The Nature of Political Theory

212 The Nature of Political Theory

Under the broad rubric of post-1980s liberal pluralism, a number of subtle variants
have arisen, which essentially try to examine liberalism as accommodating both plur-
alism and a core of immanent universal (if often very thin) values. There are though
two dimensions to the liberal perception of diversity. First, liberalism usually invokes
pluralism, as a value, by its concept of the individual. The human ‘individual’ is
accorded a fundamental moral or ontological status. This is also the groundwork for
liberal interest in both substantive and formal equality. Each individual is considered
wholly unique. In many ways, this is a verypositiveperspective, which celebrates the
conditions for individual autonomy. Individuals ought to have the basic conditions
and opportunities to be able to construct their own plans of life. One upshot of this
is a society constituted by a diversity of individual goals and plans of life. This point
concerning individuality is worth underscoring, since much of the more recent debate
about pluralism, has ironically often been focused on groups or cultures, rather than
individuals.
The second dimension of the liberal pluralism has been the awareness of the need
for some form of constitutional arrangement to cope with thenegativedimensions
of plurality. Liberal conceptions of pluralism do not always contain a celebration of
individuality. Much liberal thought has been given, conversely, to a pragmatic or
prudential response to the potential conflictual pressures of diversity. This is the idea
of liberalism, which arose, for many liberal commentators, unwittingly, from the
constitutional settlements arising out of protracted vicious religious civil wars during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In other words, liberal pluralism is a practical
response to dealing with the negative side of diversity. Its main suggestion is that if
individuals (and groups) wish to live in peace, they will have to agree upon certain
general conditions (or publicly reasonable grounds), whereby it becomes possible to
live together. This involves putting their religious, cultural, or moral views aside in
the public sphere.
In the present account, the more general liberal responses to pluralism are reviewed.
The first three will be examined in the present section, the fourth opens up another
distinct sphere of pluralism and is considered in the next section. The initial three
responses focus on individuals as the key ‘particles of difference’. They also take a very
wary and critical view of the role of groups and cultures in political argument.
The first conception of liberal pluralism is underpinned by a forceful rendition of
the moral superiority and universality of reasoned liberal arguments. Liberalism is
seen as neutral between competing goods. Oddly, though, it is only in comparatively
recent mid to late twentieth-century literature on liberalism that the term ‘neutrality’
has come to the fore. The nub of the argument is that liberal reason is regarded as
something universal and applicable to all human beings regardless of state, culture,
or ethnicity. Because reason is universal and impartial it therefore embodies a basic
neutrality over the good. This might be called theneutral universalistposition. Reason
is essentially concerned with abstract conclusions drawn from premises that every-
one accepts. One key example of this process of argument (which has already been
examined) is Rawls’ earlier bookA Theory of Justice(1971). The discussion focused
on intellectual devices such as the ‘veil of ignorance’, which are essentially ways to