Where_pluralists_and_liberals_part_company(1).pdf

This article was downloaded by: [University of Leeds] On: 02 April 2013, At: 02:27 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England andWales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Journal of Philosophical Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riph20 Where Pluralists and Liberals Part Company John Gray Version of record first published: 08 Dec 2010. To cite this article: John Gray (1998): Where Pluralists and Liberals Part Company, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 6:1, 17-36 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/096725598342172 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/ page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. 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The political implication of strong pluralism is not liberalism but modus vivendi.Where Pluralists and Liberals Part Company John Gray Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 Abstract Value-pluralism is commonly held to support liberal political morality. The argument that liberal political morality consists of principles of right that are unaffected by the truth of strong pluralism is examined and rejected. Some varieties of ethical pluralism are distinguished. Sometimes modus vivendi is best fostered by liberal institutions. It is argued that if strong value-pluralism is true. modus vivendi. ethics International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. Yet liberal cultures are partly constituted by a belief in the universal authority of the principles which inform their practices and institutions. liberals and pluralists part company. Sometimes it is best fostered by non-liberal institutions. by Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz. This dif culty is not avoided by liberal theories that do not demand the maximization of a single value such as liberty. more instructively. Neither negative liberty nor individual autonomy can have general priority if it is true that the central goods speci ed by liberal political morality are incommensurables. 6 (1). This is argued by John Rawls and his school and. If strong pluralism is true. and the claim of value-incommensurability made by strong pluralism is elucidated. then liberal political morality cannot be defended. liberalism. Key words: pluralism. 17–36 © Routledge 1998 0967–2559 . Strong pluralism is understood as the view that some goods and bads are rationally incommensurable. then liberal institutions are not a standard of legitimacy by reference to which all regimes are to be assessed. Value-pluralism and liberalism are rival doctrines. Against this common view it is argued that a strong version of value-pluralism and liberalism are incompatible doctrines. This belief strong pluralism subverts. They are merely one variety of modus vivendi. incommensurability. It is an unilluminating deduction. Yet. if value-pluralism is true. At present that agenda is formed by the project of formulating an apology for liberal institutions. They ought to govern the agenda of contemporary political philosoph y. liberalism is indefensible. The central argument of recent political philosoph y moves from liberal premises about pluralism in individual life-plans to liberal conclusions about the priority of individual liberty. Contemporary liberal theory has sought a ground for liberal institutions in the rational incomparabilit y of incompatible values and conceptions of the good.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S Introduction That we cannot have everything is a necessary. In its apologetic idiom contemporary political philosophy resembles late-nineteenth-century moral philosoph y. In this familiar reasoning a species of moral con ict characteristic of liberal cultures is resolved by the adoption of liberal institutions. not a contingent . The variety of pluralism that should shape the agenda of political philosophy today is not the pluralism of personal plans and ideals that preoccupies recent liberal theory. The relations of value-pluralism with liberal political morality exemplify starkly the apologetic character of recent political philosoph y. The possibilit y that pluralism in values might undermine liberal political morality has been entertained only rarely. In the Rawlsian school it has been taken for granted that value-pluralism and liberal ethics go together. Its anxious conventionality of outlook is reminiscent of those nineteenth-century intuitionists who treated the habits and prejudices embodied in Victorian folkways as unquestioned points in ethical theory. Con icts between communities whose ways of life are incompatible are a major threat to human wellbeing in the late modern world. Late-twentieth-century political philosoph y aims to nd bad reasons for what conventional liberals believe by instinct . In their profoundly enlightening writings on value-pluralism Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz argued that liberal institutions have a foundation in values of choice and autonomy. There can be many reasons for defending liberal institutions. It is the strong pluralism of incommensurable goods and bads whose con icts implicate whole ways of life. truth. there can be no reason to defend liberal institutions. It has found a solution to the con icts they engender by locating them in the realm of voluntary association. I conclude that if a strong version of pluralism is true. 18 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . I do not mean that if there are con icts of values which reason cannot resolve.2 My concern here is to explore that unfamiliar prospect. Isaiah Berlin1 It is a truism of recent political philosophy that liberal regimes embody a solution to a problem of pluralism. My argument has two parts. and within any such value there will be con icts – between different equalities. Principles of justice and theories of rights cannot settle rationally irresolvable con icts among values. They nd the very idea of perfection suspect. some of them rationally irresolvable. Some liberal regimes may be highly legitimate. They express particular understandings of human interests and wellbeing.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY the core claim of all liberal political philosophies – that a liberal regime is ideally the best or most legitimate regime for all humankind – must be rejected. Some of them are rationally incomparable. it can be only one among the conditions and ingredients of the good life. It undercu ts liberal moralities that do not promote any single overriding good but instead seek to rank con icting goods. There is no straight path from the truth of strong value-pluralism to the legitimacy of any regime. Principles of rights or justice cannot be insulated from such con icts within and between goods. The human good harbours rival perfections. Many of them cannot be combined within one way of life or realized across the lifetime of a single human being. It u ndermines rightsbased liberal moralities that aim not to maximize or rank goods but instead to regulate their pursuit by a system of side-constraint s. I distinguish some weak versions of value-pluralism from the strong version which I believe to be true. it will sometimes come into con ict with others. It is a species of objective pluralism. There is no ranking or weighting of