4 The Liberalism/Pluralism Debate
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While much of the pluralist imagination has been focused on radical empiri-
cism, engagement, and the development of plural and agonistic institutions
and processes, a good portion has been engaged with the question of whether
or not pluralism is compatible with the other central theoretical discourse of
political theory—liberalism. Pluralists diVer on the point, with some arguing
compatibility, others vehemently denying the link, and still others proposing
imaginative redesigns to build compatibility.
At the heart of the argument that liberalism and pluralism are compatible
is the claim that value pluralism—multiple and incommensurable concep-
tions of the good—is the starting point of liberalism. As Crowder ( 1999 , 9 )
notes, there are really two steps in laying out this compatibility: ‘‘Wrst, the
claim that pluralism gives us a reason to value diversity; second, the claim
that diversity is best accommodated by liberalism.’’ For liberal pluralists or
pluralist liberals, liberal principles serve the empirical reality of value plural-
ism. Ideally, a liberal pluralist society ‘‘will organize itself around the principle
of maximum feasible accommodation of diverse legitimate ways of life’’
(Galston 2002 , 119 ).
Raz ( 1986 ) argues that valuing the liberal staple of autonomy commits one
to a weak value pluralism. The connection is simple: if a life does not have
diverse choices, than that life is not autonomous, as ‘‘autonomy presupposes
a variety of conXicting considerations’’ ( 1986 , 398 ). The liberal value of
autonomy, then, can only be realized in a pluralistic society, and so valuing
autonomy leads to the endorsement of moral pluralism. Likewise, Galston’s
main concern is with the way that monist or unitary states deny liberty. Moral
pluralism, he argues, ‘‘supports the importance of expressive liberty in a way
monist theories do not’’ (Galston 2002 , 37 – 8 ). Berlin is perhaps the premier
theorist of this argument. For Berlin, freedom is the central liberal value. As
Gray ( 1996 , 142 ) argues in his comprehensive examination of Berlin’s thought,
Berlin privileges ‘‘choice-making as the embodiment of human self-creation.
We make ourselves what we are... through our choices.’’ Pluralism is the
best context for this choice-making because it recognizes both incommen-
surability and rivalry across values (Berlin 1969 , 171 ). ‘‘It may be,’’ Berlin
argues, ‘‘that the ideal of freedom to choose ends without claiming eternal
validity for them, and the pluralism of values connected with this, is only the
late fruit of our declining capitalist civilization’’ ( 1969 , 172 ).
the pluralist imagination 153