Liberal Pluralism

Recalling J. S. Mill’s consciousness of the different goals of human life, the modern debate about pluralism has gathered momentum in liberal philosophy largely as a consequence of the intellectual historian and political theorist Isaiah Berlin. In his seminal essay, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Berlin prompted thought about the potential overlap between the plurality of human values and the liberal tradition. In the years following, a vigorous debate with numerous strands has arisen around a synthesis of these concepts, in the form of the theory of “liberal pluralism.” A key area of controversy is whether the acceptance of pluralism supports a “perfectionist” theory of the state; or whether, by contrast, it generates a neutral liberalism that abstains from difficult questions about the highest good. A related question is whether the concepts of liberal pluralism fit together at all. Some of Berlin’s interpreters such as John Gray suggest that value pluralism does not privilege liberalism, and that the relationship between these ideas is historically contingent. Liberal pluralists such as George Crowder disagree. From their perspective, liberals defend first-order political values such as fairness or personal autonomy, to protect the various conceptions of the good life citizens personally endorse. Moreover, the most recent decades have seen a burgeoning examination by analytical political theorists of the implications of liberal pluralism for state neutrality and the protection of minority cultural or religious rights. While the equally vast literature on toleration, political liberalism, and the politics of recognition is not considered in depth in this article, unless it explicitly invokes the theory of liberal pluralism, key works that apply liberal pluralism to minority cultural, religious, and ethnic identities are represented in the later sections. Therefore, this article overall reflects different dimensions of debate on a complex and much debated contemporary theory. Following the overview of Foundational Works, and background readings on the relationship between liberalism and the politics of difference and identity, the next substantive section covers critical studies of Berlin’s liberal pluralism. This is then followed by a section addressing the conceptual relationship between value pluralism and liberalism generally, before moving on to consider more specific works addressing the relation between liberal pluralism and the concept of neutrality. The final sections consider critical literature applying liberal pluralism to conditions of ethnic, subnational, cultural, and religious diversity. This is crucial, because the defense of liberal pluralist theories is clearly designed to be applied to such real-world situations of diversity.