goods that can command the assent of all reasonable people. First. Value-pluralists have no truck with the idea of an ideal regime. Whichever value is taken to be centrally constitutive of liberalism. This is a claim in anthropolo gy. I consider some of the varieties of ethical pluralism. Insofar as they have any determinate content. I argue that strong value-plu ralism defeats liberal political morality. for example. Secondly. Strong valu e-pluralists believe that there are irreducibly many varieties of human ourishing. In every case liberal principles break down when they meet con icts among the values which they seek to promote or regulate that no theory of rights or justice can settle. negative liberties or dimensions of autonomy. This truth subverts liberal moralities which accord a unique primacy to some good such as negative liberty or personal autonomy. then no value can be given a uniqu e priority amongst the ingredients and conditions of the human good. These understandings themselves generate value-con icts. In both cases the test that value-pluralists apply is how regimes promote and protect valuable ways of life and ensure a modus vivendi among them. 19 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . The theory of values which it articulates is not sceptical or relativistic. If strong pluralism is true. principles of right embody substantive conceptions of the good. So too may be some non-liberal regimes. They are disabled by such con icts. The goods of human life are many. virtues and whole conceptions of the good may be incompatible . Contrary to Bentham and Plato. Many philosophers accept that goods are irreducibly diverse and often uncombinable . They may crowd one another out. The terms of such modi vivendi will be constrained by a universal minimum morality which speci es a range of generically human goods and bads. The rst is what might be called anti-reductionism about values. Let us call this value-incommensurability. Diverse and con icting goods and evils sometimes cannot be rationally compared or traded off. or belong to ways of life that are by necessity uncombinable. the human good is irreducibly diverse. When ways of life containing incommensurable goods con ict. 1 Varieties of Value-pluralism Strong value-pluralism makes three related claims. projects and virtues that enter into good lives for humans are not tokens of a single type. activities. The goods of human life have no common denominator. it is reasonable to seek a modus vivendi between them. sometimes they are rationally incomparable.3 I will not discuss this weak variant of value-pluralism. The diverse experiences. there is no one kind of life that is the best life for all humankind or for any single person. Within any one way of life con icts among incommensurables can have settlements that are better or worse in terms of that way of life. Contrary to J. Not only may valuable options. there is no principle or set of principles which enables con icts among values to be resolved in ways acceptable to all reasonable people. It is the last of these three claims that best marks out strong valueplu ralism. To suppose that liberal institutions are ideally always the best solution for the problems created by pluralism is not only unjusti ed. There is no summum bonum or hierarchy of goods in terms of which human lives can be weighed or ranked. Thirdly. The diverse types of ourishing of which humans are capable are not only often uncombinable.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 This is not to say that there cannot be better or worse settlements of con icts among goods. goods are often incompatible and sometimes rivalrous. Grif n and Stocker are among these philosopher s. The mix of goods and bads that is embodied in liberal institutions has no unique or overriding claim on reason. so also may rights and the requirements of fairness. S. but within the vast range of legitimate modi vivendi there are many that do not embody the full range of liberal freedoms. They cannot be derived from or redu ced to any one value. This is partly because 20 . Let us call this non-harmony among values. options. Mill and Aristotle. but they deny that their con icts may be rationally irresolvable. exclude one another altogether. Secondly. It is demonstrably unreasonable. In considering different sorts of con ict among values a sharp distinction between those that are matters of fact and those that express logical truths may not be helpful. The reasons why goods cannot be combined may be more or less contingent. perhaps even maximized. and if their physical and intellectual powers were greatly augmented. subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one. but chie y because I am concerned here with the claim that strong value-pluralism poses no threat to liberal morality or else supports it. The brevity of the human life-span. though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other. Consider some of the different ways in which values can con ict. then perhaps many of us could achieve what now none can hope for. disharmony among goods arises from deeper features of human life. A better way of thinking about what is accidental and what is necessary in such con icts is suggested by Wittgenstein when he writes in On Certainty : ‘the river-bed of thoughts may shift. but if the human life-span were to be greatly extended and our natural powers signi cantly enhanced. If humans lived much longer than they do. Sometimes goods exclude one another altogether. There is no reason in the constitution of the goods why we should not have a great deal more of both of them. which now in one place now in 21 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 .WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY I think it uninteresting and false. Because they are not mutually dependent or partly constitutive of one another they can be pursued. The question whether such con icts express regularities in human life that are contingent (though unalterable) or whether they articulate conceptual impossibili ties is not always easy to answer. There may be valuable options within one human life or way of life that. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself. . not only separately but also conjointly. cannot be combined at all. A career of drinking absinthe for pleasure cannot be combined with the ful lments that go with longevity. No one can hope to be both a chess grand master and a worldclass ballet-dancer. precludes any of us achieving in both of them the level of excellence that a few can achieve in each. together with the demands that these activities place upon the human organism. And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock. In other cases. Sometimes goods cannot be combined in virtue of the natural necessities of human life. either as a matter of fact or in virtue of how they are constituted. Here the incompatibility of goods is highly contingent. but technological advance might allow a liquor to be invented that produces the same pleasure as absinthe without its life-shortening side-effects. . but the price of promoting all of them is that none is achieved to the extent it might be if it were pursued alone. much else would change in the way we live. It can be overcome withou t altering either of the goods concerned. Some goods can be embodied in a variety of combinations. . most can