Pluralism and Coherence
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My discussion will approach the subject of pluralism through ethical theory rather than politics or history, but I will make some remarks about political theory at the end. In spite of the importance that we have seen throughout the conference so far of the connection in Isaiah Berlin's thought between values and history, he was not a historicist about value. He was, I would say, a moral realist. What makes his pluralism so unusual and philosophically interesting is, as Ronald Dworkin said, that it is a realistic pluralism, not a relativistic one. Berlin insisted on this: he believed that there were real, noncontingently conflicting values. Of course he believed these values were developed and discovered and understood through historical traditions, but they were not just the attitudes of particular groups or individuals. They were real values that provided real reasons for action, and the conflicts to which they gave rise were therefore extremely troubling. So value pluralism was not just a psychological matter for Berlin. Nor was it only because of limitations in resources or other practical difficulties that there were conflicts between values. He maintained that in many cases values can conflict noncontingently or essentially. One can distinguish two types of noncontingent conflict between values, both of which Berlin pointed out, and which I will call incompatibility and opposition. (Opposition might also be thought of as a kind of contradiction.) By “incompatibility” I mean the impossibility in principle of realizing one value while realizing the other, or without frustrating the other. Berlin likened this to the incompatibility between musical or artistic styles. In individual life there are many conflicts of value that are examples of incompatibility. One can't lead both a rural and an urban life, or a life of hard physical exertion and of intellectual contemplation. These incompatibilities do not, I think, present a profound problem for moral theory, though they may present us with difficult choices. There are many goods, and there is not enough space in any one life for more than a limited number of them. Exactly the same problem arises in the case of limited social space. There are alternative good societies that realize to different degrees the disparate values of order, respect for tradition, social mobility, individualism, public beauty, commercial variety, technological progress, preservation of nature and so forth. These values in many cases clash with one another noncontingently, not just because of the limitation of resources, but because their realizations are to some degree incompatible. The more difficult case is the case of a true opposition between values, which arises when each value actually condemns the other, rather than merely interfering with it. This is the nature of the specific example of value conflict that Berlin cites as having given him his original pluralistic insight: namely the conflict, pointed out by Machiavelli, between the virtues of Christian humility and the pagan virtues of assertion and power. Each of these is a genuine value, and each of them is not only incompatible in its realization with the other, but actually condemns the other as contrary to virtue and therefore to be avoided. There are other examples, many of them from among the virtues and values of individual life and conduct: hedonism versus asceticism, self-control versus spontaneity, worldliness versus spirituality, individualism versus communitarianism, outspokenness versus tact. Though they are opposed to one another, we can recognize most of these things as good and as defining forms of value that one might well pursue. But each of them to one degree or another essentially condemns its rival. All of these oppositions could, perhaps, be toned down to mere incompatibilities, so that they don't actually condemn each other: they could be turned into more tolerant values, so to speak. But I think that Berlin believed, rightly, that some of them were in direct and irresolvable opposition. I am not sure where the opposition between liberty and equality falls on Berlin's view. I suspect that it would count as an incompatibility rather than as a direct essential opposition. But in either case the conflict between them is certainly contrary to the view that Ronald Dworkin expressed, which attempts to transcend the opposition by an interpretation or reinterpretation of liberty and equality, which would make them fit together without conflict.
Source Publication
The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin
Source Editors/Authors
Mark Lilla, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Silvers
Publication Date
2001
Recommended Citation
Nagel, Thomas, "Pluralism and Coherence" (2001). Faculty Chapters. 1321.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1321
