states in a very forceful way the idea that it is our fate to live in a world where we are confronted with a plurality of values, often incommensurable, but certainly in ‘perpetual rivalry’. Berlin makes his understanding of the importance of this idea even clearer when, on the first page of his lecture, he states that, if the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Pluralism
• 2 Pluralism and Pessimism
• 3 Reconciliation and Public Reason
• 4 Pluralism: Reconciliation and Disagreement
• Index