alternate between them. as for the human 22 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . This impossibili ty may apply over time as well as at any one time. Because they drive one another out – in that neither of them can be highly developed in the life of one who displays the other – some ideals of personal development are not fu lly realizable. then an ideal of personal life in which all of our individual powers are maximally developed is unrealizable. they can be pursued successively. some aspects of the good life lived only at the price of altogether shutting off others. Though they exclude each other as alternatives that can be adopted conjointly. It is the best because it ful ls in an harmonious whole the peculiar demands of our individual natures and needs. some of his needs met only at the cost of thwarting others. then all-round development is not a possibilit y.’4 Wittgenstein’s metaphor suggests that whether values are uncombinable as a matter of necessity may be itself a matter of degree. Mill advocates experiments in living as a means whereby each of us can discover the contents of this unique life. Some ways of life alter their practitioners irreversibly. J. One who has lived a life of action and adventure and then adopts a life of tranquillity and contemplation need not have found any aw in the life he relinquishes.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S another gets washed away or deposited. Both may be excellent. In On L iberty Mill imagines that there is a form of life that is uniquely best for each of us. They thereby rule ou t some other ways of life for ever. then there is no life in which my nature can be fully realized. Some ways of life cannot be combined because they embody alternatives that are mutually exclusive. The idea that the good life for humans is one in which each of us satises fully all the demands of his individual nature may not be wholly coherent. If some kinds of personal creativity depend upon lacks or defect. Mill’s ideal of all-round individu al development – ‘individuality’ – falls into this category. S. But one need not be better or worse than the other. The ethics of Spinoza and Mill founder for the same reason that undermines those of Aristotle and Marx. If both the way of life that I opt for and those that I thereby forfeit for ever answer deep needs of my natu re. within limits. Ethical theories in which the idea of realizing our individual natures is central break down on the same con icts that defeat an ethics whose core is a conception of the best life for the species. but the dispositions needed for an active life crowd out those required by success in a life of contemplation. Yet. if increased self-knowledge can diminish creativity or vitality. For individual human beings. A life of risk and adventure and a life of tranquillity and contemplation cannot both be lived by one person across an entire lifetime. But if some of a person’s powers can be developed only at the expense of others. as when the creativity of a van Gogh or Kafka expresses repressed or unresolved dilemmas. For those who are subject to them the practices of slavery and genocide are insuperable obstacles to a worthwhile human life. all-round development is not an option. Such particularist faiths are inherently exclusive of one another but.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY species. The ways of life prescribed by universalist religions are inherently incompatible. It af rms their reality. If value-pluralism is true. they are not inevitably rivals. They can arise when different virtues make competing demands within a way of life and when virtues distinctive of different ways of life have incompatible implications. Such virtues cannot be combined. It sees such universal values as marking boundary conditions beyond which worthwhile human lives cannot be lived. then this kind of con ict between ways of life is unnecessary. Christianity and Islam are necessarily rivals. It always depends on mistaken beliefs. Experiments in living cannot enable us to discover a way of life in which all our powers are developed and our needs met. Particularist faiths enjoin practices that cannot be admixed. The warrior virtues celebrated in the Iliad cannot be mixed with those of Socratic inquirers. Rationally undecidable dilemmas can occur both within and between ways of life. In the latter case whole ways of life come into con ict. There is no such life. These are virtues that belong to ways of life whose mutual exclusivity arises in part from the moral notions by which they are constituted. Strong pluralism does not reject all universal moral claims. pan-cultural goods and bads. They are rivals in virtue of the contradictory moral beliefs by which each is partly constituted. Practitioners of Shinto and Orthodox Judaism have ways of life that cannot be combined. because they make few prescriptions for all humankind. In contrast. Christian and Muslim ways of life are not rivals in virtue of the practices that they enjoin upon their believers. not because of any narrowness in the constitution of the species. He cannot wish merely to try another style of life. The Aristotelian virtues of the great-souled man cannot be mixed – in a person or a society – with the virtues of hu mility that are preached in the New Testament. he must judge the life he lived as a Christian to be wanting. For the purposes of my present argument this does not matter. but there are inde nitely many ways of life that lack 23 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . Some virtues belong to ways of life that are constitutively uncombinable. but as a matter of their logic or grammar. He must have concluded that the claims to truth made by Christianit y are in error and the way of life that is founded upon them awed. It may not always be easy to tell the difference between generically human virtues that have been given different cultu ral renderings and virtues that are speci c to different ways of life. Here the con ict of ways of life expresses a contradiction between beliefs. They exclude one another because they cannot be admixed without incoherence. It does not deny that here are universal. If a person gives up life as a Christian for life as a Muslim. Strong pluralists stand outside this tradition. In this way accepting the truth of value-pluralism can reduce con icts among values and promote modu s vivendi. S.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S these and other practices precluded by the universal minimum of generically human values. then their rivalry with such non-liberal regimes is illusory.5 Strong pluralism denies that universal values are fully realizable only in one way of life. This is a result of no small consequence for liberal cultures. Mill thought that the best life for each of us has some unique features. If the universalist beliefs that shape liberal regimes are mistaken. Aristotle and Mill are in the central tradition of western ethical theory. It repudiates the central claim of universalist religions to have identi ed the right or best way of life for all humankind. They af rm that some good lives cannot be compared in value. Liberal and non-liberal regimes need not be rivals. he was in no doubt what that life was – a life of friendship and philosophical inquiry. It rejects the secularization of this claim in the universalist moralities of the Enlightenment. They may be alternatives. I return to it in the conclusion of this inquiry. There may be tragedy when a great good depends for its existence on a great evil. Internalizing the truth of value-pluralism – within a human subject or a culture – has the effect of dissolvin g such rivalries. A similar result follows for the rivalry of liberal regimes with some (non-fundamentalist) illiberal regimes. Con icts arising from the clashing universalist claims of religious fundamentalists are founded on errors. they can be ranked in a hierarchy that all reasonable people will accept. There is tragedy where weighty obligations con ict and the right action contains wrong. 