Communications
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb01746.x |
| Author | George Crowder |
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Communications |
Political Studies
(1996),
XLIV,
649-651
Communications
Isaiah Berlin and Bernard Williams, ‘Pluralism and Liberalism: a reply’,
Political Studies
(1994)
XLII,
306-309
In ‘Pluralism and Liberalism’,’
I
argued against the view, found in the work of
Berlin, Williams and others, that value pluralism
-
the incommensurability
of
basic values
-
in itself entails a case for liberalism. In their reply, Berlin and
Williams subject my argument to two main criticisms. The first, recently
endorsed by Michael Walzer,* is that I have chosen an ‘immensely abstract level
of argument’ that is not ‘the most illuminating way in which to discuss these
matter^'.^
The second is that my argument wrongly supposes that choices
among plural values must be non-rational.
The first criticism
I
find ironic in two respects. First, the level
of
abstraction
of
which Berlin and Williams complain was set for me by their own texts, with
which
I
was trying to engage. Secondly, the desirability of a more ‘concrete’
approach to the justification
of
liberalism was a point
I
was trying to make
myself. My suggestion was that the logical considerations
I
raised reinforce the
case for such an approach.
Berlin and Williams do not see this because they take me to be arguing
-
the
object
of
their second criticism
-
that no rational justification of liberalism is
compatible with pluralism. That was not my argument. My discussion contem-
plated two distinct claims. Claim
1
was that pluralism itself does not give
us
a
reason to be liberals. That is not because pluralism undermines reason giving,
but because there is nothing in the notion of pluralism itself that generates a
reason to support liberalism. Consistently with Claim
1
we could have decisive
reasons to support liberalism; the point was that those reasons cannot come
from within the idea of pluralism alone: ‘pluralism tells
us
that we must choose
[among incommensurable goods]
but
not what to ch~ose’.~ Unmentioned by
Berlin and Williams, this was in fact my main argument. (I am now more
inclined to believe that pluralism can generate a case for liberalism, but my
revised view is not the result of anything Berlin and Williams say in their
‘Reply’, and
I
shall not develop it here.)
Claim
2
was that pluralism positively prevents
us
from being able
to
give
decisive reasons to support liberalism (or any other position). That claim rests
on the view that choices between incommensurable goods are always ultimately
non-rational. I agree that the latter view
is
mistaken, and
so
therefore is Claim
2.
However, Claim
2
was not part of my main argument. It was merely an idea I
suggested towards the end of the article as needing to be taken seriously by
liberals and requiring a response from them. I did not intend to endorse
Claim
2,
and indeed proposed a response to it on the liberal’s behalf.
I
G.
Crowder, ‘Pluralism and liberalism’,
Political Studies
(1994)
XLII,
293-305.
*
M.
Walzer, ‘Are there limits
to
liberalism?, (a review
of
John Gray,
Isaiah Berlin)
New
York
Review
ofBooks,
19
October
(1995), pp. 28-31.
Berlin and Williams, ‘Pluralism and liberalism: a reply’, pp. 308-309.
Crowder, ‘Pluralism and liberalism’, p. 303.
(0
Political Studies Association 1996. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
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Oxford
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