Pluralism, Relativism, and Liberalism

• Published date: 01 June 2009
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912908320666
• Author: Matthew J. Moore
• Date: 01 June 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

244

Political Research Quarterly

Volume 62 Number 2

June 2009 244-256

© 2009 University of Utah

10.1177/1065912908320666

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Pluralism, Relativism, and Liberalism

Matthew J. Moore

Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, California

One major focus of recent value-pluralist literature has been the question of what normative consequences follow

from pluralism. This essay critically examines three arguments that attempt to show that either liberalism or a

bounded modus vivendi is the state of affairs that pluralism makes morally preferable. All three arguments are shown

to encounter the same fundamental problem—once we have agreed that values and sets of values are unrankable, any

effort to claim that one such set is morally preferable will inevitably contradict value pluralism, either explicitly or

implicitly. If this is correct, it seems that pluralism leads to relativism.

Keywords: pluralism; liberalism; relativism; Berlin, Isaiah; moral irrealism

During the past thirty to forty years, the idea of

value pluralism has gotten a lot of attention from

political theorists.1The basic insight is intuitive and

compelling: it seems that values can conflict with

each other, not only between value systems but even

within them. Isaiah Berlin provides a classic and

often quoted statement of the idea: “The world that

we encounter in ordinary experience is one in which

we are faced with choices between ends equally ulti-

mate, and claims equally absolute, the realization of

some of which must inevitably involve the sacrifice

of others” (Berlin 1969, 168). A concrete example is

the one offered by Sartre of the young man who must

choose between caring for his elderly mother and

joining the French Resistance. Sartre’s point is that

these are both compelling duties, that the young man

cannot fulfill both simultaneously, and that there is no

obvious way to decide which should “trump” (Sartre

1973, 35-37).

The academic discussion of value pluralism has

focused on two main questions. First, are values plural

in the way that Berlin suggests?2Second, if values are

plural, what normative consequences does that have?

In particular, does value pluralism lead to, imply,

reveal, or in some other way require some particular

normative response?3For example, does the condi-

tion of pluralism require us to be especially attentive

to negative liberty, as Berlin suggests?4In this article,

I assume for the sake of argument that values are

indeed plural and examine what normative conse-

quences (if any) emerge from that plurality.

I look at three representative arguments—one

from William Galston, one from Bernard Williams

and George Crowder, and one from John Gray—that

attempt, in different ways, to connect pluralism to

some normative outcome. Galston argues that accept-

ing the truth of plurality makes us unable to justify,

without self-contradiction, imposing our value pref-

erences on others. Doing so inevitably assumes the

moral superiority of our value system, which we have

already admitted cannot be established. Thus,

societies that respect their citizens’ “expressive lib-

erty” to pursue their own conceptions of the good are

morally preferable to societies that do not. Because

liberal societies are arguably more likely to respect

expressive liberty than are nonliberal societies, we

have grounds for believing that liberal societies are

morally preferable under conditions of plurality.

Bernard Williams suggests, and George Crowder

develops, the idea that if values represent objective

human goods, then societies that instantiate more of

them are morally better than societies that instantiate

fewer. For that reason, liberal societies, whose

emphasis on personal freedom and autonomy

arguably makes them likely to permit the pursuit of

the widest possible range of values, are morally

preferable to nonliberal societies. Finally, John Gray

argues that although theories such as those of Galston

Matthew J. Moore, Assistant Professor of Political Science,

California Polytechnic State University; e-mail: mmoore02@

calpoly.edu.

Author’s Note: I thank Patrick Neal, Don Loeb, Robert Sharp,

Ron den Otter, and two anonymous reviewers for their great gen-

erosity in helping me think these ideas through. (And I would like

to absolve them of responsibility for any errors that remain.) An

earlier draft of this article was presented at the Western Political

Science Association 2005 annual meeting. I thank the discussant

and my fellow panelists for their helpful feedback on that occasion.