24 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . There need be nothing tragic in con icts of values. Bads as well as goods may be incommensurate. The issue of what is the best mixture of goods and bads may be undecidable. They do not doubt that where good lives cannot be combined they can be ranked for the species and for its individu al members in a hierarchy of value. The reductive-monistic traditions of ethical thought which we inherit from Socratic and Christian sources insist that when goods (or bads) conict. There is tragedy where virtues and excellences depend for their existence on vices or defects – as when artistic creativity depends on psychological repression or personal unhappiness. It therefore rejects the claim that the human good can be fully realized only in a liberal regime. They may bespeak the abundance of good lives that is available to humans. J. but he never doubted that for all fully developed human beings the higher pleasures of the intellect and the moral imagination trump the lower pleasures of sensuous pleasure and physical activity. Aristotle was clear that the best life was open to only a few human beings. They deny that reason compels assent to any hierarchy among the goods that occur in ourishing human lives. Someone might perceive that friendship and money are incommensurables and yet. In a world in which all goods were for sale one type of incommensurability would have ceased to exist. A world that contained neither justice nor friendship would be free of the tragic con icts that can arise from con icts between them. on the contrary. This is what moral rebels and reformers often seek to do. Nor are they making a trade-off between two goods because one is worth more than the other. say – cannot be bought. there may be reason to dispel that moral con ict by dissolving the conventions that generate it. There need be no loss for them in this. In so doing they may act wrongly – by defaulting on a family obligation . To need to buy friendship is a tragic condition. those who perceive that friendship is not a marketable good will no more try to buy it than to sell it. Yet we can easily imagine a society in which pervasive commensurability has impoverished human life. perhaps – but they are not exchanging something in nitely precious for something that has no value. sometimes with good reason. if required to choose between them. When they prohibited slavery. If a code of honour makes demands whose effect is to threaten the safety of loved ones. This does not mean that friendship is incomparably more valuable than money. not that which comes with an abundance of options. To af rm that goods are incommensurate is not to rank them in a lexical ordering. the effect of incommensurability in blocking an exchange of money for friendship would be one-way. It would be because some of the goods that engender incommensurability 25 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . We have here a clue why moral reformers sometimes establish incommensurabilities where they have not hitherto existed. It is to say that they cannot be so ranked. Yet. choose the good that can bought. abolitionists contributed to making persons and chattels incommensurables. bu t this would be the freedom from tragedy that sometimes goes with utter poverty. Not all incommensurable goods promote the wellbeing of those entrained by the practices that engender them. This would not be because goods that were once incommensurate with money could now be bought and sold. Con icts among many incommensurable goods can be dissolved by breaking down their constitutive conventions. Someone who charges money for his company when those he knows are in trouble is not a friend. It is tragic not because friendship is in nitely more valuable than money. To say that friendship and money are incommensurate goods is not to rank friendship over any amount of money. but because friends – unlike psychotherapists or sexual partners. If that were what is meant by saying that these goods are incommensurate. As a result human beings can be neither bought nor sold as property even if they consent to the exchange. They are adopting a particular kind of life. Consider friendship and justice.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY Goods may be incommensurate in virtue of the social conventions that make them what they are. When we say that there are countries in which justice can be bought. A value-pluralist does not deny that such a metric can be constructed. Some ethical theories shatter incommensurability in a similar way. as Hobbes contended. Classical utilitarianism and more recent split-level. some bads. justice is constituted by certain conventions. Incommensurable goods are not always constituted by social conventions. Ethical theories which achieve consistency at the price of disregarding the evidences of ethical life have little claim on reason. Like friendship. Some may be found in the lives of other animals. It is not impossibly dif cult to render the goods of a happy human life into the jargon of preference utilitarianism. They are not con ned to ethical contexts. To be at risk of a violent death at the hands of one’s fellows is. not to invent it. but it cannot be. Lifelong undernourishment can be no less of an obstacle to human wellbeing. Among these are conventions blocking the exchange of trial verdicts for money. What is the authority of moral theory when it has this result? It is a matter of common experience that some practical and moral dilemmas are undecidable. The objection a value-pluralist makes to all such accounts is that they displace the evidences of ethical life for the sake of a theory. Theories of natural 26 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . some virtues. One of the goods that engendered incommensurability has been destroyed. The task of theory in ethics is to track coherence in ethical life where it can be found. Theories which purport to solve these dilemmas do so at the price of dissolvin g or compromising the goods that generate them. They are often competitive. They do not always depend on differences amongst cultures. we mean that in those countries there is no justice. a great threat to any kind of human ourishing. A non-liberal regime which protects its citizens against the Hobbesian evils of crime and civil strife by limiting freedom of religion may not be better or worse than a liberal regime in which religious freedom is protected but citizens are unsafe from crime and civil disorder. Some incommensurable values – some goods. It may be impossible to judge a non-liberal regime in which press freedom is restricted but no-one is undernourished as better or worse than a liberal regime which contains a malnourished underclass. indirect utilitarian theories aim to make incommensurables comparable by developing a calculus or metric enabling them to be traded off against one another and the result assigned an aggregate value. There are generically human goods and bads. the summum malu m of human life.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S had been destroyed. They are not peculiar to humans. Goods that are irreducibly different can always be made comparable as tokens of a single type of value. as he supposed. some vices – are anthropological universals. Any ethical theory that denies the reality of such rationally undecidable dilemmas among anthropolo gically universal values is awed. Sometimes there is no single best mixture of them. but in ethics we are destined to come to a consensus that humans ourish in divergent forms of life whose worth cannot be compared. It means that no such comparative judgement is possible. truth is what inquirers are fated to converge upon. If the life of a carer is incommensurate with that of a bon viveur and the life of a bon viveur with that of a creative artist such as Gaugin. it is a nal tru th abou t the human world. Incommensurability need not be an impediment to practical or moral reasoning. Kantian philosophies of right and all liberal political theories are awed in this way. Wherever it exists. then the carer’s life and Gaugin’s will also be incommensurate. When we judge goods to be incommensurables we mean that they cannot be compared as to value with one another. They claim that the varieties of human ourishing cannot be contained within any one life or one way of life and that some of them cannot be compared in value. As Raz has put it: ‘where there is incommensurability it is the ultimate truth. There is nothing further behind it. I offer no general account of it here.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY law. To say of goods that their worth is not rationally comparable does not mean that one is incomparably more valuable than the other. It is a fact of ethical life.6 Strong pluralists claim knowledge of the human good. Incommensurability can be a transitive relation. but then it is evidence of incommensurability. If liberal principles do depend on a conception of the human good. That does not mean that incommensurable goods are incomparable in value with any other good. not a criterion for it. Incommensu rability may have many sou rces.’7 2 How Strong Pluralism Defeats Liberalism There is an extremely familiar argument that the kinds of con icts among goods which strong pluralism tracks cannot threaten liberal values. Indeterminacy may sometimes be a mark or symptom of incommensurability. Judgements ascribing incommensurability are not admissions of indeterminacy. There need be no single reason why the worth of goods cannot be rationally compared. it is so parsimonious that it 27 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . as for C. not – absurdly – that their value cannot be compared with that of any other good. When it occurs amongst generically human goods and bads. it is not a result of any imperfection in human understanding. nor is it a sign of imperfection. Judgements of incommensurability track relational properties among goods and bads. Peirce. It tells us that liberal political morality consists of principles of right which do not presuppose any particular conception of the good. For strong pluralists. S. We can judge the life of a crack addict to be a poorer human life than that of either a carer in a leprosarium or a judicious bon viveur without being able to rank the carer’s against the hedonist’s. Each of these goods – negative liberty. Yet the principles of liberal morality acquire a de nite application only insofar as they regulate speci c goods. Judgements about what is the greatest liberty will vary along with these comparative assessments of human interests.9 Consider Rawls’s account of the basic liberties. Liberal principles founder where the goods they regulate encompass con icting values and rational inquiry cannot yield a judgement as to how these con icts are rightly settled. as in Nozick and Dworkin. Hence applying liberal principles has a certain simplicity. . To suppose that liberal principles can be so insulated makes sense only if they do not themselves engender con icts among incommensurables. Liberal principles regulate the terms within which substantive goods may be pursued. Theories of the right cannot circumvent deep divergences concerning the good. . This protection is illusory if such con icts enter into the content and application of liberal principles themselves. Rawls developed this in response to Herbert Hart’s decisive objection to his original Greatest Equal Liberty Principle. Principles of right cannot arbitrate con ict among divergent conceptions of wellbeing. personal autonomy. They will thereby yield con icting judgements about maximal liberty. There is no value-neutral method of judging the greatest liberty. Hart’s argument demonstrates that comparative judgements about greater and lesser liberty cannot be insulated from controversial ideals of 28 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 .I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S cannot spawn con icts among incommensurables. no political morality can be sealed off from con icts of goods in this way. The belief that intractable disagreements about the human good can be resolved for the purposes of law or public policy by a theory of rights or basic liberties is not an inadvertence in recent political philosoph y. He argued that judgements about what constituted the greatest liberty embody assessments of the relative importance of the hu man interests they protect. In political philosoph y claims about rights are always conclusions. Different ideals of life will support divergent accounts of human interests.10 Hart showed that such a principle. Their content varies according to that of those conception s. requiring that each person have the maximu m liberty consistent with every other person having the same liberty.’8 If strong pluralism is true. was disabled by an indeterminacy. The bottom line is always an understanding of the good. . never foundations. John Rawls puts this conventional view canonically: ‘liberal principles can be applied following the usual guidelines of public inquiry and rules for assessing evidence. It expresses the quintessential illusion of liberalism. liberal principles are meant to be sheltered from the kinds of con ict that can arise between ways of life partly constituted by incommensurable goods. or whatever – itself generates con icts among incommensurables. The project of a rightsbased political morality is incoherent. If these goods are incommensurables. In Rawls. that does not affect the principles. This is as true of Nozick’s theory of side-constraints as it is of Rawls’s 29 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . It stipulated that when basic liberties came into competition they were to be ‘contoured’. then so are the values of con icting liberties. there is a con ict of ways of life. The necessity of making controversial judgements about comparative liberty has not been avoided. Even an agreed conception may generate intractably divergent judgements on how con icts among the ingredients of wellbeing are to be resolved. but human interests do not compose a harmonious system. Yet no such conception can command the assent of all reasonable people. Rawls’s principles of fairness have a de nite content only insofar as they protect weighty human interests. It cannot be conjured away by ‘contouring’ the liberties that are at stake when the competing interests and rival ideals that the different ways of life express make incompatible demands on law and government. Rawls’s aim was to avoid the troublesome necessity of making on-balance judgements about the greatest liberty. How the claims of the basic liberties are balanced will vary according to their impact on hu man interests. Such differences will govern the relative importance accorded to different options and translate into differences about what is the greater liberty. Judgements about the greatest liberty avoid indeterminacy only at the cost of ranking human interests according to ideals that may be rationally incomparable. however. we can make such judgements only by deploying some su ch ideal.11 Liberal theories of rights which seek to avoid a commitment to the maximization of any value cannot avoid the necessity of such judgements. Indeed. Muslims and Orthodox Jews in setting up schools in which gay teachers are not hired impinges on the freedom of gays from homophobic discrimination. ideals of the good life are rationally incommensurable. if the freedom of association claimed by Catholics.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY the good life. That will be assessed variously according to different conceptions of human wellbeing. Their scope was reconceived so that their con icts were de ned away. If freedom of expression clashes with freedom from racial abuse. Basic liberties were to be shaped so that they formed a system of compossible claims. It has merely been obscured. Rawls responded to Hart’s criticism by proposing an account of basic liberties that (he hoped) did not necessitate contested judgements abou t the greatest liberty. if the liberty of privacy comes into competition with the freedom of expression demanded by investigative jou rnalists. Rawls hoped to evade the con icts of substantive goods that competition among (and within) particular basic liberties commonly reveals. as elsewhere. His manoeuvre was a sleight of hand. If. Here. They engender con icts which can be resolved only by ranking them in accordance with some speci c conception of human wellbeing. the indeterminacy of liberal political principles is a mark of the incommensurabilities that they conceal. Otherwise the right is contentless. The strategy of ‘contouring’ side-constraint s in order to show that any con ict is illusory fails for the reasons Rawls’s account of the basic liberties fails. Judgements about what counts as coercion invoke the impact of different kinds of restrictions of options on human interests. There can be no calculus of liberties whose results are neutral regarding rival conceptions of the good. The famously misdescribed ‘one very simple principle’ prescribes that individual liberty may be restrained only when harm to others is at issu e. the options that we assess. As soon as a side-constraint has a de nite content. In any application of a theory of sideconstraint s. Dworkin’s theory of equality and Rawls’s theory of the basic liberties. This is not a mere indeterminacy 30 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . It cannot be applied in any simple or mechanical way. Judgements about degrees of coercion depend on rankings of human interests. We are a long way from the simplicit y in the application of liberal principles which Rawls envisaged. Such controversies are sometimes rationally intractable. They cannot avoid taking a stand in controversies about what is most important for the human good. such as Nozick’s theory of side-constraints. Any understanding of what is encompassed in a right to self-ownership is bound to refer to the interests served by that right. They will vary as these interests are accorded a different weight in different conceptions of human wellbeing. even perhaps to individuate and enumerate. invoking controversial judgements about relative priorities amongst human interests cannot be avoided. Applying it involves making judgements of comparative harm. All rights-based liberalisms founder on this necessity. Applying the theory of side-constraints in such cases of con ict involves according some of them greater weight than others. Nor is this resu lt restricted to liberal theories in which some version of liberty is the central value. It is only that conception which allows us to weigh. It cannot be maximized because what counts as the greatest liberty varies with different conceptions of the human good. Such judgements will vary according to the content of different accounts of the human good. Liberal theories that aim to avoid maximization of their central valu es. however. Liberty cannot be measured because the interests that are opened or closed by different options are often incommensurate. must still appeal to conceptions of human interests to give their principles a de nite content. Nozickian side-constraints derive whatever determinacy they have in their scope and contents from their contribution to de nite human interests.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S account of basic liberties. its demands con ict with those of some others. A similar necessity applies in Dworkin’s account of the fundamental right to treatment as an equal. Mill’s harm principle has an analogous disabilit y. When we judge that one society or person is freer than another we are presupposing a ranking of hu man interests which articulates a particular conception of wellbeing. others will wane. It relieves Mill of the necessity of attempting to circumvent con icts amongst liberties. There is no one settlement of con icting liberties or rights which any reasonable person is bound to accept. He aims to offer advice to legislators. Mill does not imagine that the agenda of political philosophy is set by the legalist project of drafting an ideal constitution. The scope of the liberties which Mill’s principle protects is determined by applying the principle of utility. Judgements of the relative importance of such goods appeal to their role in a speci c way of life. This will be so even if – impossibly – reasonable people agree in their judgements as to what are the ingredients of the good. say – we 31 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . The fact of reasonable divergences in judgements of the relative importance of the various ingredients of the human good undermines all liberal moralities. Reasonable people make divergent judgements as to how different structures of rights will contribute to human wellbeing. but that states only a necessary condition of justi ed restraint.12 By comparison with Rawls’s doctrine. none has a weight that always overrides any other. It does not follow from the truth that the ingredients of the human good may be incommensurate that there are not better and worse settlements of their con icts. It requires many other goods as well. Yet even among such ingredients of the good there will be con icts such that if one amongst them waxes. It may be that in a society lacking some of these ingredients no good life can be lived. If it were only that. different societies will have reason to opt for different mixes even of goods without which no good life can be lived. Unlike Rawls’s basic liberties. Mill’s goal is not to specify any xed or nal list of basic liberties. Unlike Rawls. There are many ingredients of the good life. There are no universal principles that rank or weigh generically human goods.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY in the application of Mill’s principle. What these liberties are will vary with circumstances. It fails not because of any indeterminacy in it but in virtue of the incomparabilit y of the harms and bene ts that it requires us to assess. There can be no complete or de nitive list. Depending on their histories and circumstances. When we ask how the claims of free association are to be balanced against those of collective action – in framing trade union law. it would not be a serious objection to the Millian account. this indeterminacy in Mill’s principle is not a weakness but an advantage. a stable and cohesive society and a distribution of bene ts and burdens that is accepted as fair. The good life for humans demands a clean and healthy environment. His principle of liberty fails to perform this service. Mill’s principle is not meant to protect a xed set of liberties. To impose any single ranking or weighting on the ingredients of the good is unreasonable. What follows is only that what makes a settlement of their con icts better or worse is a local affair. It rules ou t restraint of liberty in the self-regarding area. I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 are asking which settlement of this con ict best embodies a speci c way of life. The content of such a balance will vary with the way of life that it expresses. Conclusion Can it be that Socrates and the creators of the central Western tradition in ethics and politics who followed him have been mistaken. save perhaps when the other violates a minimal morality that is binding on all. Where they do. A reasonable balance can be struck among con icting goods and bads that are incommensurate by considering how different mixes of them contribute to the renewal of a valuable way of life. no way of life has reason to impose itself on any other. even true? Isaiah Berlin13 The problem of pluralism faced by late modern societies is not primarily that created by the existence of incommensurate ideals of personal life. In a modus vivendi. Within a way of life. There is no presumption that they will conform to liberal principles. They invoke the mix of incommensurate goods and bads that shapes the way of life. there are often agent-relative reasons for resolving con icts among incommensurable values in particular ways. If strong pluralism is true. It is nding terms of coexistence for ways of life animated by divergent and incommensurate conceptions of the good. or. It is this mix of values speci c to a particu lar way of life that allows values whose con icts cannot be subject to an arbitration acceptable to all reasonable people to be resolved. ways of life nd interests and values which they have in common and reach compromises regarding those in which they diverge. Their pursuit of modus vivendi is governed by a 32 . But how are con icts between incommensurate ways of life to be resolved? Con icts between incommensurate ways of life are settled by achieving a modus vivendi between them. that virtue is not knowledge. The answer may well be different in societies whose ethical life is highly individualistic from those in which it is more solidaristic. it is because the way of life which they presuppose is that of a liberal culture. nor freedom identical with either? That despite the fact that it rules the lives of more men than ever before in its long history. I have argued that a balance can sometimes be struck among con icting incommensurables by invoking the mix of values characteristic of a particular way of life. not one of the basic assumptions of this famous view is demonstrable. for more than two millennia. Such resolutions are internal to particular ways of life. perhaps. and every way of life has reason to seek terms of coexistence with others in which their distinctive goods are preserved.14 Modus vivendi is a reasonable implication of strong pluralism. Here I say only that it works as a constraint on the reasons that practitioners of different ways of life can invoke when they seek a modus vivendi between them. but it underdetermines liberal morality in that it does not dictate distinctive liberal freedoms of the press. Its content overlaps with that of liberal morality in that both proscribe such practices as genocide and slavery. Liberal institutions are only one solution to the problem of coexistence amongst diverse ways of life. In India today Muslim law and secular law apply to different communities. Among non-liberal institutions which have framed a modus vivendi between communities and traditions the Roman practice of recognizing several non-territorial jurisdictions and the Ottoman millet system of communal autonomies are notable. the protection of the environment and the maintenance of valuable forms of common life make no less valid claims. Policies which discourage the formation of ghettos by limiting freedom of choice in housing are an example. No good escapes the lethal calculus. That enterprise is a necessary evil in all governments. Such institutions are rejected by liberals because they allow insuf cient freedom of exit from communities. individual choice has no automatic or overriding priority. Ethnic strife has been avoided in contemporary Singapore by policies some of which could not be implemented in liberal cultu res. A similar pressure in the direction of commensurability pervades contemporary healthcare. This does not mean that liberal regimes should adopt illiberal policies. Framing and implementing economic and social policies often involves an effort at rendering incommensurate goods comparable. One of the many evils of modern war is the all-encompassing commensurability that it imposes on its protagonists. Yet the good which such policies protect – peace among ethnic communities – is a great good in which some liberal regimes have long been notably de cient. I have said little abou t this morality. The ordinary business of government is commonly a quasi-u tilitarian enterprise. There have been and are others no less legitimate. This may be no less true of liberal regimes than of others. Political choices are sometimes tragic. Where its exercise endangers such goods. We are often unable to respect incommensurabilities whose reality we do not doubt. howsoever liberal they may be. The avoidance of war. religion or autonomous choice. The choice of a regime may incur irreparable losses for those subject to it. but freedom of exit is only one good that a regime may have reason to protect. It means that liberal regimes sometimes do less well than nonliberal regimes in the modi vivendi that they engender among communities.WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY universal minimum morality which speci es universal goods and bads that mark the boundaries of a worthwhile human life. Sometimes con icts among communities can be avoided only by policies that restrain individual freedom of choice. Sometimes a non-liberal regime may do better than some liberal regimes 33 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . It may be an expression of the human good. At yet others liberal regimes may do best by all relevant criteria. not embodiments of universal principles. From this conviction it follows that any way of life or regime in which they are not prized is illegitimate. So long as the world contains a diversity of regimes. Strong pluralism supports the perception of liberal institutions as local settlements. But liberal institutions are merely one variety of modus vivendi. there is no avoiding loss. In this they resemble the fundamentalist regimes that are presently their de ning enemies. Where liberal institutions claim universal authority. The political implication of strong pluralism is not liberalism. Liberal polities animated by such universalist beliefs are bound to treat all other regimes and ways of life as rivals or enemies rather than legitimate alternatives. If regimes are alternatives rather than rivals. whose nature it is to be plural. close off some paths to the human good. Human ourishing shows itself in an exfoliation of incompatible ways of life of which none can claim that it uniquely embodies the human good. If strong pluralism is true.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S in enabling and sustaining a modus vivendi. Yet loss is not always tragic. Their practices express the belief that negative freedom and personal autonomy are values in the absence of which no worthwhile human life is possible. It is modus vivendi. At others times liberal and non-liberal regimes may both do well while being incommensurate. To be sure. the diversity of regimes. Sometimes modus vivendi is best fostered by liberal institutions. liberal regimes which assert that their freedoms are universal human rights make precisely that claim. some liberal. Contemporary philosophers are inclined to hold that the truth of pluralism can be acknowledged fully only in liberal cultures. Even in the best modus vivendi there is loss. liberals and plu ralists can march together. Bernard Williams has written that ‘it is an argument for the liberal society that that society expresses more than any other does a true understandin g of the pluralistic nature of values’. Richard Rorty has suggested that an awareness of the local character of liberal values enhances their universal 34 Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 . Liberal morality is not a formula for coexistence among regimes that embody different ways of life. need not be a sign that some are illegitimate. But if strong pluralism is true. then their differences can enrich human life. Liberal regimes are formed partly by a belief in the universal legitimacy of their institutions. liberals and pluralists must part company. not always the most legitimate. It is bound to subvert the self-understanding of contemporary liberal cultures. It thereby undermines the core claim of fundamentalist liberalism. some not. Pluralism and liberalism are rival doctrines. All modi vivendi. Strong pluralism undermines the fundamentalist belief in the universal authority of any single way of life. it is a prescription for con ict. liberal or non-liberal. Where repressive regimes make modus vivendi unattainable. For that reason it is bound to undermine the local certainties of liberal societies. 162. Wittgenstein. 9. Political L iberalism (New York: Columbia University Press. one’s conscience. as literalizations of what were once accidentally produced metaphors. Michael Stocker’s Plural and Con icting Values (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993). 5 For an account of a universal minimum morality which deserves wider discussion. On Certainty (Oxford: Basil Blackwell.16 Jesus College. (Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. sections 97. 2 John Kekes is one of the few who has done so. p. p. Four Essays on L iberty. 6 The claim that incommensurability entails a breakdown in transitivity seems to be made by Joseph Raz in his book. The Morality of Freedom . 327. one’s morality. 322–6. 325: ‘The test of incommensurability is failure of transitivity. and one’s highest hopes as contingent products. See my book. 1989).WH E R E PL U R A LI ST S A ND L I BE R A L S PA RT C O MPA NY appeal: ‘To see one’s language. I have commented on the anti-political character of Rawls’s ‘political’ liberalism in my book. 1975). Daniels (ed. 1997). 1995). 1990) should also be consulted. the contrary is a more faithful rendering of the matter.: Princeton University Press. Hart. 1986).J. 1997).’ I endorsed this claim in my book. 4 L. 1989).’15 If I am not mistaken. 1993). The Morality of Pluralism (Princeton. The Morality of Freedom . It cannot coexist with the articles of faith of any universalist creed. N.J: HarperCollins and Princeton University Press. 3 See James Grif n. 1993). 1986). Endgames: Questions in Late Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press. 1974). ch. 1994). is to adopt a self-identity which suits one for citizenship of a liberal state.) Reading Rawls (New York: Basic Books. 10 H. and Against Liberalism (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ‘Rawls on Liberty and its Priority’. 7 Raz. L iberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge. See John Kekes. in N. 56. I think now that this argument establishes a good deal less than I hoped for it. pp. I think that this claim needs amendment. 11 I develop an early version of this argument in my book. 8 John Rawls. 3. for a careful statement of weak pluralism about the human good. 35 . 99. and Ethics in the Public Domain. pp. In earlier writings of my own I developed an historicist argument for the near-universal legitimacy of liberal institutions which appealed to strong value-pluralism. 1969). 170. 15. N. see Stuart Hampshire. p. L. 141–6. Oxford Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 Notes 1 Isaiah Berlin. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 9 Raz. p. Post-liberalism: Studies in Political Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge. Innocence and Experience (London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press. Strong pluralism is a subversive tru th. p. ch. A. Berlin (London and Princeton. The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wellbeing (Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richard Rorty. 16 A draft of this paper was presented to a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy. Postscript. p.I NTE R NAT I O NA L J O U R NA L O F P H I LO SO P H I CA L ST U D I E S Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 02:27 02 April 2013 12 See my book. 2nd edn (London and New York: Routledge. Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Concepts and Categories (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989). 13 Isaiah Berlin. Mill on L iberty: A Defence. xviii. I am indebted to Henry Hardy for his written comments on an early draft of this paper and conversation over several years on the subject of pluralism. chs 8 and 9. 14 I have argued for modus vivendi between communities in Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age (London and New York: Routledge. Four Essays on L iberty (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Jonathan Reilly and Loren Lomasky. Contingency. 154. 1969). Introduction to Isaiah Berlin. 36 . 1995). I am grateful for the comments of Tony O’Connor. 61. 1996). 1980). 15 Bernard Williams. p. p.